San Jose Business Lawyers Blog
As a business and real estate lawyer in San Jose, I have been paying special attention to the recovering real estate market. I have noticed an increase in residential and commercial properties transactions in San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara. As much as the real estate market has improved, lenders are still cautious when it comes to providing financing, which has affected some of my business and real estate clients.
When the credit market is tight and financing is harder to obtain, sellers of real property may be more willing to provide seller financing to a buyer in order to sell a property. This is even more common when the seller and the buyer have some pre-existing relationship. When representing the seller, I will protect the seller by securing the loan with a deed of trust against the property so that if the buyer does not make the loan payments, the seller can take back the property. This sounds like a low risk proposition for the seller. However, taking back the property may be worse than it sounds. If the value has gone up since the seller bought it, which is usually the case, there is no way to reinstate the seller’s former base-year value for property tax assessment purposes. When the seller sells the property to the buyer, the property is reassessed. When the seller repossesses the property, the property will be reassessed again. Since there is no sales price to determine the value when the property is repossessed, an appraisal must be done. Seller, as the new owner, must report the fair market value of the property to the County. Penalties of up to $20,000 apply for failing to report a change in ownership. In my blog, “New Rules for Business Entities Change of Ownership Reporting for Real Property,” I talked about the need to report a change of ownership of an entity that owns real property as well.
So, if you are considering providing financing to a buyer on the sale of your property, you may want to think twice about whether you are comfortable with the remedy of repossessing the property with a new property tax value. It may be worthwhile waiting for a buyer who does not require you to assist with financing.
Contact Structure Law Group, LLP if you or your business would like assistance with seller financing on the sale of your real property.
The information appearing in this article does not constitute legal advice or opinion. Such advice and opinion are provided by the firm only upon engagement with respect to specific factual situations. Specific questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author.