Real Estate Law Made Simple with Dan Wade | Buying Local #65

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;10;17
Speaker 1
Welcome, everybody, to buying local. I’m your host, Matt Noth from five Tower Media. And today we have a wonderful guest, Dan Wade. Welcome, Dan.

00;00;10;19 – 00;00;13;03
Speaker 2
Hey. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me I appreciate it.

00;00;13;05 – 00;00;25;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Of course. Thank you for coming on. Just before we, you know, get into our conversation, why don’t you tell the viewers a little bit about who you are and, you know, maybe, maybe, something exciting that you’re working on.

00;00;25;26 – 00;00;50;08
Speaker 2
Sure. So, yeah. So my name is Dan Wade. I’m an attorney with. I know Anderson, and we are primarily a real estate law firm that has four offices from Glens Falls all the way down to Albany. So we make it very convenient for our clients to close. Some recent stuff that’s been happening is, Yeah, I’ve been working on scheduling a vacation for later this summer to go to Alaska with my family.

00;00;50;08 – 00;01;08;05
Speaker 2
So we’re looking forward to that a lot and doing some dog sledding and some train riding. So that’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to it. My son’s getting ready to go into lacrosse season, so we’re excited about that. And we also just found out that his robotics team qualified for the New York State finals.

00;01;08;05 – 00;01;13;18
Speaker 2
So they’ll be competing in that coming up in a couple of weeks. So we have just a few things going on.

00;01;13;21 – 00;01;27;19
Speaker 1
Yeah. What sounds like sounds like you got a lot on your plate. That’s awesome though. That sounds that was like a lot of fun stuff. I mean yeah, as you know me, I’m a big lacrosse head to. So I love that lacrosse seasons, you know here. Yeah.

00;01;27;21 – 00;01;29;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. So which position did you play?

00;01;29;28 – 00;01;31;28
Speaker 1
I played defense, so I had

00;01;32;00 – 00;01;34;27
Speaker 2
Yeah he plays Mary’s. So you’d be going against each other?

00;01;35;00 – 00;01;35;15
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;01;35;16 – 00;01;37;04
Speaker 2
That’s nice.

00;01;37;07 – 00;01;52;09
Speaker 1
Well that’s awesome. Yeah. So you touched on a little bit of your lore. Could you, just explain? I know you kind of cover real estate lore title lore. Could you. Yeah. Just explain, kind of all the areas that you your practice deals with. Sure.

00;01;52;12 – 00;02;12;11
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. So what happens if somebody is selling a house or buying a house? They’re going to meet with a real estate agent, and they’re gonna end up signing a contract. And then within those contracts, they’ll be in our provisions for attorneys to review those and sort of guide the clients through the process. And that’s kind of partly where I come in is our review of the contract.

00;02;12;11 – 00;02;47;26
Speaker 2
I’ll draft an approval letter that goes along with it, and I’ll discuss those items with the client so that they understand what they’re getting into, what’s expected of them, and just sort of set everyone’s expectations so that everyone understands is on the same page as how the transaction is going to go. As part of that, we’re also going to handle ordering any kind of title search that’s needed to review the chain of title and any leads that are against the property, open taxes, things like that, to just make sure that everything is taken care of and that the title that the client receives at the closing is a good title that they would be

00;02;47;26 – 00;03;11;10
Speaker 2
able to sell if they need to sell the property in the future. So yeah, just things like that. And if inspections go, a certain way and they need to, request any kind of repairs or credits, that’s something that will help negotiate on their behalf as well. We also prepare final figures and documents and attending closing on the client’s behalf, I love it.

00;03;11;12 – 00;03;36;02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, I just want to preface. I mean, I’ve had the chance to, actually, we just had our last podcast was on goal, all of, Goldstar and the referral group and the networking aspect of that. So I’ve actually had the chance. Dan’s also a great gentleman. Superb networker. Also can be, found in the Goldstar referral groups.

00;03;36;05 – 00;03;49;18
Speaker 1
But the one thing that I really noticed about you is that you really take the time to educate your, I guess, clients. Why do you feel that that kind of separates you with that educational piece?

00;03;49;20 – 00;04;14;05
Speaker 2
Sure. I think it’s important because I just think it’s good that people know and understand fully, what the process is going to entail. And, and part of that is, you know, better information for clients that you end up having better clients, and that those clients had a good experience then, you know, from the networking side, hopefully they they speak with other potential clients who then could come my way.

00;04;14;08 – 00;04;35;15
Speaker 2
It’s also about, like I said, setting expectations and managing people’s emotions so that they know what to expect and when to expect it. You know, for some of the clients that I work with and some of the agent partners that I work with, I have prepared a very colorful flowchart that shows how the real estate process is supposed to go.

00;04;35;21 – 00;04;54;24
Speaker 2
And, that helps the clients out a lot because then they know when to expect certain things to happen. And also when they’re asking questions, they want to make sure that they didn’t miss a step or that they they haven’t missed an opportunity to ask a question or to take advantage of an opportunity that might be important to them.

00;04;54;26 – 00;05;09;26
Speaker 1
So you touched on the emotion piece, how much of your day to day is kind of you seeing yourself stepping away from that, lawyer stuff and more kind of being a shoulder to cry on? Does that happen? Happen often?

00;05;09;28 – 00;05;27;04
Speaker 2
Having does happen as part of the job. Right. So, I mean, for me, like, I’m an empathetic person, so I care about the people that I work with, and I care about the clients that I represent, and I want them to have a good experience. I want their lives to go well. I want everyone that I work with or come into contact with.

00;05;27;04 – 00;05;52;15
Speaker 2
I want them to be successful. So I just want to help put everyone in their best position as possible. Yeah. And sometimes that takes, you know, you get to learn a lot about clients a lot of times. And you learn about their whys, like why are they doing what they’re doing? And everybody has for different reasons. One of the things that I really love about this job is that you come into people’s lives with, all different chapters that they’re going through.

00;05;52;18 – 00;06;10;22
Speaker 2
And people have many different chapters throughout their life. Some people are expanding their family because they’re getting ready to have a family. And so maybe now they need to have more space for children that are going to be coming along. For other people might be they’ve gotten older and their kids have, graduated college and are about to go out on their own.

00;06;10;22 – 00;06;33;22
Speaker 2
And now people don’t need as much space. So maybe now they’re looking to sell and downsize or or move and start to go in a different direction in a different chapter in their life towards retirement. But all those chapters have meaning to people, and they’re all important to people in their own way, and it’s to connect with people and learn about that process and, and why they’re doing what they’re doing.

00;06;33;22 – 00;06;40;08
Speaker 2
And, you know, a little glimpse into their life and they get a little of that, send them home. And it’s really kind of a fun experience.

00;06;40;10 – 00;06;56;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. That’s great. You said that you were an empathetic person. You know, me knowing you personally, I could definitely attest to that. But starting out, did you always. Was this your calling? Did you always know you wanted to be doing this stuff? Is this, you know?

00;06;56;11 – 00;07;17;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, no. My my first, my first choice of career was going to be a veterinarian. That’s what I thought I was going to be. Until one day, I was, I was, I was called out to hold, the lead line of a of a horse that had gotten injured. And I start to wobble like this a little bit.

00;07;17;12 – 00;07;40;24
Speaker 2
And so I’m like, well, I don’t I don’t know, a veterinarian is going to be in the cards for me. And that was right around, right around, you know, my senior year in high school. And, you know, I was fortunate enough that I had an open period. And so I took a business law class, in high school, which, you know, proved to sort of, you know, kind of spark that next, you know, thing that I wanted to do.

00;07;40;24 – 00;07;55;05
Speaker 2
And, and I enjoyed it. I really liked it. Sometimes I would debate with the teacher about some of his questions and the and the wording of his questions. And, so I’m like, okay, I think this lawyering thing might be the thing I want to do.

00;07;55;07 – 00;07;57;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh that’s awesome. Yeah.

00;07;57;12 – 00;08;18;28
Speaker 2
But doing real estate. So then even beyond that, going to law school, you know, you can in theory have a concentration. Not everybody does. So oftentimes when you go to law school and you’re like, okay, I’m not I’m not 100% sure what area law I want to fall into. But, eventually real estate sort of, you know, caught my eye and became something that I really wanted to do.

00;08;19;00 – 00;08;27;04
Speaker 1
Awesome. So could you just explain a little bit of how you connected with this current role you’re in now?

00;08;27;07 – 00;08;47;21
Speaker 2
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So my previous job, so I had a law school. I took a job in the southern part of the state, and, as part of that job, I did a lot of work representing banks and collections and bankruptcy and, landlord tenant work. But I also did a lot of work with them in closings and title review.

00;08;47;24 – 00;09;09;11
Speaker 2
So reviewing and title report. So, and learning why title and the way that it’s written is important. And so then when it became time after, you know, a few years of doing that, we decided to move back up to this area, which is, you know, closer to where I grew up. I grew up outside of Charleville. And now I live outside of Queensbury.

00;09;09;14 – 00;09;30;21
Speaker 2
And it was an easy move to move back. But when I got a chance to move back, I said, why don’t I shift my career a little bit and use what I know about title, use what I know about, you know, wanting to connect with people and be part of their community and, helping people buy and sell homes seemed like the perfect fit to do that.

00;09;30;23 – 00;09;41;11
Speaker 2
Because I could review the title work, I could make sure that the transaction goes the way it’s supposed to go and hopefully give clients a good experience and and represent them well.

00;09;41;13 – 00;10;01;10
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. Yeah. I love, love hearing love hearing kind of how people start and where they end up by, you know, me being 22. Just starting out my career. So, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel is, you know, only getting brighter. So, just taking a step back, getting back into, like, the actual real estate.

00;10;01;12 – 00;10;18;21
Speaker 1
What? Because again, I, I don’t own a home just yet, and but when I one day though, and. Yup. And you’re going to be the, you’re going to be exactly the first job calling up. But, what’s the biggest mistake you see with first home time buyers.

00;10;18;24 – 00;10;41;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. So right now, you know, when 2020 happened in the world, shut down the way that it did and real estate really did the opposite of what a lot of people thought was going to happen during that time period. And the real estate market just took off. Right. So, but all supply lots and lots of demand.

00;10;42;01 – 00;11;23;19
Speaker 2
So buyers had to take steps to make their, offers sort of stand out from other people’s offers and some of the ways that buyers would do that during that time period is they would agree to waive inspections, of a property. And, you know, when my attorney had on that, that always makes us a little cautious. A little nervous because, unless you’re a licensed in that area and really have a good education and a good working knowledge as to everything that goes into a home in odd systems, you know, a licensed inspector is really a vital piece of the real estate buying and selling process.

00;11;23;21 – 00;11;47;04
Speaker 2
Because again, it gives you more of that information as to what the home really looks like, what it how it functions, you know, what, if anything, doesn’t function, what, if anything, might need to be, you know, repaired immediately, what might need to be repaired at some point in the future. So a lot of people were going into that process a little bit unknown, during that time period.

00;11;47;06 – 00;12;10;02
Speaker 2
And so that’s, you know, that’s that’s one of the things that, that I see that makes me sort of like cringe a little bit is when I see instances where people have had to waive inspections. Now, I know and I understand that there are reasons and there’s time and place for why they may happen. And of course, I’m going to still represent my clients to the best of my ability.

00;12;10;04 – 00;12;18;16
Speaker 2
But it does take one of the things away that we have, to, to, to get that additional chance to, to educate clients and work with them.

00;12;18;19 – 00;12;28;05
Speaker 1
Also, could you explain a little bit of, I guess, the practical ways of the do’s of what to do during that homebuyer process?

00;12;28;05 – 00;12;54;10
Speaker 2
Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So there, there like several things that you see like either on the seller side or the buyer side where it’s like here’s the, here’s like some things that you probably shouldn’t do or you know, and that happens really on both sides for, for a lot of the, sellers like, particularly in the winter time, like now, it’s I saw it a couple times this winter where the sellers, they signed a contract.

00;12;54;12 – 00;13;14;03
Speaker 2
Maybe they moved out of town. Maybe they already live out of town. And I’m not really 100% sure why, but they they turned the utilities off to the property, at the beginning of the process. So now you have a property that’s sitting, you know, in the winter, in upstate New York, which is not never a good recipe, right.

00;13;14;06 – 00;13;32;05
Speaker 2
Which if you haven’t owned the house yet, but I’m pretty sure you probably know what happens to water when it freezes. Those pipes can burst. And, you know, if those pipes burst, sticking it can cause a lot of damage in the home. Water is probably one of the bigger, things that can cause a lot of damage to the home.

00;13;32;11 – 00;13;54;26
Speaker 2
So the one thing to not do for seller is, you know, don’t turn off the utilities. What should happen is, is, you know, right before the closing happens, a buyer is going to reach out to the utility company, and they’re going to ask for the utilities to be transferred over into their name so that the buyer will just take over the the use of the utilities and also the cost of the utilities.

00;13;54;26 – 00;14;18;03
Speaker 2
So there’s there’s no need for the seller to, to reach out necessarily and have the utilities turned off. Sort of tangentially with that. You don’t want to have a seller turning the heat off 14 and turning the heat so low that you risk a situation where, you know, the pipes could could freeze as well. So just that’s something that a seller should try to avoid as well.

00;14;18;05 – 00;14;31;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. If you don’t mind me, just interrupting. What, what would be the recommended, recommended, temperature? The lowest if you were to leave your home. Do they do you have a number?

00;14;31;04 – 00;14;57;05
Speaker 2
Well, it kind of depends on how your home is set up. Right. Oh, and, you know, if you do have a basement, do you have a crawlspace? Do not have any of those things. Because, you know, I think people have, like, their nest thermostats and they have their other thermostats, right? So you want to keep it at a level where you make sure that wherever the pipes are located, that they’re not getting near, that they’re freezing temperature.

00;14;57;07 – 00;15;13;12
Speaker 2
Another thing that I have seen people do, from time to time, like people who are renting apartments, or maybe you have a house where the pipes are under the house, but you don’t have necessarily have really good insulation under there, or you don’t have a basement with any kind of heat source to that area, you know.

00;15;13;12 – 00;15;33;01
Speaker 2
If so, it’s a good idea that to insulate the pipes, if you can, there’s also a heat tape that people can use to put on pipes. But another trick that you can do is, you know, you can you can trick or, you know, you can trick, hold the faucet so that the water is moving. So if the water is moving that, then it can freeze.

00;15;33;03 – 00;15;42;03
Speaker 2
So I’ve, I’ve heard of people doing that as well, in areas where they don’t have those other abilities to, to keep the water warm enough.

00;15;42;05 – 00;15;43;14
Speaker 1
Great. Yeah. Good to know.

00;15;43;16 – 00;15;51;00
Speaker 2
Especially like those like, it’s those really older houses that don’t have the same kind of, insulation type situations.

00;15;51;02 – 00;15;57;20
Speaker 1
Yeah. Good to know. Let’s jump to the opposite side of that question and then.

00;15;57;22 – 00;16;22;08
Speaker 2
So things like on a buyer side, and a lot of these, you don’t want to jeopardize any kind of, funding situation with your loan if you’re taking a mortgage. So you don’t want to, like, change jobs in the middle of a transaction if you can help it. Likewise, you don’t want to change your marital status, because that, creates new legal rights and obligations and things like that.

00;16;22;08 – 00;16;48;08
Speaker 2
So, you know, there are people who, they’re getting engaged and they want to buy their first home together. So just sort of keep that timing in mind that you either want to buy the house before your wedding or you wait until after your wedding, to buy the house. But try not to schedule your wedding in the middle of your real estate transaction number one, that sounds extremely stressful, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

00;16;48;10 – 00;17;13;27
Speaker 2
But number two, there’s also legal rights and obligations that pop up in there that that could change in the middle of the transaction and could potentially slow things down for a second with your with your lender, if you can help it. All right. Some of the things are also the things we see with buyers is after the closing, your deed gets recorded, and when your DNA is recorded, it becomes a public document, meaning it’s, public record at the county clerk’s office.

00;17;13;29 – 00;17;37;17
Speaker 2
And there are companies out there that watch for deeds to get recorded. And when they get recorded, these companies send these new homeowners, these very official looking, very scary letters that make it sound like something terrible happened and that they need to urgently have a certified copy of your deed in order to prove you have ownership of the property.

00;17;37;20 – 00;18;01;23
Speaker 2
And these companies offer to provide that service and also provide a property profile assessment for a very inflated cost of. I’ve seen anything from like 85 to almost $200. And, what’s crazy is that, you know, a certified copy of a deed, essentially, the county circuit is doing is you’re comparing the original versus a copy, and they put a res seal on the copy.

00;18;01;25 – 00;18;25;26
Speaker 2
That’s really all a certified copy is. Most county clerks will do that service for 5 or 10 bucks. So you don’t need to pay $200. Number one. Number two, you shouldn’t need to pay any more money for copies of your deed. The deed is going to be on public record with the county clerk. Number one. Number two, your attorney’s office will be more than happy to email you a copy of everything that they have on file as well.

00;18;25;28 – 00;18;43;25
Speaker 2
Great. So, other things for a buyer when you’re getting close to a closing, it’s a really good idea that whatever bank you use to. How is your money that you have that being somewhat in the general vicinity of where the closing is going to take place. And that’s, you know, for the most part, because you’re going to need that money for the closings.

00;18;43;25 – 00;19;10;15
Speaker 2
You want to be able to make sure that you can get that money drawn, on a relatively quickly, quick basis if needed. You know, people like to use wires and wires can’t be used from time to time, but, wires are also inherently risky. You know, there are, unfortunately, there are there are bad people out there, and there are bad people who will try to infiltrate, different systems and different real estate companies.

00;19;10;15 – 00;19;37;13
Speaker 2
And if they are, you know, that scary situation could be, you know, I send you in an email, wiring instructions, or maybe pay off instruction to send a wire to, You don’t think nothing of it. You just go ahead and send that wire out. But little do you know that somebody has intercepted my email. Did a quick Photoshop now, but they’re wiring information in the letter where my information was.

00;19;37;15 – 00;20;01;24
Speaker 2
And now you’re sending money to who knows where. Right. So best practices are yet. Maybe we’ll send you wiring instructions. But then we do require that you call and speak with a human from a trusted phone number that you have for us or for anybody that is asking you to wire, so that you have that, verbal confirmation as well, and you had an additional layer of security for protecting your money.

00;20;02;08 – 00;20;05;06
Speaker 1
So, yeah. Well, if.

00;20;05;08 – 00;20;29;26
Speaker 2
This time of year, we’re in the middle of February right now as we record this. And so a good thing for home buyers to know we’re home owners to know is in New York State. If the property is your primary residence and you know you meet certain other requirements and criteria, you can register your property for free with the New York State Department of Tax, for the New York State Star program and that starter program.

00;20;29;26 – 00;20;50;18
Speaker 2
What that does is when your school taxes get paid, you’ll get a rebate check back. You know, usually within a month, for, for me, it’s a couple hundred bucks that comes in October. It’s like, money that you forget about. But it’s a nice little perk that New York State gives to homeowners who are using a property as your primary residence.

00;20;50;20 – 00;21;06;03
Speaker 2
Now, you can only register one property because you can’t have more than one primary residence. But if you have a primary residence in New York State, you know something to look into. Go on to the website to see if your property’s already been registered. If not, then go ahead and register. It’s free.

00;21;06;05 – 00;21;11;15
Speaker 1
And are there any like qualifications do you need like income to qualify for that?

00;21;11;15 – 00;21;33;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. The biggest one is you have to, not you have to make less than $500,000 per year, which for me is no problem at all. Well, under that, yeah, maybe someday that’ll change. Who knows? Yeah. So, but yeah, that’s that’s the primary. That’s the primary thing. It just has to be your primary residence.

00;21;33;03 – 00;21;55;16
Speaker 1
Awesome. Yeah. I just had, I know we’re close, getting close to closing time, but just a, a couple, more questions. I know we’re, you know, in the North Country. It’s there. And I was just wondering, because I know a lot of people with camps and, you know, the Adirondacks being in our backyard practically.

00;21;55;19 – 00;22;07;22
Speaker 1
Are there do the camps or, where they call them, seasonal homes, do those bring up any unique legal challenges compared to, you know, a residential home or.

00;22;07;24 – 00;22;30;23
Speaker 2
Well, I have so from a real estate it dependent. But I guess part of it depends like do they exist, and near or touching any water? Are there any docks on the property? Because you have voting rights and dock slips and things like that to come into play. Is it part of the Adirondack Park?

00;22;30;25 – 00;22;51;10
Speaker 2
So it would be come under the Adirondack Park Agency and, you know, various rules and things there. A lot of things with the, with the camps is just, you know, people want to make sure that they do their due diligence and have them inspected. You know, that a lot of camps are hooked up to any kind of town water or town sewer, right?

00;22;51;12 – 00;23;12;25
Speaker 2
So they have their own independent. Well, they have their own septic. So you want to make sure that if you’re having inspections done, that you have the water quality test done and you have the septic tested as well, and you know, the properties up near Lake George, that’s, that’s that’s got to be inspected. Anyway, that’s part of Bolton’s town ordinances now.

00;23;12;27 – 00;23;32;20
Speaker 2
So yeah, things like that. And just be, you know, mindful of different structures, how they’re different. Right. Also, if you have an insurance guy, they might be insured a little bit differently, because it’s not going to be occupied full time. So my deal, the things that you can do there with your insurance guy, talk to them about that.

00;23;32;22 – 00;23;57;28
Speaker 2
A lot of camps don’t have basements. So, you know, you have to things like that. You want to make sure the property is properly winterized. Of course, for the like, that’s all the things we talked about at the beginning with any kind of burst pipe situations. You want to avoid that if possible. So, yeah. So those are just like a few of the things that are a little bit different from maybe a residential home in downtown Glens Falls.

00;23;58;00 – 00;24;13;17
Speaker 1
Great. And Dan, thanks again for coming on. I know we’re getting short on time, but if people were looking to learn more about you, you know, learn a little bit more about you or even get in contact with you, where can they find you and get Ahold of? Yeah.

00;24;13;20 – 00;24;42;20
Speaker 2
Sure. A couple different places. One, they can go to the website of the firm that I work for it. The firm again, is in Anderson PC, and the website is w w w dot I a l a w pen y.com. So that’s highway law and y.com. Or they can reach out to us by phone. And that’s (518) 371-8888.

00;24;42;23 – 00;25;02;09
Speaker 1
Great awesome. And thanks again Dan. But yeah, to everybody else who’s listening, thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. Dan. I know, I know, there’s people out there just like me, you know, getting ready to buy their first home. So this was, very informational. So thank you.

00;25;02;12 – 00;25;04;26
Speaker 2
And thanks again for having me, I appreciate it.

00;25;05;03 – 00;25;24;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Thank you. And, yeah, just thanks to everybody else listening. You can find us at buying local.us. We’re, we’re going to be on Spotify, Apple Rumble and YouTube. And. Yeah, thanks for listening. And we’ll, we’ll, hear from us next week. Thank you again.

00;25;24;17 – 00;25;26;14
Speaker 2
And when you’re ready, I’ll be ready.