The residential leasing market has been dramatically changed due to the Great Recession that has given rise to new laws and regulations promulgated by the federal government. Now more than ever, residential rental property managers need to be aware of these new laws and regulations to avoid unintended legal consequences for themselves and their clients.
The Fair Credit Report Act was amended to include new identity theft regulations. Officially titled “Identity Theft Red Flags and Address Discrepancies Under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003” (the “Act”), this Act was created to detect, prevent, and mitigate identity theft for all users of credit and other consumer report information. As this type of information is routinely used by residential property managers to verify the financial ability and background of a prospective tenant, the Act imposes certain requirements on residential property managers to detect, prevent, and mitigate “Red Flags”. The Act defines a Red Flag as a “pattern, practice, or specific activity that indicates the possible existence of identity theft.”
Click here to read more »
On February 11, 2010, the Florida Supreme Court made significant changes to the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure as they pertain to initiating new residential foreclosure actions in Florida’s Courts. The Court’s opinion follows a series of changes that are being made on the local court level to stave off the glut of residential foreclosure filings that are clogging the court system.
In its recent opinion, the following rule changes are made applicable to new residential foreclosure filings: Click here to read more »
So, you allow a friend or family member to drive your car. This person is involved in an accident with your car and there are personal injuries involved. It is determined that the person you allowed to drive your car was at fault for the collision. You are upset about the property damage to your vehicle, and this is the end of your worries, right? Not so fast my friend.
Many people are surprised to find out that in Florida when your name appears on the title of a motor vehicle as the owner, or as a co-owner, you subject yourself to legal liability if someone operating that motor vehicle with permission causes injuries to another person as a result of such permissive use. Liability means that you, along with the driver and any other title owners of the motor vehicle, can be sued personally in court for damages incurred by the person(s) injured due to the fault of the driver. This is what is known as the “dangerous instrumentality doctrine.”
Click here to read more »
In theory, Florida’s No Fault Automobile Insurance Law was intended to lower the cost of auto insurance by taking small claims out of the court by requiring each insurance company to compensate its own policyholders for the cost of minor injuries regardless of who was at fault in the accident. However, in Florida this personal injury protection coverage, which is better known by its acronym PIP, has very insignificant limits of $10,000. This amount is intended to pay not only medical bills, but also wage loss and other “out-of-pocket” expenses, such as mileage to and from healthcare providers. Clearly, if the injuries suffered requires more than a few visits to a healthcare provider and/or involves a prolonged inability to work, then any amounts not paid by PIP must be recovered from the at-fault driver or the owner of the vehicle driven by the at-fault driver if the injured party is to be made whole.
Economic damages, which may be loosely defined as those actual costs not paid by PIP, may be presented to and recovered from the at-fault parties’ insurance companies. Unfortunately, however, Florida law does not require an individual to carry bodily injury indemnification coverage. This means that if the at-fault party does not have bodily insurance coverage, the injured party is left with no practical recourse. Certainly, the mere fact that a person does not have insurance does not mean that they would not be personally liable to pay damages, but generally speaking, if they cannot afford the basic insurance required by Florida law, in all probability, they probably do not have significant assets in which to satisfy a judgment.
Click here to read more »
