Just 2 Minutes - Interviews by Kamil Sarji

35 - Legal Secrets Every Homeowner Needs to Know | Stella Guerra

• Kamil Sarji • Episode 35

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Legal insights for homeowners, buyers, and sellers that could save you time, money, and headaches! Kamil Sarji welcomes Stella Guerra from Guerra Law Offices to uncover essential real estate legal tips that agents and clients need to know. From avoiding costly mistakes at closing to protecting your assets, this episode dives into crucial topics like title searches, liens, purchase agreements, and how the law impacts real estate transactions. Whether you're a first-time buyer or seasoned investor, these practical legal tips will make your real estate journey smoother and more secure.

Discover how legal documents can safeguard your biggest investments, learn why a real estate attorney is essential in any transaction, and get advice that most agents overlook when guiding their clients.

Don't miss Stella’s expert take on navigating the legal complexities of real estate!

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Welcome, everybody. I am Kamil Sarji, your host of Just Two Minutes. And today I have Stella. Stella, you want to tell us about yourself? Yes, I'm Stella Guerra. Thank you for having me. I'm an attorney, and I'm licensed in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York, and I reside in Rhode Island, so I focus most of my business here. And I've been attorney now for 26 years. Hopefully I'm not dating myself. I absolutely love what I do. I have to say it is all about people, and I think that's part that I love the most. So I focus my practice on residential and commercial real estate. So I do other areas of practice, family law, probate work, wheels and trusts and things like that, but the majority has always been real estate. So, and I do have the advantage of doing what I do in Spanish, because I'm fluent in Spanish. So I do cater to the Hispanic community, which is a beautiful thing. And that's what makes you special, because there's not many. So I really enjoy the ability to be able to, for me, it's just an extension of who I am. So it's effortless. It's nothing additional. There's nobody translating. There's no need for anyone to be present to translate, which is wonderful, because really, nobody should be translating. It should be a direct communication between the client and their attorney. There's certain privileged information that needs to be between the client and the attorney. So they're speaking directly to me. There's not a clerk or a secretary or someone like that translating. And it's absolutely wonderful, because it's not just speaking the language. It's the culture. It's an extension of who you are. We all bring who we are to the table. So to be able to interact with other Hispanic clientele is just, I just feel like I'm talking to families. So it's just a really nice added perk of the services that I provide. Yeah, definitely good to have you on our side. So yeah, I wanted to talk more about that, but first, the name of the show is called Just Come Minutes. Just two minutes of random questions. Are you ready for this? Awesome. Okay, cool. So I have a timer here. So I'm going to set two minutes. And then I'm asking questions, just random questions, you know, just to and go. What do they mean when they say a crow's crow or a crow, crows? These are really random. A crow, crows. Is that like, yeah, I don't know what do they mean? Like, I don't know the answer. Is there one specific answer that you're looking for? No, just curious. Like an announcement? Like, yeah, maybe. Could be. Okay. But these are really random. I don't think I was ready for this. If you visited your friend in Ireland and you walk in their parlor and they have a crow there, what do you do? As their pet. As their pet? Yeah, crow pet. I don't know. I wouldn't approach anyone's pet unless the owner told me it was safe. Well, you just think of them as your friend. Like, you never knew they had a crow and then all of a sudden. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be cool. Awesome. Is it proper to shake someone's left hand? Is it proper to shake someone's left hand? Well, I suppose if they reach out with their left hand because they need to, then I think that you would accommodate them. Okay. I think customary, at least in this country, it would be to shake with your right. Oh, yeah. But I think if somebody extends because that's happened to me, if they extend their left hand, it could be because they can't use their right hand, right? Yeah. So then you would accommodate them in some way. Or they're holding the water. Sure. Yeah. You go to McDonald's and there's two people arguing on who gets the last McChicken sandwich. How do you solve that? Am I one of the two people? No. Oh, because I would just let them have it. What they're arguing. They're arguing. So who am I in the scenario? You want to hold the piece? I would just let whoever is hungry or won't get it. All right. What would you think of the questions? Random. Very random. Yeah. Do you know the answer to any of these? No, just how people think of things, different things. I did have a bird once in my home. I did not enjoy that. That got in. You got in? Yeah. Yeah. When my home was in one socket, I didn't enjoy that at all. Also a bad. Oh, it's a bad? No, there were two separate instances. I think it was a problem with like we didn't have anything on the top of the chimney. Yeah. Yeah, not fun. So when you asked if there was a, you know, I'm like, I'm not approaching the last one. It's weird. I had a houseful in socket and I'm in the shower and I'm like, what's that sound? It's not like there was a dove that got through the fence. You know, yeah. And you were able to. So I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I don't want any death of anything in my house. Thank you for coming to the show. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful. I'm loving the part of anything that we can connect with the public and thanks for having me and your podcast. Absolutely. So yeah, I wanted to talk about more of the Spanish-speaking community because personally, like for a real estate agent to be able to speak Spanish gives them a leg up because there's a market for that that's not made or not many people are being able to help. So, but having you on our team to be able to help them with closing, that's great. So what would you say? Like, what's the culture like? Because I asked you a question about the left hand because some cultures, especially Arab culture, it's very bad to shake someone's left hand. I'll tell you why after it's very gross. Okay. Maybe I give too much. But what's the culture like in in the Spanish-speaking community? Well, I would say that very, and of course, making no generalities, right? Because that's never good to do. But I think in my experience, dealing and even growing up, but in my experience and seeing and dealing with so many Hispanic families from different countries, there is a commonality of not trusting. So there's not trusting the English-speaking or just being cautious. Okay. And it could be because of not fully speaking English, so maybe you have your guard up a little bit, or maybe because of just issues that have happened in the past, but I see a common theme amongst Hispanics where they're not necessarily going to trust and be so easy to trust the others. So, which is not a bad thing. I mean, you know, it's smart to also do your homework and not just believe everything everybody says, because there's a lot of people that are not very truthful and not very honest, and just because you put a suit of tie-on doesn't mean that you're a professional, or that you're licensed, right? So you have these pop-up shops and all of a sudden they take your money and the next thing you go, you go back and they're not there, right? So that happens. So there's a lot of things like that. And maybe also from being deceived and maybe it could have been in their country, or maybe here, or wherever. So that's like a common thing that I see. And also, when you speak Spanish and you've been sharing the culture, you will lay their fears in my experience. Right. Although everyone's in a while, I will still experience someone who comes in. It doesn't even matter that I'm an attorney. It's like, you know, they're just like want to make sure that everything's in order, which I respect. You think they've been hurt before? Maybe, maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's just they're upbringing or whatever. But I always try to listen and understand the person and where they're coming and meet them, where they're at. So if it's somebody who's very nervous or very entrusting, then I'm going to go with the extra mile to make sure that I lay their fears and so every single thing that comes out because I want it to be an extremely smooth and comfortable and enjoyable process versus something where they're intimidated or stressed out or confused about, because that's really important. And even it doesn't matter whether it's English or Spanish, all my clients that are meeting with me are having the same process. So we're not leaving the table until you fully have all your questions answered. You understand, it's an enjoyable process. And with me, hopefully, they're not speaking to me for the first time at the closing table, because I don't like that at all. I like everyone to talk to me before, even before they sign that Purchase Sales Agreement, we're having, we're developing a report throughout. And it's all my realtors and my clients, buyers, sellers, private lenders, direct access to my cell phone number so we can all speak. And then that helps, because when you've spoken to somebody numerous times, then when you're in person, it's like, okay, we've spoken several times. And it could be very intimidating for some people. It's their first major legal transaction. Yeah, that's really unique, because I don't think, I mean, I've done a lot of closings. I don't think the client really gets to meet the attorney in person until they're signing the paper. I do also welcome people to come and sit with me and allow me to explain the contract to them fully. I know with technology and realtors, it's very easy to, most people will just electronically have them signed, always offer the buyers and sellers to come into my office so that we can actually go through every paragraph, especially if their English is a second language and say, okay, if you have questions and you want, they have a right to consult with an attorney before they sign, right? And if, as a realtor, I would tell anyone who's going to work with me, I would tell their clients, hey, attorney Stella Guerra says that if you would like to go and consult with her before signing or you want to call her and go for it, by all means do, because that way it's taken out of the hands. This is a contract with legal obligations and the parties need to understand that and they need to fully understand everything they're signing. So I love being in from the ground floor and just say, okay, this is who I am, this is my role. Let me explain the contract to you before it signed. That way we're sure that it is the way you think it is and the way it should be because there have been many times where people will call me and say, that's not what I agreed to, but you signed it. Yeah, but the realtor sent it to me to sign. So that's a problem because what does that show that they didn't fully understand and they're just blindly signing. Or they wouldn't explain to me. Or I wasn't explaining to me, but many people will just sign and not really take the time to read it and so or understand it. So I think that's super important. It avoids a lot of problems later at the closing table. We don't have problems at the closing table. And I don't want anyone saying I didn't understand something. So let me explain it to you. I don't care what language. If I speak it and I can help you understand it, let me have that responsibility versus the realtor because in Rhode Island, it's very interesting where in this state, the context put in the hands of the realtor where my Massachusetts in New York and Connecticut, those are attorney states, right? Yeah. So where we drop the contract and we are making sure everything is correct. Yeah. The filters aren't sitting down, explaining legal terms and a little jargon and that can get a little dangerous because you might be in a trade-off portion, then what happens when they're asking something in response to your explanation? If you're the realtor and you're explaining something to them and they don't fully understand and then you are answering another question. Are you giving legal advice now or are you sure you explained it correctly or answered it correctly? Is that going to now have the domino effect of other questions? Get the attorney on the phone. Get them in front of an attorney to sign. You know, it's too easy to send things electronically and bang, bang, bang. Okay, contract signed in five minutes. Okay, but you know, there shouldn't be any questions whatsoever. So and I would just say to any realtor, no judgment, no embarrassment. If you don't understand something, ask, you know. I don't pretend like you. Yeah, even if you're a seasoned realtor, like, you know, really because there's so much depth behind every section, there's more to the law than just the little bit that's there. There's so much to know behind every provision in the contract. And so it can be difficult depending on the scenario to understand it. And so I try to go through all of that with the client and set the expectations correctly. This is what my role is. This is what I'm responsible for. If it's your first time home buyer, this is what you should expect. Yeah. And that way we set the expectations correctly. So they're not disappointed and stressed out when, you know, they took a day off needlessly from work because they thought that that was going to be the exact day where you're closing and it didn't turn out to be as you know, you know, that's not a set in stone date. But believe it or not, that's one of the biggest complaints. Well, I was told it was going to be that date. Well, who told you it was going to be that date, right? Because they didn't understand that that date can fluctuate. The closing date is not. But they went ahead and hired their moving truck and they took the day off and now they have a problematic, you know, job or it's not that easy to just switch. And it becomes stressful for them. I don't want that for them. So if you set the expectations up front correctly and you tell them what to expect, then they already know, okay, you know, I'm going to get a call from the attorney who will confirm to me that the closing will be on this day. And that's just what's on the contract. And here's why it's not necessarily what's in the contract. So I explain all those to them. It helps them. It helps them understand and say, okay, wow, okay, this is my first time on another day. What are the challenges that they have as far as when you're working with a client buying or selling a home? What are the challenges that they run into most, like, common challenge? From a buyer or seller? We talk about, I guess. Okay, so common challenges, I think, for a seller would be, and this is just across the board, being too emotional about their property and believing that their property is worth more than, that's a common challenge. Yeah. Where you have a seller with things that the property is going to sell for X1, really, it's not going to sell for that. And, you know, again, to be able to have them understand that, of course, you're tidy emotionally to this property. So that's priceless, right? If you grew up in a property or it was your grandparents and then you have memories to it, that's priceless, but that doesn't equal what the market amount that you want for. Exactly. That's something that I often see and sometimes sellers don't want to come down, or they don't, because of that. Which is hard to tell somebody, yes, you know, you need to detach your emotions from what the market can bear on this. The worst is, like, a home inspection when, you know, we make sure, like, the seller to not be there, because here comes a home inspector with the buyer, and they're beating up the place, like, oh, look at this. Look at this. And it's like, if the seller was there, this is their emotion. Like, this is the home. This is my heart. We're making fun of my, yeah, picking it up. The other common thing that I see in this just happened on a deal that I had last week, where the seller doesn't have the funds to fix up the property, and they have a buyer who's going FHA. Oh, this is very common. So if the seller doesn't have money to fix the property, but there's an FHA appraisal and inspection going on, as you know, if there's chipping paint, they're not, it's not going to pass. So what do you do? There are some buyers who want, and now in the buyers that they want to take the risk of going in and fixing somebody else's property. Yeah. And that can get dicey, right? Because think about it, are you going to actually fix up somebody else's property? Because you want it. But there's no guarantees that you're going to get your money back. Or get the house, or get the house. You just fix somebody else's property. That's a cool thing. That happens more often than you would think. And sometimes the buyer or the buyer's agent will say, you know what, let me, sometimes the realtors will step in and say, you know what, I'm going to help because we're going to try to get to work this as a team. But I had a deal fall apart recently because the seller said, I don't have the money to fix it. And this is a problem because, you know, there were too many issues that needed to be fixed for FHA clearance. That's a common point. And a lot of money to fix it. They couldn't. He didn't have any money because he's he's maintaining another property as well. Wow. Okay. So that comes up. What about you? What's the most common challenge that you run into as a closing attorney? One of the most challenging things is when I'm representing I'm on the buyer side. And there is a title exam that we've done. We have a title commitment that shows various items on title. So a challenging thing is because now we are forwarding that title commitment to the seller's attorney. And that seller attorney is not necessarily aware of all of the items that were on there for their client. So they haven't begun to work on their seller's clearing of their title until they see the report. And when that report lists five different things and they were only expecting two, that's pretty such pressure for everyone because sometimes there are things out of even that seller's attorneys control because it could be a prior owner situation. That happens a lot. And it becomes very... Why don't they pick it up when they bought the place? It could have... Right. So it could have been another attorney who represented that seller. But didn't see that. And now... Right. Maybe. Purchase. Correct. Right. That happens a lot. So the pressure is now that I've got my buyer's bank calling me saying that the buyer's bank is ready. With the loan. But we're not. And everybody's calling. Oh, the bank's clear to close. Yeah, but we can't close until I have everything I need back from the seller's attorney. And there are things that are happening behind the scenes that no one is aware of because that's the legal side of what's happening with the title clearing. And that becomes very, very stressful. It is the most common situation where we may be waiting on the seller side to... It's their obligation to clear title even if it was a prior owner. It's not on me to fix that. So they're attorney needs to go back to that previous owner. Right. Right. Right. And find them or whatever the case may be. What if they don't have... What if their disease, these kind of things happen or it's in probate and now we're waiting. So nobody likes to wait because time is money. So now if the rate has expired now, we're asking for extensions. We'll sell our pay for these things. And sometimes the seller doesn't want to. And we're all about trying to keep the deals together. Yeah. But that is the most for me. That is what I've been finding things on title. Yeah. Finding things on title that are not just very an easy, you know, one more of it. There's various things that come up, unfortunately, that we have to wait. And so now again, I think communication is key. If I let the lender know and I let the buyer know this is why it's not closing understand. It's nothing you've done. It's something that was on the history of the title's innovation. Then I think at least if they have an understanding of the status that can kind of help. Yeah, you know, definitely. So I was thinking like if I went to another country, let's say Germany and live there for a little bit and didn't speak the language obviously and I wanted to buy a house. I would be nervous to trust anybody. Like, you know, you're in a different country. So I can't even imagine what they're going through being here and not being able to speak the language to someone. Have they been taken advantage of or how does I mean, obviously it happens. Like does that happen a lot? Well, I haven't seen necessarily that anybody's been taken advantage of. What I've seen is when you pair a really professional realtor and a professional loan officer who are all ethical and honest. With a great attorney, I said you have you protected super team to protect that client. And if you can all speak the language that that client speaks, yeah, then you've got five star service, right? So right, because that client really needs to be able to understand everything and be able to express it in their own language question, make all the questions in their own language, not having somebody in their family make the translation for them because even that is stressful, right? Yeah. But I find that when people are honest and you're an honest professional and you express things and communication is key because the lack of communication creates stress for clients. If they don't hear back when they need to hear back, you know, I've noticed that that is that's something that causes a lot of needless stress. So when people need updates, call them, make pick up the phone when somebody calls you, right? So these are all things that myself as an attorney, if I need to speak to the realtor and they're not picking up the phone, that is very stressful. Yeah. I need to try to resolve something or I need information from you. And if you're MIA, sometimes people are because maybe it's not their full-time job. So what are you doing in those cases? Yeah, what do you do? We call the email, I get on the phone personally and I will start calling and texting and say this is what I need. Can we call the broker? Like, hey, I'm trying to reach this person. Only in really like, you know, it's like really not getting through to like and it's been a long time. I've done that. Yeah, I've called brokers too. Can you help us out? Like, do they want to? Somebody that you want to commission for this? Exactly. Yeah. That can become stressful. If we're trying to get to the clothing table and there are outstanding items from you as the listing agent. Like, don't you know that you have to provide these items, right? Yeah. And so for our office to be efficient, we need everyone to take care of your own responsibilities, right? So if we send you a list of 10 items that we need from you as the agent and we're still pulling teeth to get these, like, it's not the best scenario for anybody involved. And it's certainly not going to get us to the table quickly. So that, I noticed a lot. And it's hard because, you know, we all want to work together, but it's very obvious when you have somebody who is a full-time realtor, who is there, who is always on their game and those that aren't. Or maybe they're just too new and they don't know what they need to do. And I love to educate and help train. And if I can make somebody understand a process better and it'll make them better at what they do, it makes my life easier. Sometimes the client doesn't even know that their realtor is the one that's holding everything up. Yeah, I mean, usually it's not the case because most of the realtors that we work with are very experienced and hopefully they have, you know, great brokers like yourself who are training and educating and all of that. But everyone's know why. I think it's more so that they're very, very new and not necessarily know like what's going on, right? Or they don't have the systems in place to stay organized or have the right mentors in their office. You know, if there's anything I can do ever to help a realtor, I would love to have the opportunity to teach them because I think when you know better, you do better, right? But and of course we want to keep all of that out of the clients. They don't need to know about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, well, it's stressful for them. They want to know that everything's running smoothly. So this is kind of like behind the scenes stuff that, you know, we don't need to a little bit of coaching, free coaching. Yeah, I always say if there's something now, we can resolve that we resolve. There's no need to like get on the phone with everybody to say, okay, we had this problem, but it's resolved why that just creates stress. In my mind, I want every client whether you're selling or buying to have a very easy transaction. I only want to call you with good news, not bad news. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I will call you if it's going to be a delay that is something that is out of our control so that I can set the expectations. So have you been in situations where your client was taking advantage of? I've been in situations that I won't mind you. I've been in situations in years past where there's certain loan officers were not truthful with the, with the buyer. Yikes. And they were told they were getting a fixed rate when instead it was a variable, right? And then they would come to the closing table and when I would present them with the paperwork, they would say, well, that's not what I was told. Wow. Now we have a problem because I'm certainly not going to force anyone to sign on me. Right. Yeah. You know, when I am a notary and I am the closing attorney and I ask every single person, are you signing voluntarily under your own free act and will and nobody can force you? Okay. Because otherwise we're not closing. For me, I would never, it's not worth it, right? Because that person has to voluntarily do that. When I started picking up and there were various instances, not recently, we're going back years, right? We're certain loan officers were trying to sell these loans and saying, okay, and of course, me not being present, I can't say what was said. But when the client was furious and saying, that is not what I was told, I was getting. I told, I was told I was going to get a fixed rate and come to find out it's variable. Wow. You know, that's really bad. They have a lot of rules like to keep them, keep them in check. The language, but I think now there's thankfully there's a lot of less predatory lending because of the new laws that are in place and with proper disclosures and things like that. But back in the day, I saw things that were not communicated the way they should have been with clients because clients were telling me. So I would, in those cases, what I would do is I would actually stop and say, you know, what, how about you call your loan officer from the closing table and talk to them so that you can understand what it is that was said to you or you can, you know, air your concerns directly to because without having been there, there's no way that I could know what was said to want you to call them up, make sure you understand, and then you can let me know if you're going to proceed or not. Because there's no, I mean, at that point, it makes it very uncomfortable for me. And on the last base, they see, can you imagine? I don't want anybody walking away, disgruntled upset, feeling like they were pressured because it's not worth it. I mean, they're there to protect them. Exactly. You know, and you're delivering the bad news. So I don't, I would never do that. But, you know, that's a concern. Like, you obviously want there when, when somebody comes into my office on paperwork, my hope is that everything that they're seeing is stuff they already know from their loan officer. Yeah. So I'm, and I would say, for the most part, that's the way it goes, which is good. So as realtors, we have these preset purchase and sales agreement, sales disclosure, but I haven't seen any like translated to Spanish to be able to have a seller who doesn't speak English, be able to fill out this form. So, yeah, there was, you know, I have to get a translator to be able to, to translate that. And the sales disclosure is very important because they, you know, they lie in that saying that there's no blood in the basement. And there was, you find out, was there any documents that are like both English and Spanish? So I know some lenders now, or maybe all lenders now, but I've been seeing it very recently where some lenders in our closing documents, they are including loan applications in Spanish and settlement statements, the closing disclosure in Spanish. As far, I have not seen a pertinent sales agreement come across in Spanish. I know that many years ago, it was approached to see if perhaps the Rhode Island Association of Realtors could do that in Spanish. You know, I think it's very important that while documents remain in English that the buyer or seller that doesn't fully understand that document need to consult with an attorney of their choice, so that they are fully being explained this document. And what it says, because without being able to read the language, and further without understanding what it says, right? Because you could read it and so not understand it. Yeah. Yeah. You could speak English and not understand what it says. So I think the key is that you, as a buyer or seller, should not sign anything unless you fully understand it. And if it's a legal document, you should be consulting an attorney to sign it. Yeah. To understand it, if you're comfortable, go for it. But if you're not, then you should consult, because everyone has the right to consult with an attorney of their choice to understand those documents. Because once it's signed, it's a legal binding document. So that's key. When it comes to me, I explain everything in Spanish, everything. We go through every single document in the closing and it's all in Spanish. And I have received nothing but positive feedback from all my foot. They love it. Yeah, that's really good. They love to be able to explain everything and then some. You know, and so it's just supposed to be a very good day when they come to closing. And even throughout, I've had clients call me up and say, oh, my lenders sent me something I don't understand. And the first thing I say is you need to call your lenders. Because I feel very strongly about this that we all need to stay in our lane. Right? Yeah. So I do the legal part. Don't jump into my lane unless you are working, doing the legal part with me. Right? Yeah. I don't jump into your lane. I don't jump into his lane or her lane. Right? So if you're the loan officer and the client comes to me and says, I don't understand what the loan officer's saying to me about X, Y and Z document. I say, let's go back and you need to call your loan officer. Yeah. And allow a loan officer to or if they say your fixed fixed interest versus now, if they are saying me, well, I don't understand because they're telling me this, okay, then we can do a joint conference call. And let's try to help you understand what they're saying. But I always give deference to the person whose field it is, right? So the loan officer deserves the respect to allow him or her to do their job and to have that direct communication with the client. You as a realtor, same. Me as the attorney, you know, the same. So I don't want a realtor answering legal questions on my behalf. Yeah. Or accounting questions or right, you know, lending, like, yeah. But definitely we all need as professionals to be working together to to work as a team to get to that table as efficiently as possible. Now you also, I mean, besides helping people with closings, we do other things. I do. So the majority, like I said, the majority of my focus has been really state commercial. So I also do a lot of commercial work, which I love, totally different animal, but it's wonderful because what I'm seeing is a lot of, we talked about the Hispanic community. So fortunately for a lot of people in the Hispanic community now, they are taking their small, maybe it was a side gig. Now they're up on the next level and they are purchasing real estate for their business. They're getting business loans. They're getting SBA loans. They're going and now leveling up to the next step or maybe they need to rent space. And I'm representing clients when they're buying assets or they're buying a restaurant or a church or whatever the business is, right? Or maybe there's real estate and a business involved, right? Or in the buying and selling of that. So there's a lot of things to look there is for and so and to do that, you have to have a good understanding of the corporate world and corporate documents. And you know, you could have an individual that's buying is the first time they're buying a business. So we have to educate them on what that entails. And so a big part of my practice also revolves around I love it because I love to see someone who took maybe something that they were doing just as a side gig and now they are becoming an entrepreneur. Now they're owning their own business and it's such a wonderful thing to see immigrants come here and start a business and become financially educated and understand there's different programs and things that they can do. And it's really the positive energy that's involved at the end is just very contagious. Like I love being a part of that process and they know that they have someone that can come back to and the event that there's other things that come up for them legally. If I don't do it, then I'll help them find an attorney who does. I always tell every single person at least my closing table, if you have any any kind of legal questions or legal needs or your son got into an accident or something happened or there's a criminal issue or there's an automobile accident or you're going through a divorce anything at all. Let me be that contact person for you because now we've developed that comfort with each other right and hopefully them with me so they can say Stella said I could call her and I could be that trusted resource for them. I may not be the one that is going to do the legal work but I can help find them someone who can do that you know there's wonderful attorneys all throughout this state and neighboring state so if I can be that connection for them or maybe I stay involved throughout the whole thing or maybe they want me there because I speak Spanish and maybe it's not my area of expertise I can do that too. So I'm doing family law, probate work, wills, things like that so yeah and a lot of that you know kind of stems off from real estate or some of that you know somebody passes away obviously there's can be real estate to be sold. What's the most common service that you do that's kind of related to that you know happens to be probate work. I would say probate because you know you have somebody who passes away and their child their their adult child is calling me and my mom passed and we have this house and maybe they don't even live in the home so it's a large acid and now I did one not too long ago last year and it was 20 siblings, 20 siblings and the woman that passed away had no children and she was married but left no children and all of her siblings took a piece the house had to be sold and but it's a lot it was a lot. You have to write 20 checks. It's a lot of fun but well the and she left no will so but we had real estate to deal with and you become very close with your client because there's a lot of communication and I don't know I just feel very good in how do you communicate to 20 people email? No I mean you know we have a method to that yeah email and you know letters go out and all of that but with my client who is the one who was going before and being appointed as the administrator you know there was a lot of communication and she was just very very thankful so if I you know the payoff for me really is knowing that I was able to and that was all in Spanish and it's just the payoff for me and the immediate gratification at the end is just knowing that I was able to help somebody else out you know because there are lots of wonderful attorneys out there but if I can do something that somebody else can because I can connect with the person because of the culture the language you know that's something that my parents instilled in me so I've got to be able to use that you know and so I'm blessed that I have that because not everybody does so but I feel that people that don't speak English deserve to have somebody that they can connect with and definitely there is comfort in knowing that they can express themselves in their own language when these are very serious and emotional topics that people are experiencing whether it's divorce or an accident or you know imagine not being able to express yourself so one of the things is so I'm an immigrant too I came to this country back in 91 and like we were able to eventually got green cards and but as far as and I know like an agent European reached out about like how do I become a real estate agent I was like oh I don't know if they have to be a citizen and you don't you don't have to be a citizen it's crazy I thought they had to but you don't same people owning property you don't have to be a citizen you can I had a client from Italy that came and she wanted a buy property and she bought a cash you know I can't tell you all the lending regulations obviously but you know you can be from out of this country and buy real estate here there's no law against it however yeah when you go to sell property uh and you are still a resident from out of the country there will be additional tax that they'll have to pay but obviously we want to tell our clients that before they buy so they know okay well you know just like when you're a non resident of Rhode Island and you sell property in Rhode Island yeah there is a a tax that will apply is there more out of the country oh yeah but yeah you can buy just like you can go to another country most countries you don't have to live in the country permanently to buy property there right people have vacation homes or retirement homes in other areas so yeah so it's easy to set up here if someone wants to buy someone out of the country or someone's not a citizen to buy I mean I would say that if you are out of the country and you're buying here that if it's going to be a multi-family that obviously you have a registered agent here right you need to you must have a registered agent's the law because the income that's coming in right and you have to if you're a landlord and you're not living here you must have somebody registered in the state yeah or property management company have that to and then like I imagine they would have that in place or maybe it's their family members or someone like that awesome yeah last question what's what percentage of closings actually happen on time that it's on the purchase and sales agreement what percentage of closings actually happen on the same date that's on the purchase sales agreement I'd be making up the number if I threw out a person I'd say a majority of the closings happen very close to the date a majority the ones that don't are because there's a problem on the lending side there's a lot of extensions that gets there's a lot of extensions that get signed and I mean I don't know I've got a lot of closings in my ears but I think if you have a strong buyer I mean if it's cash cash is king we're closing on the closing date or whatever day you say you want to close right but if you have to borrow money and there's a delay for whatever reason and we have to get you know the realtors are looking for extensions because when the lender says we need more time you know yeah so it really depends on who's buying it how are they buying it you know if it's not cash yeah it's not set in stone basically like it puts on the purchase of sales agreement you can't guarantee that it's going to close on that date and I don't know why this is that I find this happens but there are parties that choose to travel and go on vacation in the midst of in the midst of having a closing don't you like if the closing is scheduled for January with today the third yeah don't schedule your travel for the fourth because guess what we're gonna have problems because it's not like it's very possible that it might not close on the third is there's just too many reasons and now we're gonna ask for a three week extension because you're gone out of the country to some beautiful Caribbean place guess what that's gonna cost stress on the other party and then everybody says why did they why why are you scheduling travel I thought you were gonna say I didn't know you're gonna say that I thought you're gonna say they decide to pack the house up three days before live in a truck they do that too ready and then they will wait it's not closing today right and so that's why going back to what I said yeah that's the expectations so who's the first person to talk to this client the realtor the realtor so the realtor should really be setting the expectations when you're talking and you're going over that prison sales agreement and you're talking about the closing date there's your opportunity to say by the way don't pack up the house don't get the rental truck like everything specific like let's kind of like see where we're at a week out you know because you will have a very frustrated fire and the first thing they say to me well my realtor didn't tell me it wasn't gonna close on that day I'm sorry yeah I wasn't there one you know on day one said the expectation correctly to say that may not be the read the date it closes but here's what right it's not because if everybody's ready and all the stars align and the seller has cleared title and your lender is ready and there's no delays on your part mr buyer for delaying any paperwork or your employer hasn't delayed in verifying you work there or anything right if everything lines up then yeah we'll close on that day make sure it's not a weekend or a holiday though yeah I've seen that like wait that's a holiday the closing the day on the person sales agreement so there's a lot of different little reasons why but we don't want to create stress so if that can be prevented from day one then I think they'll have a better experience right so it's just helpful because sometimes you they do get very upset and they'll call us up and I have had buyers call me and say well nobody told me it wasn't closing on the day on the contract so I feel like that's something that needs to be kind of like in that very first conversation right in that very first conversation here's what to expect here's what may or may not happen and here's why that's not set in stone sort of thing nice so tell on how do people find you 401 559 6999 okay and we can put it out in social media world is the best way to contact me that is a direct communication with me not with my staff not with you know any assistance that is direct with me which is what I love I love to be able to speak to everyone directly it helps we build a rapport it helps the person understand who they're working with and what kind of services I provide you can find me on social media on Facebook on Instagram on my website Guerra law dot org and I'm happy to help anybody who needs any kind of assistance anyone doesn't matter the language my job is to make everybody's life easier and hopefully we can see some lots of new home buyers first time home buyers first generation home buyers it's so wonderful to have those experiences where it's their first generation and their first home and then take it another level and now those people are now buying businesses it's wonderful wow this is the land of opportunities you know and it's wonderful to see immigrants come and then they now have multiple properties they're creating generational wealth for their children and find multi families and buying businesses that they can you know sell or hand off to their family members and their children so I think immigrants appreciate America more than people living here I do definitely there's certainly so many opportunities to definitely yeah we're so lucky here everybody's so lucky and I will say one thing about there are many immigrants that come and there's such hard workers such hard workers and taking advantage of jobs that maybe other people will let pass you know and but those are the things that catapult them to the next you know and it's nice to see people that were struggling at one point and now that they're able to secure their home that's such a great feeling for them and for me to be involved in that process so I appreciate anyone who gives me that opportunity to work with them and you know but yeah so I'm excited for 25 I hope we're gonna have a great year I think so definitely awesome yeah thanks for stopping by thank you

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Kamil Sarji

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