Tag Archives: Real Estate

Landlord-Tenant

Moving Out – A Checklist

Are you  planning to terminate your lease and move out?  There are several things you should do to protect yourself and make your move as stress free as possible.

  1. Make sure you give the proper notice to your landlord.  Review your lease.  Can you terminate early?  Do you need to give a 30 day notice?  A 60 day notice?  If you are renting month-to-month, then you must give a 30 day notice.  Always give your notice in writing.
  2. If you mail the notice, tack on at least 3 days to account for mailing.  ORS 90.150(3).
  3. Clean your apartment and take pictures or video of everything.  Photograph the good as well as the bad.
  4. After the apartment is clean and you have moved everything out, perform a walk-through with your landlord.
  5. Make sure the landlord has your new address.

Once you move out, the landlord has to return your all of your deposit or give you an accounting of your deposit, in writing, within 31 days.

As with all things legal, there are time limits for taking action to enforce your rights.  For most matter related to a rental agreement and the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act, the time limit is one year.  However, there may be shorter time limits involved in some cases.

Landlord-Tenant, Real Estate

FREE LANDLORD-TENANT RESOURCES

Legal Aid Services

Legal Aid Services of Oregon has published a guide book titled Landlord Tenant Law in Oregon.  The electronic copy of this document can be found here.

Print copies are often available at Oregon Legal Aid offices.
Go here for office locations:
Legal Aid Services of Oregon
Please call to confirm that they have copies available.

Oregon State Bar

The Oregon State Bar website has a resource page at:

http://www.osbar.org/public/legalinfo/tenant.html

Estate Planning, Real Estate

Oregon Real Property Transfer on Death Act

The Oregon legislature has passed the Real Property Transfer on Death Act (SB 815), which is effective January 1, 2012. The Act is based on the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act.

The purpose of the act is to provide a reliable and inexpensive probate-avoidance tool to allow an individual to execute and record a Transfer-on-Death Deed. When the owner dies, the act provides for the transfer of title to pass to the designated beneficiary. Beneficiaries must be specifically named and a class or group of beneficiaries cannot be designated as beneficiaries (such as “all my living children” etc.).

A Transfer-on-Death Deed is revocable at any time prior to the owner’s death and the owner retains exclusive control, ownership, and interest in the real estate up until the owner’s death. A designated beneficiary obtains no rights or ownership in the real estate prior to the death of the owner.

Upon the death of the owner, the real estate is transferred equally to the beneficiaries. The real estate property is transferred subject to all encumbrances, liens, and restrictions.

As with a will, the Owner must have “capacity” to execute a Transfer-on-Death Deed.

One of the potential problems created by Transfer-on-Death Deed is that it is likely that “due-on-sale” clauses found in mortgages and other loan documents will be triggered upon the death of the owner when title transfers to the beneficiaries. Lenders may not be willing to waive the due-on-sale provision resulting in the beneficiaries being forced to sell or refinance the property to pay off the debt or risk seeing the real estate going through a foreclosure sale.

Another issue to keep in mind is that there is an 18-month cloud on title following the death of the owner. Creditors and other claimants have 18 months to set aside the Transfer-on-Death Deed. If the owner’s estate has insufficient funds to pay off claims, those claimants and creditors can recover against the real estate. Other claimants can set aside the Transfer-on-Death Deed on the grounds of capacity, fraud, or undue influence. For these reasons, it may be very difficult for beneficiaries to sell the property during the 18 months following the owner’s death.