Can I Sign Alabama Banking RFP

Can i industry sign banking alabama rfp

car crashes defective products dangerous drugs injuries and abuse across the state of Alabama the attorneys proudly sponsored by the law firm of Hollis Wright are here to serve you you're tough legal questions answered by our experts with host David Lamm and the attorneys of Hollis right good evening and welcome into the attorneys thank you so much for joining us tonight we are gonna deal with the topic of conversation tonight we have never dealt with in hundreds of shows so stick around and for that before we get into the conversation and introduce tonight's panel of experts a couple of reminders the numbers that you need to know to join the conversation it's always better when you're a part of it two oh five six seven Oh 1949 that's the number two text and the call number eight four four law talk eight four four five two nine eight two five five and also don't forget a great benefit to this show something that Hollis Frank provides each and every time we do the attorneys every Sunday night attorneys from Hollis right standing by live that is a free confidential and all fair conversation so if you'd rather not your question be asked but you want to talk to an attorney opportunity tonight to get that done so give them a call leaving our conversation he's the managing partner of Hollis right Josh right good to see you again dear hope you were well happy new happy 2020 how about that this is gonna be the year I feel it do you feel it you I do feel it I think this is going to be on this year your your your my ear together along with our guests but you know we have done some 400 shows I don't know what the count is that but it's a lot of shows so we have never done a show related to property tax and delinquencies and what to do in those circumstances and so this is unique we don't generally run across that but you know what we've got someone at our firm that kind of manages and handles and and comes up with these topics and this was a good one and came to me and said hey do you want to do something unique and new that we hadn't done before I said let's do it so we're lucky today to have Greg Stanley on Greg is a local lawyer here in this area at Stanley and associates and we're just super excited to have you on the show really appreciate it thank you so much I'm actually very honored to be here thank you well good we're honored to have you on tell us a little bit about your practice and really how you got into this area of the law because it is a unique area now it's an interesting story Joshua the way it started was several years ago I was an investor in tax liens so I would buy tax liens and and I wasn't an attorney and I was active duty Air Force and then when I retired from the Air Force I wanted to go to I wanted I always wanted to go to law school so I went to law school and when I graduated I started handling my own legal issues that had to do with these tax liens and the next thing I know and I never intended to actually have a full up practice the next thing I know my lawyer friends are saying hey can you handle this for me you know my investor lawyer friends are saying hey can you handle this for me pretty soon now we've moved into the Ramsey building across in the library in Irondale now I've got two associates and we're we're with overwhelmed that's great that's great yeah alright so let's talk about the topic itself um I don't think people realize David what property taxes actually help fund in society it's a lot of stuff let's talk just a little bit about that I mean property taxes are significant in Alabama I mean we just think well we all have to pay property taxes for our businesses we've got to pay property taxes for our homes but the reality is property taxes go to a lot of important things that's true as a matter of fact if you look at your tax bill and now it's the time of year to do that look at your tax bill I know when I look at my tax bill when I say my tax bill what I mean to say is my property tax bill now typically these get paid by you pay it into escrow each month and your bank pays your tax bill but you'll get the bill and you can look at it there's five different line items for education on my tax bill so you know we paying the the county it goes to the city all these different school budgets are being paid for by and large by property taxes and I guess also some are just property tax also go to funding certain areas of municipalities and counties and those types of things it does it goes to several different areas and it's different by county and it's different by municipality as you may know it's based on the mill rate which is a percentage of the value of your property that you would pay taxes on and just recently as a matter of fact justice last year Birmingham voted to increase their mill rate so their tax rate went plus you know that the value of land value of property is going up pretty rapidly throughout Jefferson County and most of Alabama I had heard a statistic recently that there was close to a hundred million dollars of outstanding property tax owed in the state of Alabama as that is that there's some truth to that no that's exactly correct as a matter of fact you can you know there's resources you can look it up as of right but when I last checked over 100 million dollars of taxes were owed and these taxes are owed to the state because if the if a if a person doesn't pay their taxes then the taxes are sold on the courthouse steps and that's a lien put on the house or on the property if no one buys that tax lien the state bids it in is the phrase they use so the state funds the county for that year but from that point on it's the state that is footing the bill for that for those taxes and the state would be reimbursed if someone doesn't pay it so I mean but that basically creates a hole for education in counties all those things I mean so there it sounds like there's a marketplace out there for people that want to buy some of these liens but just because you have a lien on your property for example doesn't necessarily mean you lose the property is that fair that's exactly correct most of the investors like me we're not we're not really interested in taking the property but the interest rate in Alabama is very good it's 1% a month and where else you're gonna find an investment that guarantees 1% a month and it's secured by real property so these large institutional investors will come in and they'll drop 2 or 3 million dollars in Jefferson County alone in Shelby County alone buying these tax liens and for the next three years they just accrue interest at one percent a month and these large institutional investors really that's all we want they want their one percent you can see where it's I mean there's a whole marketplace there goodness and a hundred billion dollars so why are those what's the story behind that hundred million why are those not being paid and who's not that's a really good question but you know I've been doing this for a long time and I started looking at why is it that people don't pay their taxes and there's a couple of very common reasons the first one is get this they pay off their mortgage think about that if you pay off your mortgage you've been paying into escrow for the last 20 or 30 years you've never paid your tax bill the bank has always paid it well then you get this bill it's the first time in 30 years you've ever got a tax bill that you had to pay and you don't think you're supposed to pay you don't even think to pay it so ironically paying off your mortgage tends to lead to not paying your taxes that's it's hard to believe that when you think about it I know we're getting ready to go to break when we come back I want to talk a little bit about kind of generally how this process works how if someone gets delinquent in their property taxes how they can redeem that property we need to talk about that because I think what Greg will tell us is there are a lot of circumstances he sees in his practice where people have maybe not done it the right way but are able to dig themselves out with good legal counsel alright let's head to break if you do so a quick reminder if you'd like to join the conversation you could text us at two oh five six seven oh nineteen forty nine or you can call toll-free eight four four five two nine law talk 84 four five two nine eight two five five stay tuned more of the attorneys coming right up [Music] [Music] I'm Josh right with the law firm Apollo 8 a personal injury law firm and thank you for watching the attorneys we hope you a friend or loved one never needs legal counsel for a case but if you do the goal of the show is simply to provide answers and legal counsel when you need it the most your call to the show is free and all family so if you have questions specific to the show we're related to other accident or injury topics call email or text us you can also follow us on Facebook Twitter Instagram and YouTube or go to Hollis - write calm and click on the contact us button we know your time is valuable so thank you for spending with us and watching each other [Music] the attorneys proudly sponsored by the law firm of Hollis Wright are here to serve you when we started the show eight years ago my hope was we would be able to do what we do best which is to help people answer real world legal related issues they have in their life people oftentimes are confronting various legal issues and problems in their lives that range across the gamut of legal practice areas bankruptcy criminal law family law just to name a few and to be able to have a 30-minute platform or format to where we can just cover various legal topics once a week that's obviously the primary focus of the show we love helping people I think everyone at this firm feels the exact same way that you know the reason we do what we do is to help people and in this show gives us the biggest platform possible to help as many people as we can in the commuter [Music] welcome back into the attorneys thanks for joining us tonight before we get back into our conversation just to remind ER attorneys from Hollis right standing by all throughout the program tonight so I'll just pick up the phone and give them a call that free affair and confidential conversation a great opportunity for you so if you have a question you need some free legal advice tonight is the time to get it a question we've got here I want to jump into as we get back into our conversation here what do I do if I realize my property sold for taxes that's a good question and and it is a very daunting thing when you find out that oh my lord my property sold for taxes what does that mean well typically if you've realized that you've property has sold for taxes and it's been within three years of the tax sale just go down to the courthouse and talk to the folks at land redemptions and they will tell you how to begin the process of redemption and you are guaranteed the right to redeem your property if it's been within the first three years after that sale now there is a problem on the third anniversary of the sale that certificate that tax certificate automatically becomes a tax deed once it becomes a tax deed you can no longer just go down to the courthouse and write a check right so do you see that happen often that it takes that long for someone to recognize like will you get a delinquent notice or is that part of the problem that sometimes may be notice is going to someone else and they're not notifying the person that has the property I mean it may be it does sometimes go longer than three years well there's a kind of a catch-22 specifically when if you don't pay your taxes and it's sold on the courthouse steps Josh that's the last notice you're going to get that your taxes are due from that point on you're in the tax bill each year goes to the investor who bought the taxes now that is obviously a problem because if you missed the one time you don't get any more warnings you know talk with me about this because I do see this a lot in wrongful death cases that our firm handles I will have an estate set up and I will have an heir asked whether or not they need to pay the property taxes to keep the property current and our general advice that has always been that yes we need to get the property taxes paid as part of the estate process is that the right advice 100% okay absolutely the the estate needs to keep those taxes current because you know you know in Alabama the death of the owner does not void a tax sale divorce change names move none of those things to avoid a tax sale so the sale is going to be valid and if you don't pay those taxes in it the years click on and it becomes a deed well now you have to go to court to get it back what are some of the biggest misconceptions you see in mistakes that people make I know we talked offline before we started about circumstances that that you kind of see in how maybe someone didn't get a good legal advice to start with what do you normally see I mean how does this come to your front doorstep there's two ways we are happy to help folks who who didn't pay their taxes and so we're happy to help them redeem their property but we also work with investors so if an investor has bought this tax lien that the investor has the right to take possession of the property but they don't have the right to break in enter they don't have the right to you know break any other law breach the piece so if an and and your question was how do we typically find out well the way we typically find out is when an investor sends a letter or some sort of a notice to the owner of the property saying get out now there's a right way to do that and there's a wrong way to do that there are some investors out there that are correct they follow the law there's an organization called the Alabama tax lien Association and it provides information it provides for all the members it provides letters format sample letters that will keep you out of trouble keep you from breaching the peace or torturously interfering with a rental contract or you know one of those sorts of things but you asked the way it comes the way it comes to us where it comes to us as either an investor says hey look I want to get possession of this property or a homeowner says hey look I want to get my property back because I've received this this terrible letter from this investor yeah do you think that the the letters from the investors generally are to prod the the homeowner or the property owner into just paying their taxes I mean is that part of kind of if you will redeeming the investment being able to recoup the investment that they've got that's a great question and you also asked me what the biggest misconception is and and I would say that the biggest misconception about tax investors is that they're evil that they're they're out there taking that advantage of little old ladies well that's not the case in most cases and I'll be candid with you there are a certain percentage of the tax lien investors who are out there they're unscrupulous they send threatening letters and they don't tell the homeowner their rights but the vast majority of these investors are like these institutional as I mentioned they just want the 1% a month interest they don't want to own the property so they send letters so they have me sent letters to prompt the owner to redeem so that so that the the investor doesn't have to take possession of the property and Alabama the law is that if an investor doesn't take possession of the property of the property within a certain period of time their tax lien their tax lien is basically void so it dissolves so they're put in there's some pressure on them to you know on the investors to take possession or get it redeemed yeah one of the other you know it's interesting that we had this show because we've had all one Horne on the show before who does a bunch of workers comp stuff well when lives in my neighborhood he and I help manage the legal side of our homeowners association in the area that we live we have a common area and this is something I'm sure that Gregg has heard before we have a common area well when we created the homeowners association with a common area we did not recognize that the common area had a property tax attached to it the fir t notice we got because we all have paid our property taxes the first noticed that we got was a notice that someone had purchased the common area which could arguably use be uses a lot down the road and we payment we're like oh my goodness did we make a mistake here the reality was nobody really knew that we were supposed to pay that well you know all the homeowners came together we chipped in and we we redeemed that property and kept it inside the homeowners association but that's a great example of how we had no idea that you know we had this property tax to pay in a common area in the homeowners association but sure enough we did and that's a good example and the person that had purchased it was not rude they weren't aggressive they just invested in the property and said paid the taxes and it's yours and so that's what we did so I mean it's a common example isn't and that is common areas of Seaways and homeowners associations often times when the transition from the developer to the homeowners association that gets lost I know we're getting ready go to Brighton we come back I want to talk a little bit about whether or not these things amount to court proceeding and litigation and how that's handled I want to talk to Greg just a little bit about that and and whether or not the court systems are used in order in the redeeming process and in litigating what's owed all right let's step aside our final break of the evening just a few minutes for you to join our conversation as we had to break a reminder you're going to want to keep up with Hollis right on social media on Twitter Instagram as well as Facebook just search Hollis right and you'll find them they're a great file a really educational informational resource there for you stay tuned we're coming back the final segment of the attorney is coming right up [Music] I'm Josh right with the law firm Apollo strikers in court attorneys are not allowed to tell jury certain things for example we cannot talk about a defendant's network meaning the defendants ability resources or insurance to pay a verdict in this week's legal for an one we'll answering the question why can't lawyers talk about a defendant's network to a jury now rule 403 of the Alabama rules of evidence states in part relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice long-standing Alabama cases have held that the net worth of a defendant falls under this catch-all rule and is to be excluded the reasoning behind the rule is that if a jury knows the defendant is wealthy then the jury might award more money to the plaintiff and this goes one step further if an attorney makes any remarks that suggest the defendant is responsible because he is wealthy or rich and the plaintiff is poor that can be grounds for a new trial if you're ever on a jury the reality in our status is in almost every lawsuit that goes to trial the attorneys representing both the plaintiff and the defendant have already looked at whether there's sufficient insurance coverage or assets to satisfy programs most likely the parties would not pursue a civil lawsuit if damages could not be paid after a jury returns work so even though lawyers can not mention the net worth of the defendant during trial there likely are resources available to pay please remember your call email or text to the attorney it's free all of us at Hollis might want to help answer your questions on real issues you face and remember a competent lawyer will respond to every question you send it that's our pledge and promise key and as always thanks for watching the attorneys right here at wDTN [Music] welcome back into the attorney as our final segment just a few minutes remaining if you'll want to take advantage of the opportunity to speak with those attorneys in Hollis right who are standing by give them a call just a few minutes about six minutes remaining for you to do so Josh all right so Greg when we went to break I mentioned I want to talk a little bit about the litigation process because I know all of this is not just simply making a phone call to someone who knows a tax that owns the tax lien and paying them off mean some of these are disputed and probably arise to some level of litigation or some level of court involvement they explain a little bit about that and what role you play in that well from both sides of whether it's in an investor who asks us to help them or whether it's an owner who wants to redeem if it's been three years since the tax sale then we're probably going to wind up in court if we can't if we can't get it resolved and getting it resolved I'll be candid with you the investors probably once it's a deed the investor is probably not going to just accept the tax as an interest that that we're paid there they're going to want money for the other expenses that they've they've got that they've incurred and if you make them sue you well now you're going to be wound up paying the attorney fees for the other side as well so the four homeowners the the thing I think would be the most important thing is move quickly as soon as you realize you're delinquent in your taxes move quickly and for investors I suspect that the thing that's probably most important is don't break the law you know don't threaten people don't try to try to run people out of their homes because you will wind up in court and you're probably going to lose and that's how we get to litigation is when when either the the the two parties can't resolve it or if the investor has broken the law you know you raise something that we hadn't talked about yet and that is even after three years someone can still redeem their property that's right once it becomes a deed a tax deed is still sort of a lien on the property and it can be redeemed think of it sort of as a foreclosure you still have a certain period of time to redeem after a foreclosure so that's a good analogy I think so if it's been three years you can't just go down to the courthouse and you know do some paperwork you're gonna wind up having probably to sue in order to get your property back and if it's an investor who's trying to get the property candidly they've probably already sued you and they've sued you to eject you from that property so they can take possession you know there's an old phrase possession is nine-tenths of the law and that is no more true than in tax liens the the if you are in possession of the property whether you're the investor or whether you're the homeowner you have a great advantage on winding up with that property do you run into conflicts because it sounds like in some ways your practice and it sounds rightly so this is what you'd have to do in this industry is sometimes you're representing investors and sometimes you're representing individuals do you run into conflicts at all with that or do you have relationships with certain investors that if they're involved in property you just can't get involved in those cases how does that work as I would think those conflicts could be complicated sometimes fortunately we haven't run into that a lot I have an associate called Alex Davies and and he's also a Birmingham School of Law grad and he is all over that every time we get a new client the first thing he comes in and tells me is do we have a conflict with this client and and you're exactly right if an investor who I represent is trying to take possession of property or has possession of property and the homeowner contacts us we have to tell the homeowner you know I'll refer them to another attorney or try to help them out some way but we can't represent them so in my area of practice in plaintiff personal injury litigation there are a lot of us as you probably see on television all the time in your area practice are you a unique 'ti I mean are you are there a lot of others like you that do this area or maybe some dabble in it I mean this sounds like such a specialty it really is a specialty there are a few very few people in state there's a woman called Denise Evans and she's been teaching classes to investors on how to invest in tax liens and she's the matriarch of tax lien investing in this state but she's not an attorney so she she doesn't practice the law and doesn't give legal advice but she has connected me to some of the other attorneys in Alabama who do this and I would say there's probably five in the state that know what they're doing you thought about teaching this yet that's cool that's a great good he would be really great like I've learned a lot about this topic I'm fascinated by the topic well thank you I thank you about a minute 15 remaining just time enough for a quick final thought and if you wouldn't you go first please sir I think I kind of bled into my final thought a minute ago really I think this if you find that your taxes were not paid whether it's on a I'm a lot next door to your house or on your homestead quickly get that taken care of contact Collison right or Stanley an associates or somebody and get that taken care of as quick as you can and if you're an investor before you jump into this you learn the system learn how to do it you talk to Dennis Evans or or take a class or consult with an attorney you know this is all I'd say is this this is so clearly one of these areas of the law that if you need advice you need to get to a lawyer and if you can't remember who we brought on the show call us and we're gonna get you to Gregg and so you know you need to reach out to someone and do it quickly so that you got an opportunity to make sure you're still at an advantage to try and get these claims resolved great job man great job thank you enjoy thank you for being with us and thank you as well as always we really appreciate your time and we'll look for you next time right here on the attorneys have a great week everybody thanks for watching the attorneys sponsored by Hollis right you