Tag Archives: USA Today

Delaying Trump’s Wall

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USA Today cited me in No, Cards Against Humanity Can’t Delay Trump’s Border Wall. It opens,

By now you’ve played a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity or at least heard the game makers want to buy land to block the construction of President Trump’s proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

The raunchy game, where people fill in the blank or complete sentences with terrible — but funny — things, pulls a holiday marketing stunt every year. Last year, Cards Against Humanity raised money to dig a hole. Before that, they mailed people boxes filled with actual bulls–t.

This year, they asked for $15 from customers to buy a large plot of land along the U.S./Mexico border for their “Cards Against Humanity Saves America” campaign. The promotion already sold out.

A marketing video implies they would separate acres of land into tiny pieces for each participant, in order to hold the government up in court for years. They want to make the push to build a wall time-consuming and expensive by hiring lawyers to keep the land tied up in court, according to the website.

The only problem is, that’s not how eminent domain works.

“This is a way for them to utilize their popularity with an audience most people assume are either indifferent toward political issues or at the very least unsophisticated about how things get done,” said Steve Silva, an eminent domain and land use attorney for Fennemore Craig law group in Reno. Silva has literally used eminent domain to build a wall.

“It’s got a lot of people literally buying into this issue of significant public importance,” he said.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows the Federal Government to take property from people for “just compensation.” The amendment favors the government’s ability to take while also protecting an owner’s right to make money. Meaning, property owners must be paid fair-market value for the land.

Determining value is what usually ends up taking years in court, Silva said. TheCongre actual taking of the property takes very little time.

“It’s a two-step process: First thing is that the government has to prove it has the right to take the property,” he said. “Once it establishes that, it can take it immediately.”

The federal government need only establish the land will be used for the public, such as for a large wall owned by the government. Then it can basically take that acreage and start building the wall while fighting out the value in court.

“Congress can also just pass a special bill to take land,” Silva said. “They’ve done that for national parks before. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court has noted that the U.S. can just seize land summarily by occupying it and ousting the former owner.

“I suspect this sort of move would be really unpopular,” he added.

So, Cards Against Humanity may end up fighting the government for years after the wall is finished.

Even if Cards Against Humanity spreads the ownership of the land out to lots of people — say, thousands of them — the Federal Government can still take the land all at once. But now those individual owners will need to fight each other, Cards Against Humanity and the government for their just compensation.

Since people paid $15 for land, it’s likely they would establish land value and get that $15 back unless Cards Against Humanity somehow improves the land or plans to build a museum, monument or even a parking lot on that space.

But again, that would only increase its value, not slow down the wall’s construction.

In an interview on Mashable.com, law professors David Reiss and Richard Epstein argued the court would reject Cards Against Humanity’ claim over the land because they’re using it for political purposes. But attorneys Silva and Lynn Blais disagree. The game makers are using land as a protest, which should be respected by the court, so their protest shouldn’t matter in eminent domain proceedings.

Firing Your Real Estate Agent

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USA Today quoted me in How (And When) To Fire Your Real Estate Agent. It opens,

Breaking up is hard to do. Add a house and tens of thousands of dollars into the mix, and it can get downright ugly.

Unlike romantic entanglements, though, breaking up with your real estate agent as a seller if you’re not getting the service or the results promised doesn’t have to be dramatic. Here’s what you can do early on to minimize the damage — and how to handle the situation if, alas, you do come to irreconcilable differences.

When you first enlist an agent

Review your contract closely. Many real estate agents require their clients to sign an exclusive representation agreement, which is essentially an employment contract, says Brian Pendergraft, a real estate attorney in Greenbelt, Md. These contracts spell out how the client and real estate agent will each uphold their end of the deal, and they tend to be worded to protect the agent’s interests, says David Reiss, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, New York.

As a seller, you’ll want to ensure the contract covers your rights, too. This includes outlining exactly how your agent will market your home, and a plan to generate enough showings within a set timeframe so that you’ll have a legal leg to stand on for early termination, Reiss says.

Understand your options for termination from the get-go. There are a few ways to call it quits with your agent, but the win-win situation is a no-penalty termination in which neither party is penalized if the relationship ends prematurely, says Bruce Ailion, a Realtor and attorney in Atlanta. Include this detail in your contract.

If things go sour

Consider what constitutes a fireable offense. If you’re upset with your agent about sales strategy, lack of communication or poor service, those are issues that are unlikely to be resolved easily, Ailion says. Or perhaps you’re worried that your agent is in murky legal waters, such as refusing to show your home to people from certain protected groups or failing to share a property disclosure with buyers. Report these issues immediately to the agent’s broker of record, who is responsible for the real estate agents in a brokerage, Ailion says.

Put it in writing. If your agreement is in writing, you have to get out of it in writing even if there’s no specific expiration date, Pendergraft says. Write a letter or email to your agent requesting to part ways. If you get no response, hire an attorney to write a demand letter for you, Pendergraft says. This shows you mean business — at a fraction of the cost to take the issue to court.