We have yet to see the full scope of fallout from the economic side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a great number of outlets are predicting that mortgage delinquency is likely to increase dramatically. That’s bad news for lenders on a number of levels. In the meantime, lenders are facing the up-front cost of dealing with laws designed to help borrowers to temporarily avoid paying their mortgages in the face of the crisis. Read More
Easements run like shattered cobwebs across the state of Arizona. These property rights provide one person a right to use another person’s property for certain limited uses—and this limited use is considered a form of real estate interest that the property owner cannot simply revoke at will under law. Read More
“Good things come to those who wait.” At least that is what litigant Michael Pasquan hopes in the thirteen-year-old litigation following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Helvetica Servicing, Inc. v. Michael S. Paquan . Read More
Occasionally we get the question of what effects filing for bankruptcy has on the property foreclosure process in the state of Arizona. It’s something of a complicated issue, and one that requires consultation with an attorney on a case-by-case basis. But there are some general effects we can get into. Bankruptcy effectively halts a lender’s debt collection efforts made against the person or entity that has filed for it. Read More
The battle over short-term rental services has been raging in Arizona over the past few years. For a little while state law was in place that forbade municipalities—counties and cities or towns—from banning short-term rental services. The idea was that people with extra space or who were away from home might be able to make a bit of extra money by renting out rooms or their homes for brief spans of time, which would be a boon for the local economy. Read More
In the recent decision Ibarra v. Gastelum, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division 1, found that the Arizona Residential Landlord Tenant Act (“ARLTA”) does not have the specificity required by statute to support a negligence per se personal injury claim. While this seems like a technical decision interpreting obscure and jargon-laced statutes, it has important ramifications for tenants who may be injured by a condition in their rental unit. Read More
It is not uncommon for a commercial lease agreement to last years, or even decades. Nor is it uncommon for them to last for a far shorter duration. Either way, the eventual result is nearly always the same: the lease comes to a point of termination. But how does the termination of commercial leases differ from that of residential leases in Arizona? Read More
The term of a lease is considered a sort of contract under Arizona law. Under normal circumstances, the breach of a contract due to lack of performance by one of the parties will mean that the other party has the right to seek either damages or for fulfillment of the contract to the extent that they were set to benefit from it. This leads to the question: if a landlord evicts a tenant (let’s say it’s for failure to pay back rent), can the landlord sue for the rent they are owed for previous months unpaid, as well as the rent they would have received through the end of the lease, had that lease run its full course? Read More
The landlord-tenant relationship is filled with the potential to become a rocky one. This was particularly true before the various legal measures that have been adopted to forestall, ameliorate, or address this fact—and none of these measures have managed to do away with it entirely. One particularly contentious issue that can arise is in the case that a tenant on a property has done some form of damage to it—and especially if it appears this has been done purposely. Read More
Sometimes a home or other form of real property is foreclosed on, and its resale does not make enough money from the perspective of the lender. In this case, Arizona allows for a post-foreclosure deficiency to be claimed in some circumstances. Such a claim is filed by lenders as an attempt to recover the balance that remains following the sale or foreclosure—the difference between the sale price and the amount remaining on the foreclosed-upon owner’s mortgage—also known as a “deficiency.” And sometimes they will be granted. Read More
