Monday, July 9, 2018

Cyber Crime - new scheme

We are the New Jersey title insurance agent that does it all for you. For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us, Vested Land Services LLC. We can help.

A news report about a new cyber crime scheme targeting #titleinsurance agents.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6422059342433972224/
Gotta keep your guard up!

For your next title order or
if you have questions about what you see here, contact
Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.
Vested Land Services LLC
165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101
Fairfield, NJ 07004
Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645
E-mail sflatow@vested.com
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Ridgefield Park, NJ - a Mayberry for the 21st Century?

We are the New Jersey title insurance agent that does it all for you. For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us, Vested Land Services LLC. We can help.

As a New Jersey title insurance agent, we have insured dozens of homes in Ridgefield Park, a suburban Bergen County community.  The New York Times' James Levin looks at living in that sleepy little town.
Ridgefield Park, N.J.: A 21st-Century Mayberry
With its vintage housing stock and close-knit community, residents say making a life in this village of 13,000 is “like living in the ’50s.”
At this spring’s Earth Day celebration in Ridgefield Park, N.J., a bluegrass guitarist strummed the theme from “The Andy Griffith Show” — a fitting anthem for a Bergen County community easily compared to the fictional Mayberry.

The full article continues below or can be read on- line here.
For your next title order or
if you have questions about what you see here, contact
Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.
Vested Land Services LLC
165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101
Fairfield, NJ 07004
Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645
E-mail sflatow@vested.com

"The trappings of small-town life are evident in working-class Ridgefield Park, one of four official villages in New Jersey. Front porches and fluttering flags abound on cozy, tree-canopied streets, many one-way. The elaborate Fourth of July parade, first staged in 1894, is the state’s oldest. The supermarket, with four aisles and a painted tin ceiling punctuated by spinning fans, is more like the grocery where Aunt Bee shopped.

  
Even Ridgefield Park’s most famous native — strait-laced Ozzie Nelson, from another black-and-white TV classic, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” — underscores the suburb’s old-fashioned, unhip, Starbucks-free image.
“It’s like living in the ’50s here,” said Karen Purpura, a 69-year-old flutist who moved to Ridgefield Park with her partner, Tom Olcott, from nearby Englewood last year after inheriting a house from a friend. “People look out for each other; the neighbors even snow-blow our property. It’s a family town. You feel grounded.”

The couple’s rambling 1908 colonial, with its wraparound porch, is representative of the housing stock, 60 percent of which is at least a century old. Ms. Purpura said she and Mr. Olcott, a 66-year-old musicians’ union official, put more than $100,000 into repairs and upgrades.

“We retained the integrity of the house, restoring it back to the original wood floors,” she said. “We’re not looking to live any other place. This is our home, where the grandkids come. We love the house and we love the neighborhood.”

Beyond ambience, home buyers have pragmatic reasons for choosing Ridgefield Park, which has 13,000 residents in less than two square miles. Located at the nexus of highways, the village offers a short commute to New York, just five miles from the George Washington Bridge and 11 miles from the Lincoln Tunnel. And home prices are markedly lower than in other Bergen County towns like Ridgewood, with which Ridgefield Park shares village status and an inventory of turn-of-the-century houses.

Ayse and Firat Okcu paid $400,000 for a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath colonial in Ridgefield Park in 2016 after considering two towns farther north in Bergen County, Emerson and Oradell, for their strong school systems. But accessibility won over the couple, parents of a 1-year-old. Mr. Okcu, 41, has a 35-minute early-morning bus ride to Manhattan, where he works at a Times Square hotel, and Ms. Okcu, 37, has a reasonable drive to the Weehawken hotel where she works.

“Plus, the type of house we bought would have cost $50,000 to $100,000 more” in the other towns, said Ms. Okcu, who described Ridgefield Park as friendly and secure.

Janice Cima, a broker associate with Keller Williams Village Square Realty in Ridgewood, grew up in Ridgefield Park and said locals have long invoked Sheriff Andy Taylor’s idyllic hometown when describing their own. “Ridgefield Park is similar to Mayberry in that it’s picturesque and tight-knit,” she said. “People move here and stay through multiple generations. You can’t say that about many towns.”

While many prize Ridgefield Park for its proximity to Manhattan, Ms. Cima said, the vintage homes — the oldest of which was raided by the British during the Revolution — are also a draw.

“Buyers appreciate the uniqueness of the houses — the crown moldings, the original woodwork,” she said. “You don’t come to Ridgefield Park for new construction.”

What You’ll Find
Situated just north of the Meadowlands, Ridgefield Park occupies a peninsula bordered by the Hackensack River to the west and Overpeck Creek to the east. Interstate 80 is the northern border, with Teaneck and Bogota on the other side; Route 46 slices through the village’s southern flank.

The New Jersey Turnpike parallels Overpeck Creek and separates Ridgefield Park’s residential portion from Overpeck County Park and the Overpeck Centre complex, which includes the Samsung Electronics America headquarters, a hotel and a 12-screen movie theater.

A larger mixed-use project is expected to be built over the coming years on vacant land south of Overpeck Centre, where the turnpike and Route 46 converge. The $1 billion SkyMark Center would comprise 1,500 rental apartments in a “town center” configuration and a high-rise — millennial commuters are the target audience — as well as 212,000 square feet of open-air retail and two hotels. All permits have been obtained, and a spokesman for the developer, Eagle Nest Development Urban Renewal, said financing is being finalized and ground could be broken in six months.

Mayor George Fosdick described his town as “ever-changing, yet eternally the same,” and said commercial development east of the turnpike keeps things that way. Homeowners benefit, he added, because “our future, in terms of economic development, lies in the area of Ridgefield Park where people don’t live,” ensuring that the village proper maintains its traditional appearance.

What You’ll Pay
On June 28, the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service website showed 28 properties for sale, all but four priced under $400,000. At the high end, listed at $535,000, was an early 20th-century brick center-hall colonial on Euclid Avenue, with annual property taxes of $14,147. Nine single-family houses and two condos were listed for between $300,000 and $400,000, with property taxes of $7,500 to $12,000. Five co-ops were listed for less than $100,000.

Between June 1, 2017, and May 31, 2018, 70 single-family houses sold at a median price of $324,500, up from $310,000 during the previous 12-month period, according to the listing service. The median price of a co-op was $83,500, and that of a condominium or townhouse, $184,950.

The Vibe
The timeworn Main Street business district takes all of four minutes to walk and has a variety of tenants, including a bakery specializing in wedding cakes, a bicycle shop, the village hall, a stationery store, a dollar store and restaurants serving Greek, Peruvian and Thai fare, among others. The anchor is the quaint Village IGA grocery, where village officials dart in for lunch at the deli counter and fliers announcing pancake breakfast fund-raisers and missing pets are taped to the entrance glass.  

Volunteer organizations, from the fire department and ambulance corps to the Masons, Lions, Elks and Knights of Columbus help keep the townspeople connected, as does a popular Facebook group, Ridgefield Park Moms. In April, the village rallied to support a family who had lost their home to fire. “Instantly there were efforts by many of our organizations to raise money for clothing for the family,” said Mr. Fosdick. “There’s a tradition here of helping friends, neighbors and strangers.”

Stephen Quinn, a wildlife artist and member of the local Environmental Commission, lives in a circa-1921 house built by his great-grandfather. Several years ago, he bought the adjacent property, knocked down the house and created a pocket-size wildlife sanctuary. A better-known natural landmark is the protected nest of a pair of avian celebrities, bald eagles Al and Alice.

“Ridgefield Park has always had a countrified air about it,” Mr. Quinn said. “Compared to other places, we’ve maintained our small-town character.”

The Schools
Students in kindergarten through sixth grade attend one of three neighborhood elementary schools: Grant, Lincoln or Roosevelt. Ridgefield Park Junior-Senior High School enrolls 1,240 in grades seven through 12. Average SAT scores for 2016-17 were 515 in reading and writing and 511 in math, compared with 551 and 552 statewide. Sixty-nine percent of the class of 2017 went on to college, versus 71 percent statewide.

Mark Hayes, the interim superintendent, said the school district is “turning a corner” three years after a $2.5 million budget shortfall necessitated the appointment of a state fiscal monitor.

The Commute
There is no train station in Ridgefield Park; most commuters take the bus instead. From the principal thoroughfares of Main Street and Teaneck Road, New Jersey Transit buses reach the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan in less than 45 minutes; the fare is $4.50 one way or $148 monthly.

The History
Decades before Ozzie Nelson presided over his clean-cut family on television, he was the pride of Ridgefield Park: an Eagle Scout at 13 and, at Ridgefield Park High, a star quarterback who led the football team to an undefeated 1922 season. The road looping around the current high school was named Ozzie Nelson Drive in 1992, 17 years after the entertainer’s death."

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Friday, July 6, 2018

Condo rules and regulations got you down? Too much or too little enforcement?

We are the New Jersey title insurance agent that does it all for you. For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us, Vested Land Services LLC. We can help.

This is another great article from Realty Times.  It's all about enforcement of condominium and home owner association (HOA) rule and regulations.  Regulations? They range from flying Old Glory (a Federal law now protects condo unit owners) to young children in the swimming pool.  Each property is different.

Condominium Enforcement: Too Little Or Too Much?

BENNY L. KASS


Question:: I read and enjoyed a recent column that you wrote on condominium living, and especially the part where you said that "many people are becoming quite disillusioned with community association life." I fully expected you would then cover my problem, but you did not. You said people were unhappy with "enforcement, rules and regulations." Although I agree with you, the opposite is also true. I live in a condominium complex where there seems to be no rule enforcement. I have noisy neighbors, neighbors with three cars (for their two-person, one-bedroom condo), neighbors who erect anything and everything on the common elements. The Association does not have the will nor the resources to do anything about these qualities of life violations. The lack of enforcement of the various rules and regulations of my Condominium Association has prompted me to consider selling and moving out. Would appreciate your comments. Sharon.
Answer: Serving as a member of a board of directors of a community association is, to say the least, a very difficult task. You are "damned if you do, and damned if you don't." All too often, competent, responsive boards of directors are faced with a difficult decision -- namely do we enforce our rules or can we ignore some of the minor violations that occur within the community?
More importantly, many boards of directors do not have the resources -- both legal and money -- to properly enforce any violation of the rules and regulations.
Almost every set of community association documents authorizes a board of directors to enforce their own documents. A board can enforce in a number of ways.

To read the complete article go here.


For your next title insurance order or
if you have questions about what you see here, contact
Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.
Vested Land Services LLC
165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101
Fairfield, NJ 07004
Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645
E-mail sflatow@vested.com
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Thursday, July 5, 2018

Does a seller have to tell a #homebuyer about looming costly repairs?

We are the New Jersey title insurance agent that does it all for you. For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us, Vested Land Services LLC. We can help.

That's a provocative heading but it's a true one.  What if the seller knows that costly repairs are just around the corner?  This article from NYTimes.com, while it deals with a #condominium apartment, has implications for all sellers.

Costly Repairs Are Looming. Must I Tell the Buyer?
Q: I am a board member at an Upper West Side condo that has had issues with leaks. Repairing the problem will be expensive, possibly requiring a five-figure assessment for each apartment. I have been thinking about moving, but now I want to sell quickly to avoid paying the assessment and living through months of construction. Our board does not move quickly and any decision about the repairs is likely months away. The work could ultimately be cheaper than what is currently being proposed. What, if anything, am I required to disclose to potential buyers?
A: In New York, a seller is not required to disclose any adverse information to a buyer. So long as you do not actively conceal the defect, or in this case mislead a buyer about the looming assessment, you haven’t done anything wrong. “The building could be falling down and the seller does not have to tell the buyer,” said Adam Leitman Bailey, a Manhattan real estate lawyer.
Check out the full article here. So the lesson for a #homebuyer is to get  a competent attorney and home inspector.
 
For your next title order or
if you have questions about what you see here, contact
Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.
Vested Land Services LLC
165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101
Fairfield, NJ 07004
Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645
E-mail sflatow@vested.com
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Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Happy 4th of July! The Culture That Sustains America’s Constitution

We are the New Jersey title insurance agent that does it all for you. For your next commercial real estate transaction, house purchase, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan, contact us, Vested Land Services LLC. We can help.

OK, this is not about title insurance, but about the Constitution. It being July 4th, I've set out this column from the Wall Street Journal in full since a subscription may be required to view it on line.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

The Culture That Sustains America’s Constitution

Without it, checks and balances are barricades of foam and counterweights of butterfly’s breath.

By 

Since 1789 the average life span of national constitutions world-wide has been 19 years, according to scholars at the University of Chicago. Meanwhile, “We the People of the United States” are now well into the third century under our Constitution. We’ve lived under the same written charter longer than any people on earth. We’ve had regular federal elections every two years, uninterrupted even by the Civil War.
Yet America’s Founders had serious doubts about the durability of their “experiment.” Alexander Hamilton, in an 1802 letter to Gouverneur Morris, wondered why he had wasted his best years defending our “frail and worthless” charter. In 1832 Chief Justice John Marshall, near the end of his 34-year tenure, lamented in private correspondence that “our Constitution cannot last.”
You might think America’s track record in the subsequent 200 years would inspire greater confidence. Yet many people today feel, as they have after many fraught elections, that the president is either a savior or the harbinger of doom. So it’s worth reflecting on why the Constitution has endured.
There is, first, its text: It is rigid enough to restrain excesses, yet flexible enough to accommodate innovations. It is so terse that you could fold it into a paper airplane (though the guards at the National Archives would prefer you didn’t). It presumes that both governors and the governed will act mostly responsibly. But as Robert H. Jackson, a future Supreme Court justice, explained in 1937: “Checks and balances work as effectively on spite, jealousy or personal ambition as they do on patriotism or principle.”
The Framers also created the world’s first constitution to institutionalize the principle of human equality. Consider that it was an immigrant who put the words “We the People” into the Constitution. He was James Wilson, the brilliant but forgotten Scottish-born founder who taught that under monarchy, in the “attempt to make one person more than man, millions must be made less.”
Popular rule had become more than a slogan. Alexis de Tocqueville visited in 1831 from France, where the crowned heads at Versailles dared not mingle with their people. He was astonished to meet state governors who had kept their day jobs as farmers. Later Tocqueville visited Andrew Jackson in the White House, where the president himself, with no servant in sight, served glasses of Madeira.
America’s progress in respecting the real implications of equality has at times been slow, even glacial, especially with regard to race. As early as 1876, black fathers in Kansas sought to have their children admitted to schools on equal terms with white children. Yet Brown v. Board of Education would not come for another 78 years. The truth that justice will be forever approximated but never achieved is reflected in the paradoxical words of the Constitution’s preamble: the aim of forming a “more perfect” union.
That impossibly shrewd phrase suggests that Americans have a miraculous thing that we must nevertheless strive to make better. In the 1940s, we interned Japanese-Americans out of misbegotten wartime racial hysteria. But we also apologized for it in a 1998 law that was co-sponsored by then-Rep. Norman Mineta. As a child, Mr. Mineta had been taken to an internment camp in Wyoming. He went on to serve 20 years in the House and five years as secretary of transportation.
“Every banana republic has a Bill of Rights,” Justice Antonin Scalia told a Senate committee in 2011. Written guarantees are meaningless without a culture to sustain them. Russia’s Constitution purports to secure the freedoms of speech and press, but Muscovites shrugged in 2001 when Vladimir Putin seized the last independent television network. Imagine if the White House swallowed up Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, one after another. Americans may bicker over “fake news,” but an attempt at censorship like that would unite us in virtuous rage.
Every American generation has a vocal minority that considers itself doomed to live in an age of constitutional degeneracy. The supposed fall from purity began about 600 days into the Constitution’s life, when the Virginia Legislature, in November 1790, denounced George Washington’s financial policies as constitutionally blasphemous. But Americans chose to cannonade each other with pamphlets, not artillery. And so the orderly transitions of power went on, one after another, like a never-ending football game in which the parties eternally gain and lose yardage.
Constitutionalism is not a mere institutional form but a culture—a set of sentiments, habits and assumptions, a permeating spirit that animates an otherwise lifeless paper scheme. Without this instinctive loyalty, the Constitution’s checks and balances are barricades of foam and counterweights of butterfly’s breath. It is not in having a constitution that our strength lies, but in cherishing it. So long as we keep the faith, our Constitution will be displaced no sooner than an ant tips over the Statue of Liberty.
Mr. Tartakovsky is author of “The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law” and a former deputy solicitor general of Nevada.


For your next title order or
if you have questions about what you see here, contact
Stephen M. Flatow, Esq.
Vested Land Services LLC
165 Passaic Avenue, Suite 101
Fairfield, NJ 07004
Tel 973-808-6130 - Fax 973-227-0645
E-mail sflatow@vested.com
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