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Posts Tagged ‘Property’

The Market Value Of Homes

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Many people are not really aware of what the fair market value of a home is. So what exactly is a fair market value? It’s interesting that people are selling off properties all the time, and many people are buying, yet many still don’t know what it means. In some quarters, it’s said that a home’s fair market value is in fact tied in with its home market value. The term “fair market value” was coined because of the discrepancy among people in terms of what they’re willing to pay for homes. That’s why “fair market value” has become a concept used by many people. To better understand what exactly fair market value means, most researchers have pointed out that it is essentially related to the price that the seller will sell at, freely, and that at which a buyer will buy freely. If you want to understand a bit more about what fair market value means, you can take a look at the state laws of Louisiana.

The laws of the state of Louisiana hold that fair market value means the price that an informed seller and buyer would agree on. As far as Louisiana is concerned, the fair market value should be a price that is the highest a home could get on the open market. To determine this value, a home should be on the market for sufficient time that informed buyers could decided to buy it. These buyers should understand what the property can and cannot be used for, and so would have a good idea.

The actual dollar value that comes from the fair market value can be a very important factor in the majority of cases. These are important considerations in the following events: when a home gets priced to be sold, when someone makes an offer to buy property, when taxes are imposed on a home by local assessors, and in the case of a divorce settlement. Besides those things, the dollar amount that the fair market value represents becomes a criticalfactor in cases when homes are part of an estate and the government intends to take possession of the home through the process of condemnation. Last of all, it is interesting to note that most people have a habit of using the term “fair market value” for a wide variety of thing. It is used for a number of things such as the age, location, and many other factors that are tied in with the home’s fair market value.

Real Estate Laws in Louisiana

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

State legal systems in the United States are based on one of two legal systems. Forty-nine states base their laws on the common law system, first used in England. However one state, Louisiana, uses the French Napoleonic Code as the basis for their legal system. While common law-based legal systems rely on the rulings of judges to set precedents that are used to make later decisions, the Louisiana system does not.

The Napoleonic Code was intended to simplify the laws in a time when many people were illiterate or did not have access to printed information. Ironically, the effort to create a simpler and easier to understand legal system has resulted in one of the more complex and least understood set of state laws here in Louisiana. There are many other distinctions between the two systems, but it is not as important to know every single distinction as it is to understand that there are significant differences between the state laws in Louisiana and those of most other states.

Real estate laws are the laws that address the land and anything built upon that land including ownership, usage, and transfer of ownership of that land. As discussed above, Louisiana’s unique legal heritage has affected the current laws in many ways. One such way is the term used to refer to real estate in this state. While the rest of the United States uses “real estate” in legal documents, in Louisiana real estate is referred to as “immoveable property.”

Another area which requires the special attention is that of inheritance within Louisiana. The laws regarding inheritance derived from the Napoleonic Code were intended to ensure that assets remained in their family of origin, so while the other 49 states allow property to be transferred as the owner prefers after their death, this is not always the case in Louisiana. The laws regarding inheritance of real estate can dictate that close relatives including parents or children inherit property before anyone else.

While the difference between two distinctions may seem apparent initially, upon closer inspection, the line becomes less clear. For example, once a couple is married, all properties do not automatically become community properties, and in the case of divorce, one spouse may not have any claim to or rights in regard to certain properties. Some of the factors that are considered in this situation are when the property was purchased and which party’s funds were used, which can be a difficult fact to ascertain.