Real Estate Insights
Analysis and practical guides on real estate.
70 articles, checklists, and guides on real estate law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice—for a specific matter, contact the firm.
Neighbor Dispute Toolkit: Demand Letters, Surveys, Nuisance Logs, and Boundary Agreements
This toolkit contains the documents that resolve neighbor disputes, ordered by when you will need them and annotated with the outcome each one produces. It opens with the friendly confirming email that turns a conversation into a record, then the first written notice and the escalation letter that follows it. It includes the written revocable license—one paragraph that defeats adverse possession and prescriptive easement—a nuisance and noise log built to satisfy ordinance elements, a survey scope request that specifies what to order and what to refuse, an arborist engagement letter, a tree damage demand citing timber trespass multipliers, a hazardous tree notice, a drainage demand built around an engineer's report, a code enforcement complaint, and the three recorded agreements that end disputes permanently.
Neighbor Dispute and Boundary Problem Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a neighbor dispute from the first conversation to the recorded agreement that ends it. It sets out the three questions to answer before acting, how to document a recurring problem so enforcement agencies will act on it, and what a boundary survey must include to be useful. It covers the tree rules that people most often get expensively wrong, the fence and drainage obligations that vary by state, and the free enforcement machinery that resolves most disputes without a lawyer. It ends with the documents that end things permanently—the written license that defeats adverse possession, the recorded boundary line agreement, and the maintenance agreement that most easements omit.
Resolving a Dispute with Your Neighbor: A Practical Guide
This guide is about the sequence—what to do first, second, and third when something a neighbor is doing has become a problem, and why skipping steps costs money and goodwill. It covers the conversation that resolves most disputes and how to have it, the written notice that resolves many of the rest and what it must contain, and the documentation that makes everything afterward possible: dated photographs, a log with times and durations, a survey, an arborist's report. It then walks the free enforcement machinery most people never use—code enforcement, animal control, noise enforcement, zoning, and the HOA—followed by community mediation, and finally the choice between small claims for money and superior court for an order. It closes with the agreements that end disputes permanently: the written license, the boundary line agreement, and the recorded maintenance agreement.
Neighbor Disputes: Boundaries, Trees, Fences, Noise, and the Law of Nuisance
Neighbor law is where property doctrine meets human beings who have to see each other every morning, and the legal answer is frequently not the useful one. This article explains what a boundary actually is and why the fence is almost never it, how adverse possession and acquiescence can move a line that a deed says is somewhere else, and what an encroachment costs to fix. It covers the law of trees—the right to trim to the line, the liability for cutting past it, and the timber trespass statutes that multiply damages—along with fence obligations, spite fence statutes, and the surprisingly consequential law of surface water drainage. It then works through private nuisance, the balancing that decides it, and the remedies courts actually grant, before turning to the practical machinery of noise ordinances, code enforcement, mediation, and small claims.
Manufactured Housing Toolkit: Title Conversion, Lot Lease Review, and Park Closure Response
This toolkit provides the letters, worksheets, and records that protect a manufactured home owner's largest asset, each annotated with the loss it prevents. It includes a pre-purchase information request to a park, an itemized price demand for a dealer, a data plate record sheet, a lot lease review worksheet keyed to state park act provisions, the four written utility questions that expose improper submetering, responses to a rent increase and to a selective rule enforcement notice, a buyer rejection documentation letter that turns verbal brush-offs into a provable pattern, a sale-in-place request, a park closure response with the ninety-day sequence, an association formation outline, a warranty notice to all three responsible parties, and a state agency complaint.
Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights Toolkit: Title, Leasing, Royalties, and Disputes
This toolkit supplies the working documents of mineral ownership. It contains an ownership worksheet computing net mineral acres and identifying which of the five mineral sticks are held, a runsheet format, a lease addendum with the clauses worth the most money, a surface use agreement outline, a division order verification worksheet with the decimal calculation, a royalty audit demand, lease termination and release demands, curative documents including affidavits of heirship and ratifications, a forced pooling election analysis, a mineral deed review checklist for offers to purchase, and a family mineral entity structure for holding interests across generations.
Manufactured Home Purchase and Park Tenancy Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a manufactured home from the sales center through the lot lease, the annual routine, and the two events that decide most outcomes—a defect found in the first year and a park closure notice with a purchase window measured in weeks. It covers the itemized price to demand before signing, the data plate to photograph, the loan to shop away from the dealer, and the lot rent history that tells you what you are really buying. It sets out how to read a lot lease against a state park act, the four written questions that expose improper utility charges, the documentation that protects a sale in place, and the eviction responses that keep a homeowner from losing a house over a month's rent.
Buying and Living in a Manufactured Home: A Practical Guide
This guide walks a manufactured home from the shopping trip through the years of living in it and, eventually, selling it. It covers what to inspect and what to ask before signing, why dealer-arranged financing is rarely the best available, and the difference in cost between a chattel loan and a mortgage that turns on nothing but how the home is titled. It explains how to read a lot lease against your state's mobile home park act, what a park can and cannot do about rent, rules, utilities, and buyer approval, and how to respond to an increase, a rule change, or an eviction notice. It closes with the two events that decide most manufactured housing outcomes: a defect discovered in the first year, and a park closure notice with a purchase window measured in weeks.
Manufactured Homes and Mobile Home Parks: Titles, Lot Rents, and the Law of a Home You Cannot Move
A manufactured home is the only kind of housing where the resident usually owns the house and rents the ground it sits on, and that split is the source of nearly every problem in the field. This article explains the HUD code that governs how these homes are built, why the title is usually a vehicle-style certificate rather than a deed, and what converting to real property actually accomplishes. It covers the ground lease relationship—lot rent increases, park rules, utility pass-throughs, and the evictions that leave a homeowner with a house they cannot afford to move and cannot sell in place. It examines park closures and the relocation assistance and opportunity-to-purchase laws that a growing number of states have enacted, the financing gap between chattel loans and mortgages, and the warranty and installation claims available when a new home is defective.
Subsidized Housing Toolkit: Hearing Requests, Recertification, and Accommodation Letters
This toolkit collects the letters and worksheets that decide subsidized housing cases, each annotated with what it accomplishes and the deadline it protects. It leads with the hearing request—the single most important document in the field—followed by a document production demand, an informal review request for a denied applicant, a preference claim letter, an income change report, a medical expense log that recovers money most households never claim, a rent calculation audit worksheet, a repayment agreement proposal with a specific number, a reasonable accommodation letter with a three-sentence provider template, a no-trespass agreement for guest-conduct cases, a search extension request, a special inspection request, an abatement response for landlords who bill the wrong party, and a one-page hearing summary.
Subsidized Housing Application and Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs subsidized housing from the waiting list application through the hearing that saves a tenancy. It covers applying to every list including the shorter project-based ones, claiming preferences with documentation, and requesting the informal review that reverses discretionary denials. It walks the voucher search with the arithmetic to check before signing, then the annual routine of recertification and the reporting obligations that produce most terminations. It closes with the hearing sequence—requesting it within the deadline, demanding documents, auditing the rent calculation line by line, and arriving with a specific proposal—plus the reasonable accommodation requests that change outcomes at every stage.
Applying for and Keeping Subsidized Housing: A Practical Guide
This guide covers subsidized housing from the waiting list application through the hearing that saves a tenancy. It explains how to get on every list you qualify for, which preferences to claim and how to document them, and why the informal review of a denial is the most winnable and least used proceeding in the field. It walks through the voucher search—reading the payment standard, understanding the forty percent cap, and what to ask a landlord before signing—and then through the annual routine of recertification and the reporting obligations that produce most terminations. It closes with the hearing: how to request it before the deadline, what documents to demand, how to check the arithmetic, and what to propose, because hearing officers grant specific things and rarely forgive general ones.