Safeguarding real estate properties with solid wills during COVID-19 period

Wills in financial business in coronavirus era? Waiting for the ‘unicorn’. Unicorns do not exist in real estate, and finding the perfect property is like finding a needle in a haystack. Looking for perfection can narrow your choices too much, and you might pass over solid contenders in the hopes that something better will come along. But this type of thinking can sabotage your search, says James D’Astice, a real estate agent with Compass in Chicago. How this affects you: Looking for perfection might limit your real estate search or lead to you overpaying for a home. It can also take longer to find a home. What to do instead: Keep an open mind about what’s on the market and be willing to put in some sweat equity, DiBugnara says. Some loan programs let you roll the cost of repairs into your mortgage, too, he adds.

There are endless benefits to remodeling your kitchen and any real estate agent will probably tell you that the kitchen plays a big role in making a sale. Although it may cost a few thousand dollars to replace or remodel your kitchen, it is proven that you will probably get 85% of your money back. If your kitchen looks dated or worn out, buyers may try to knock off $10,000 or more off your asking price when it would have only taken you a few thousand dollars to upgrade the kitchen. The fastest and cheapest way to make a kitchen upgrade is to include new cabinet hardware and add a fresh coat of neutral color paint. By making this upgrade, buyers will be able to envision their own style using a blank canvas.

When a state of emergency was declared in Ontario, and other provinces in March of this year, probably no one expected that four months later we would still be looking at working remotely and arranging client meetings by video means or in socially distanced settings. For some estate planning lawyers, the rush of clients looking to update wills or prepare them from scratch was almost overwhelming. For others who were wanting to “give back” by offering free or minimal cost services to front line health care workers, there was little interest from the workers themselves. Discover more information at Coronavirus.

Advances in technology have been invaluable during the lockdown brought about by coronavirus but, until recently, making a Will could not be done digitally. The requirement for two independent witnesses to be physically present has caused difficulties with social distancing in place, particularly for those shielding or self-isolating. In recognition of this, the government are now introducing measures to relax the signing formalities for a limited period in England and Wales. These fall short of a fully digital process but new legislation will permit virtual witnessing of both Wills and Codicils via live video-link. This will be back-dated to 31 January 2020 and continue to apply until 31 January 2022 unless shortened or extended in line with other Covid-specific procedures.

Stay Out of Bad Debt: Debt means you owe someone money, and if I’ve learned anything from gangster movies, you NEVER want to owe someone money. However, not all debt is necessarily bad debt. So, what is bad debt? Bad debt is any debt that’s acquired through purchasing something that’s going to lose value and generate zero revenue. Some examples of bad debt would be credit card debt or an auto loan. What is good debt? Some people will say there’s no such thing as good debt, and while I mostly agree, I also can’t deny that some debt can be beneficial in the right circumstances. For example, if you are going to take out a loan to purchase something that will benefit you financially in the future, I’d say that debt is a lot more beneficial than credit card debt. Good debt usually has lower interest rates as well. Here are a few examples: Student loans. Since student loans typically have a very low-interest rate and going to school can increase your pay as an employee in the future, student loans can be considered good debt.

A lot of discussions have taken place over the past seven months or so in light of COVID-19 and the market reaction to it. The purpose of this client briefing is to share some observations with you from our recent experiences across our deals in the United Kingdom: Lenders are currently showing a degree of flexibility in their approach to defaulting and/or potentially defaulting borrowers. This is prevalent specifically in scenarios where the relevant events of default, and/or potential events of default, have been triggered by events outside the control of borrowers or where the loans were fundamentally performing pre COVID-19. Discover even more details at https://techbullion.com/wills-and-covid-19-safeguarding-your-assets-during-a-global-pandemic/.