Questions & Considerations When Buying With a Friend or Relative


Thinking about purchasing a home with someone other than your spouse—perhaps a friend or relative? Before you do, put together a plan and ask your counterpart (and yourself) some key questions.

When arriving at the decision to buy a home with someone you’re not married to, you’d be well advised to explore a few questions before taking the first steps toward the purchase.

First, what’s your relationship to this person? Are you looking for a short-term living arrangement (maybe with a friend from college) or is it a longer-term move (maybe with a sibling)? More importantly, how long do you expect the relationship to last? This is a fundamental aspect of the buying process because you’ll need to consider how the title will be held between the two (or more) of you.

If the relationship is foreseeably short-term, you’ll want to know if either party can be “bought out” of the relationship. Let’s say, for instance, your friend decides to sell to someone else that lives in another state. Is this something you’d be comfortable with?

How will you manage the rent if both incomes are needed? If the mortgage is dependent on your dual incomes and someone were to lose their job, will you have a plan of action in place to preempt this dilemma?

Though you’re like-minded about buying the home together in the beginning, what if, later, one party wants to sell the home when the other doesn’t? That sort of question could potentially arise, so it’s important to have the answers spelled out and specified before any purchase is made.


If the mortgage is dependent on your dual incomes and someone were to lose their job, will you have a plan of action in place to preempt this dilemma?

Once these questions are answered, it’ll be time to answer the all-important question of how exactly to handle the title. If the parties would like to have joint title to the property, there are two ways that this can be done—joint tenancy and joint tenants in common.

Under joint tenancy, you would possess survivorship or the right to the whole property in the event that your counterpart dies.

Under joint tenants in common, each owner possesses an individual share in the property, and therefore, has autonomy to sell their share at any point in time.

Lastly, decide how repairs and utilities will be handled.

It might sound like I’m cautioning you against a move of this nature. Having a plan in place is not only recommended, but it's also critical to preventing potential ownership complications down the road. That’s why I recommend meeting with a skilled title insurance attorney who can help you formulate a plan beforehand.

If you’d like more information on this topic or if you need help with any of your real estate needs, please don’t hesitate to send me an email at Charlotte@CharlotteMabryTeam.com. We’d love to help!

Keep an Eye Out for Health Hazards in Your Home


Here are a few of my tips on how to identify health hazards throughout your home—even if you think your home is completely safe, it’s always good to be sure.

When you live in your home for a while, it’s easy to get used to it. After some time, you stop paying attention to certain things. However, just as people can become nose-blind to odors in their home, it is also easy to become blind to more serious issues within your property, including certain health hazards. Today I’ll give you some tips for checking your home to make sure it is safe for you and your family.

1. Clear out your dryer vent. Hopefully, you already clean out your dryer filters regularly, but you also need to check the dryer vent for backups of lint. I’ve seen homes where the dryer doesn’t even vent to the outside; some have vented the line into a crawlspace or into the attic. Failing to properly clear out the vent, especially if it doesn’t lead to the outdoors, can cause your machine to run less efficiently and also put your home at risk of a dryer fire.
 

2. Fix or remove items that may cause you to trip and fall. It doesn’t matter what age you are—there are always ways that you can injure yourself by falling. Unstable handrails, cracked walkways, and poorly spaced stairs are all ways that you can inadvertently put yourself at risk of a fall.
 

3. Ensure your blinds are safe and your windows are treated. After some research, I learned that injuries caused by the cords on window blinds send two children to the emergency room every day. Getting cordless blinds or changing your window coverings altogether can make your home even safer.

Carbon monoxide is an odorless gas, so poisoning caused by leaks will be difficult to detect without a working CO detector.

4. Regularly maintain your smoke detectors. First, you need to make sure you even have these detectors in your home. Second, check them out each season to make sure their batteries are still good and that the units themselves are in working order.
 

5. Keep your oven clean to avoid fires. If your oven is dirty while you’re cooking, that increases the risk of your home catching fire. If you’re like a lot of people who don’t regularly clean their ovens, go ahead and get that cleaned out. Most ovens have some sort of cleaning feature, so it’s wise to make use of that feature.
 

6. Be sure to have a working carbon monoxide (CO) detector. Through the years, I’ve sold homes for people who have told me about mysterious headaches they’ve had, only to find out that their heating and air system was leaking carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is an odorless gas, so poisoning caused by leaks will be difficult to detect without a working CO detector. Like smoke detectors, check these regularly to ensure they’re still in good condition.

If you’d like a list of things to think about regarding safety features in your home, or if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the Charlotte Mabry Team. I’d be glad to send a list your way and provide any answers I can give. Hope to hear from you soon!