vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"Anyone can sue you. Whether or not they would win the lawsuit is what matters, and to win there would have to be measurable damages. How much money could the seller possibly have lost due to this in just a few days? IMHO the most you'd realistically be out is your earnest money. BTW, your realtor gets paid only if you purchase a home, so in this case your realtor may not have your best interests in mind if the choices are: ""buy this house"" or ""don't buy anything"". Definitely talk to an attorney, and then consider notifying the seller ASAP."
"We’re buying the home right over $200,000 so that means he will only need to put down (as a ‘gift’) roughly $7000. I'm with the others, don't call this a gift unless it is a gift. I'd have him check with the bank that previously refused him a mortgage if putting both of you on a mortgage would allay their concerns. Your cash flow would be paying the mortgage payment and if you failed to do so, then they could fall back on his. That may make more sense to them, even if they would deny each of you a loan on your own. This works for them because either of you is responsible for the whole loan. It works for him because he was already willing to be responsible for the whole loan. And your alternative plan makes you responsible for the whole loan, so this is just as good for you. At what percentage would you suggest splitting ownership and future expenses? Typically a cash/financing partnership would be 50/50, but since it’s only a 3.5% down-payment instead of 20% is that still fair? Surprisingly enough, a 3.5% down-payment that accumulates is about half the equity of a 20% down-payment. So your suggestion of a 25%-75% split makes sense if 20% would give a 50%-50% split. I expected it to be considerably lower. The way that I calculated it was to have his share increase by his equity share of the ""rent"" which I set to the principal plus interest payment for a thirty year loan. With a 20% down-payment, this would give him 84% equity. With 3.5%, about 40% equity. I'm not sure why 84% equity should be the equivalent of a 50% share, but it may be a side effect of other expenses. Perhaps taking property taxes out would reduce the equity share. Note that if you increase the down-payment to 20%, your mortgage payment will drop substantially. The difference in interest between 3.5% and 20% equity is a couple hundred dollars. Also, you'll be able to eliminate any PMI payment at 20%.
You need to talk to a local attorney specializing in real estate matters. The contract needs to ensure that your interests are protected. How you do that is too complex for an answer here and varies from state to state, or even jurisdictions within a state. There are all sorts of options. Sometimes deals like this are structured so that you can actually sell your remaining equity in the property to a third party later on. If the property has value, but the banks aren't interested in lending right now, you could potentially make money on it down the road.
Very few people's credit is worth $100,000. The average homeowner's credit (family of four with good to very good credit) is worth about $30,000. This is a pure business decision. The bank knew the law when they extended the mortgage to you, and part of the amount they're charging you goes to cover the risk that you might opt to walk away. The mortgage was an agreement between you and the bank and it specified the penalty for you walking away. Taking the agreed upon penalty for an action specifically contemplated in the agreement is also keeping the agreement.
It's not legal unless you have written permission to do so and have cleared it with the broker. You'll probably get away with it until one time when communicating with your broker, you'll mention you're not the account owner, in which case the account is frozen and closed immediately (money laundering regulations).
The only downside is for the agents, not you. Agents, especially selling agents, prefer the concession over the price reduction for their own interests.  They get a commission on a higher purchase price.  That, and the recorded sales price for the house is a tad higher, which incrementally increases the comps for the next sales. When we moved, the agent conditioned me to get ready to offer a concession should we decide to sell our previous home.  We decided to rent that property, and have someone else manage it. But with regard to your questions, the concessions are applied against your closing costs.  When we bought our last house they specified caps on the closing costs, so money will be typically be withheld (or not) contractually. The concessions aren't a taxable gain.  Your basis in the property will be higher than if you get a price reduction, but the lower basis (hopefully) means a higher capital gain when you sell.
There is nothing illegal about a vehicle being in one person's name and someone else using it.  An illegal straw purchase usually applies to something where, for example,  the purchaser is trying to avoid a background check (as with firearms) or is trying to hide assets, so they use someone else to make the purchase on their behalf to shield real ownership. As for insurance, there's no requirement for you to own a vehicle in order to buy insurance so that you can drive someone else's vehicle.  In other words, you can buy liability coverage that applies to any vehicle you're operating. The long and short of it here is that you're not doing anything illegal or otherwise improper,but I give you credit for having the good morals for wanting to make sure you're doing the right thing.
"Your Spidey senses are good. A good friend would not put you in such a position. It's simple, to skirt some issue (we'll get to that in a second) you are being asked to lie. All for a 15% return on your $$$$. <<< How much is that?  You can easily lend him the money, and have a better paper trail. But the bank is not going to like that, and requires this money from friends or family to be a gift. I've heard mortgage guys at the bank say ""It's just a formality, we need this paperwork to sell the loan to the investors."" These bankers belong in jail, or at least fired and barred from the industry. They broke the economy in 2008, and should be stopped from doing it again."
"I put about that down on my place.  I could have purchased it for cash, but since my investments were returning more interest than the loan was costing me (much easier to achieve now!), this was one of the safest possible ways of making ""leverage"" work for me. I could have put less down and increased the leverage, but tjis was what I felt most comfortable with. Definitely make enough of a down payment to avoid mortgage insurance. You may want to make enough of a down payment that the bank trusts you to handle your property insurance and taxes yourself rather than insisting on an escrow account and building that into the loan payments; I trust myself to mail the checks on time much more than I trust the bank. Beyond that it's very much a matter of personal preference and what else you might do with the money."
People also tend to be more prudent when considering the total cost of a purchase rather than just the monthly payment because it ""feels"" like more money when you buy outright. As a gut check for whether this is a good idea, here is an example that Dave Ramsey likes to use: Suppose that your friend did not have the emergency fund, and also did not have the car loan and owned the car outright. In that case, would your friend take out a title loan on the car in order to have an emergency fund? I think that a lot of people would say no, which may be a good indicator that it is wise to reduce the emergency fund in order to wipe out the debt, rather than maintaining both."
"I've been prompted to turn my comments into an answer -  Disclosure - I am a Realtor. I work for an investor for whom an offer on a house he will buy describes him as a ""cash buyer."" This phrase most often means one of two things -  The buyer has funds that are liquid enough to either wire the cash or produce a cashier's check in some number of days, a week or two would be common. (And not wait for another house to sell) The other point of this is that the seller is not willing to finance the property. The flip side being that the seller will take a down payment and let the buyer pay over time.  I am nearly 54, and I'm open to the fact that language changes. Definition follows usage. In personal finance, we refer to a stock/bond/cash mix. Here, the word ""cash"" simply means money such as money market or short term T-bills. A 60/30/10 mix doesn't mean I have a briefcase of cash under my bed for that 10%.  To answer the OP, I'd ask the seller does ""cash"" mean - Keep in mind, when a seller has a buyer who needs to sell their home first, there can be a chain going a few levels. When it's ""turtles all the way down"" it becomes too risky to the seller.  No, you are not out of luck. I'd open a dialog with the seller or their agent if any. Sales is all about understanding what each person's goal is."
Market value and assessments are two different things. No matter how amical the agreement seems on buying and selling, the future could result in damaged relationships without an absolute sale. I would strongly recommend getting into an agreement to split the purchase of a house as a means to save money. If it's too late, sell immediately.
Let the man be. If you've tried again and again to convince him, and haven't, maybe he doesn't want to be convinced. It's his money, and he has every right to manage it as he sees fit. You can advise him, but its his call whether he accepts your advice or not, and for what reasons. And suppose you push and push and it gets through? Now either he has more money than he would otherwise, and he's happy he has such a smart friend. Or he loses 30% of his money, and you're trying to tell him that he's going to earn it back in due time, but you can't, because he's not talking to you. Ever. What do you think is the mean benefit to your friendship?
Equity means having ownership, and I think that's a REALLY bad idea in the scenario that you described.  If you stay together, there's really no upside to either of you in this scheme.  If you break-up then you'll have a terrible mess, especially if the break-up goes badly.  If she's really building equity, you're going to be faced with several hard questions: If this went bad at the end, it might be worse than a divorce in some sense since at least in the divorce you have established law to sort out the issues.  You'll be on your own here without a formal contract. (Marriage being a special case of a contract for our purposes here.) If she wants to share costs (which seems perfectly fair) then agree to rent and a split on utilities.  If you really insist on going down the path that you described, I think that you'll need some sort of contract, which probably involves a lawyer.  Anything short of that could not be considered having equity at all and will be completely unenforceable in the event of a bad break-up. (There is some notion of a verbal contract, but that's very hard to prove and subject to misunderstanding and misremembering.) Aside from all of these potential problems in event of a break-up, you would probably also be violating the terms of your mortgage, if you have one. From the bank's perspective, you are selling the property that is the collateral for that loan, which you're almost surely not allowed to do.
"If this is your friend, and he that convinced he will ""get rich"" from this then there's really nothing you CAN do. You've obviously done your best to explain the situation to him, but he's been caught up in their sales pitch, and that's more convincing to him. I worked in sales for many years, and the answers he gives you (the one about not needing to know the details of how your smartphone works is a classic variation of typical objection-handling that salespeople are taught) proves that he has been sucked in by their scheme. At this stage, all you're going to do is ruin your friendship with him if you continue to press the matter, because he has made it clear he can't be convinced that this is anything other than legitimate. The reality is, he is probably in too deep at this stage to just walk away from it, so he has to convince himself that he made a wise choice. Schemes like this use a ""scarcity"" approach (there's only so much to go around, and if you don't get yours now then someone else will get it) coupled with ego-boosting (boy, Mr. Prospect, this is such a great opportunity, and you're one of only a few who are sophisticated enough to understand and take advantage of it) to get people to lower their guard and not ask a whole lot of probing questions. Nobody wants to feel stupid, and they don't want others to think they're stupid, so these schemes will present the information in such a way that ordinarily prudent questions come across as sounding dumb, making the questioner seem not so smart. Rather than walking away from it, peoples' pride will sometimes make them double down on it, and they'll just go along with it to come across as though they get it, even when they really don't. The small payouts at early stages are a classic sign of a Ponzi scheme. Your friend will never listen to you as long as those little checks continue to come in, because to him they're absolute proof he's right and you're wrong.
Although it may be a little late for you, the real answer is this:  When you close on a mortgage for a primary residence you are affirming (in an affidavit), two intents: Now, these are affirming intentions — not guarantees; so if a homeowner has a change of circumstance, and cannot meet these affirmed intentions, there is almost always no penalty.  Frankly, the mortgage holder's primary concern is you make payments on time, and they likely won't bother with any inquiry.   That being said, should a homeowner have a pattern of buying primary residences, and in less than 1 year converting that primary to a rental, and purchasing a new primary; there will likely be a grounds for prosecution for mortgage fraud. In your specific situation, you cannot legally sign the owner-occupancy affidavit with the intention of not staying for 1 year.  A solution would be to purchase the condo as a second home, or investment; both of which you can still typically get 80% financing.  A second home is tricky, I would ask your lender what their requirements are for 2nd home classification.   Outside that, you could buy the condo as a primary, stay in it for a year, then convert.  If you absolutely had to purchase the 2nd property before 1 year, you could buy it as a primary with a 2 month rent back once you reach 10 months.  Should you need it earlier, just buy the 2nd house as an investment, then once you move in, refinance it as a primary. This last strategy requires some planning ahead and you should explain your intention to the loan officer ahead of time so they can properly price the non-owner occupied loan.
Some mortgages also may have prepayment penalties (check your note). In this case there isn't a penalty, so the bank gets $50,125 from the sale. Usually, the bank would get that immediately at closing - ie, he doesn't get the full $141k or $150k and then write a check, instead the title/closing company gets that amount, and gives the $9k to the realtors, the $50,125 to the bank, and the remaining $90,875 to him. Don't forget he may also owe income taxes, and sometimes other local taxes, on the profit on the sale. In this case the IRS wouldn't get anything (as it's under $250k), assuming it's a primary residence, but keep that in mind. Also - in the case of a foreclosure, the bank will get some extra money to pay for the costs it incurred in foreclosing on and selling the house."
The thing is, as you mentioned in the question, you have to go through a specific process of calling him to change your portfolio, which shouldn't be a condition. What might happen is, if he is getting some benefits out of the arrangement(get it clarified in the first place if you intend to go through them), from the side of the fund, he might try to dissuade you from doing so to protect his stream of income. And what if he is on a holiday or you cannot get hold of him. Secondly from your question, it seems you aren't that investing literate. So it is very easy to get you confused by jargon and making you do what he gets the maximum benefit out of it, rather than which benefits you more. I ain't saying he is doing so but that could be a possibility too, so you have consider that angle too. The pro is that setting up an account through them might be much easier than directly going to a provider. But the best point doing it yourself is, you will learn and there is nothing which tops that. You don't want somebody else managing your money, however knowledgeable they maybe i.e. Anthony Bolton.
Usually the most significant risk scenarios here are: Third parties can abuse your routing/account numbers to initiate debits, but this is a type of fraud that is easily traced. It can happen, but it is more likely that it would be a scenario where you were specifically targeted vs. the victim of some random fraud. Defending against someone who is specifically going after you is very difficult, especially if you don't know about it. Your SSN isnt used for the bank transfer, you are providing it so that the entity making the payments can report on payments to you for tax purposes. If you are truly worried about this type of scenario, I suggest setting up a dedicated savings account for the purpose of receiving these payments and then sweeping (either manually or automatically) the funds into another account. Most stock brokers will allow you to automate this, and most banks will let you do this manually.
It's a fine line; if you offer a few hundred less than list the seller will think you're nitpicking and stay firm, while if you offer significantly less, the seller may be unable to accept that price because it means he no longer has the cash to close on his new home. REOs and bank-owned properties are often sold at a concrete asking price; the bank will not even respond to anything less, and usually will not even agree to eat closing costs. Even if it's for sale by owner, the owner may be in trouble on their own mortgage, and if they agree to a short sale and the bank gets wind (it's trivial to match a list of distressed mortgaged properties with the MLS listings), the bank can swoop in, foreclose the mortgage, take the property and kill the deal (they're the primary lienholder; you don't ""own"" your house until it's paid for), and then everybody loses. Third, housing prices in this economy, depending on market, are pretty depressed and have been for years; if you're selling right now, you are almost certainly losing thousands of dollars in cash and/or equity. Despite that, sellers, in listing their home, must offer an attractive price for the market, and so they are in the unenviable position of pricing based on what they can afford to lose. That again often means that even a seller who isn't a bank and isn't in mortgage trouble may still be losing thousands on the deal and is firm on the asking price to staunch the bleeding. Your agent can see the signs of a seller backed against a wall, and again in order for your offer to be considered in such a situation it has to be damn close to list. As far as your agent trying to talk you into offering the asking price, there's honestly not much in it for him to tell you to bid higher vs lower. A $10,000 change in price (which can easily make or break a deal) is only worth $300 to him either way.
I heard from someone that since my friends are moving money to my account, I'm liable to be taxed by the IRS  Not completely true. If there are large deposits in your account, you may be asked for clarification from IRS. If there is a reasonable justification; in your case the agreement that you are sharing the apartment, the lease deed has all the 3 names, there is explicit mention in lease about how funds are transferred. Note at times the audit maybe in future for quite a bit of past. Hence you would need to keep the record for quite some time. Alternative arrangements like opening a joint account and making payments from that account may make it easier from record keeping point of view.
"Edit #2 My whole answer was based on my misunderstanding that you were renting out a totally separate property to your girl friend.  I finally understand now that you're renting out a room in YOUR apartment flat to your gf.  So, based on my new understanding, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea.  The answer below is my answer to a different question ;) Original Answer My answer has nothing to do with business, but is totally relationship based.   If you care about her in a ""we might be together a long time"" way, then I wouldn't do this.  I don't care what arrangements you setup before hand, at some point, you're bound to feel like she owes you something at some point.  Let alone the easiest of situations to imagine (she's late on the rent, she loses her job and can't pay, etc) you'll be forced to make decisions about how much your desire to love and care for her outweighs your need to pay your mortgage.  You can argue how magnanimous your are all day long, but is this something you want to bring into your relationship? Now, if you don't really care to stay with her that long and you could do life with or without her, then go for it.  I think the big question is, is your relationship worth £200? Edit In the interest of supporting my opinion, here are a few articles I found on the subject: Unfortunately, the way renting to friends or family often works out is far from what would be expected between people who care about one another. For the most part, friends and family members will actually make bad renters, because they’ll expect more from you than a tenant who doesn’t know you. You may get a lot of requests for maintenance and repairs, even for minor things, and you may also find that family members and friends think they should be entitled to perks because of your personal relationship with them. When they don’t get special treatment, they can get angry with you, and that hurts both your professional relationship and your personal relationship. American Apartment Owners Association ""In my experience, landlords renting to relatives doesn't work out perfectly,"" said Ceyhun Doker, a REALTOR® associate at Keller Williams Realty in Burlingame, CA. ""When you don't know each other, there are fewer problems."" realator.com"
While it may not be your preferred outcome, and doesn't eliminate the income, in the event you find yourself in the path described here you have a way to defer gains to the future. but I would then want to buy another house as a rental If you sell this house and buy another investment property (within strict time windows: 45 days to written contract and closed in 180 days),  you can transfer your basis and defer your gains via what is called a 1031 like-kind exchange