Latest / Weekly Docket / Florida's Social Media Ban & Anti-Squatter Law, Trump Wins on Appeal, Wholesaling Explained, & Student Debt Crisis

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Florida's Social Media Ban & Anti-Squatter Law, Trump Wins on Appeal, Wholesaling Explained, & Student Debt Crisis · Weekly Docket

• 0:04
  Track 1: Welcome to the Silberman Law Firm's weekly docket episode number 11, where we talk legal news and practical law.
• 0:11
  Track 1: Today is March 28th, 2024.
• 0:14
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: all
• 0:15
  Track 1: I'm Phil Silberman, owner of the firm and your host, and I'm joined by my co host Austin Black.
• 0:21
  Track 1: How are you doing today, Austin?
• 0:22
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: today, Austin?
• 0:23
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: So first for our legal news section, we're going
• 0:27
  Track 1: Good Friday, Easter weekend.
• 0:30
  Track 1: What's on our docket today, Austin?
• 0:32
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: to be talking about Florida's new law that they passed to try to limit social media for minors.
• 0:38
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: and then Florida passed a law that might not be as useful, the anti squatter law.
• 0:45
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: and then, talking about an update to, one of Trump's myriad of problems at the moment.
• 0:53
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: this is a civil fraud case.
• 0:54
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: and then we'll get on to our legal questions.
• 0:57
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: gonna talk about how to deal with vehicles when someone dies.
• 1:01
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: how to transfer the title, etc and then a little bit about wholesaling of real property then how exactly a bankruptcy deals with mortgage debt and then finally we'll wrap up with our Ran raves and it's going to be about a subject.
• 1:17
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: I feel very strongly about tuition and student loans.
• 1:20
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: So very
• 1:21
  Track 1: to your heart.
• 1:21
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: Very near and dear.
• 1:22
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: Yes.
• 1:23
  Track 1: let's start with our legal news section.
• 1:26
  Track 1: Florida passed a new law to limit social media for minors.
• 1:31
  Track 1: And here's the breakdown.
• 1:33
  Track 1: Children under the age of 14 are prohibited from accessing any social media.
• 1:39
  Track 1: And if the kid's 14 and 15, they need express consent from their parents.
• 1:45
  Track 1: So in my opinion, there's nothing bad about this law.
• 1:49
  austin_2_03-28-2024_140534: I agree with that.
• 1:50
  Track 1: So social media to me for kids is a very bad thing.
• 1:54
  Track 1: And we've got some statistics on this over half of all girls.
• 2:00
  Track 1: Say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies.
• 2:03
  Track 1: 64 percent of kids experience cyber bullying, and it makes a hundred percent of all kids stupid and unproductive.
• 2:11
  Track 1: That's my, that last one was my stat,
• 2:13
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah, I saw the empirical studies.
• 2:15
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I can confirm.
• 2:16
  Track 1: probably long term stupid and unproductive.
• 2:19
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: probably I'd wonder about how this is actually enforced, if it's just going to be something where you check a box saying that you're.
• 2:28
  Track 1: that's what they do now.
• 2:29
  Track 1: and we talked about a previous episode, the child, what is it?
• 2:33
  Track 1: The children's online.
• 2:35
  Track 1: Protection Act And it was, you have to be over the age of 13, I think, to consent.
• 2:40
  Track 1: Nobody checks.
• 2:41
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Sure.
• 2:42
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: So I just wonder if this is another virtue signaling law from Florida, Hey, we're fighting back against TikTok, but this is actually, isn't going to do anything.
• 2:50
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: If it restricts them, I'm all for it.
• 2:52
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: But I just, I wonder really well.
• 2:54
  Track 1: they are tech companies.
• 2:55
  Track 1: But let's assume the tech companies can figure that out.
• 2:57
  Track 1: What does the opposition say?
• 2:58
  Track 1: what's the primary issue we're seeing here if you want to make the argument that this is not constitutional?
• 3:05
  Track 1: two big arguments on freedom of speech.
• 3:08
  Track 1: The first one is, It violates a minor's right to free speech.
• 3:14
  Track 1: And the big time lawyers for the tech companies say, Hey, don't forget minors have a right to freedom of speech as well.
• 3:24
  Track 1: sort of, that's really a blatant perversion by big tech lawyers.
• 3:29
  Track 1: I looked this up a little earlier today.
• 3:31
  Track 1: And U.
• 3:31
  Track 1: S.
• 3:32
  Track 1: Supreme Court, says that minors have some First Amendment rights, but it's not quite like adults.
• 3:38
  Track 1: for example, if I've got a 14 year old kid and he decides he's a neo Nazi, and he starts going, into the town square and starts yelling all of these crazy Nazi beliefs, I can drive down there, put him in my car, Bring him home and say, Hey, no more neo Nazi stuff is if he's posting to what I control, I can do that.
• 3:59
  Track 1: he's my ward.
• 4:01
  Track 1: I'm able to do that.
• 4:02
  Track 1: I can tell him what school he wants to go to.
• 4:04
  Track 1: I can make decisions on what kind of medical treatment he needs.
• 4:08
  Track 1: And I can certainly.
• 4:10
  Track 1: Tell them, hey, no neo Nazi stuff at the Silberman household.
• 4:14
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: This is this seems like so extreme, but yeah, you probably can't do that.
• 4:17
  Track 1: so for the first amendment, minors have a protection from government censorship.
• 4:23
  Track 1: but if the parents are the ones making the decision and most parents don't want their kids on social media.
• 4:28
  Track 1: then the parents can ultimately make that decision.
• 4:31
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: but they are arguing against government regulation here though, right?
• 4:34
  Track 1: yeah, the big tech is saying, yeah, this is government regulation, you could easily, the law as written is say, hey, if you're 14 or under, you just can't have it.
• 4:43
  Track 1: That part of it may be held on unconstitutional, but the part that says you need parental consent, I think that's going to stand up from a constitutionality standpoint.
• 4:55
  Track 1: the other, incredibly asinine argument that big tech is saying, you're going to violate adult first amendment rights too, because if Austin Black wants to get on to, create a TikTok account or something like that, then, Austin Black might not want to have to age, and that violates Austin's first amendment rights.
• 5:14
  Track 1: What do you think about that argument?
• 5:15
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Don't know how age verification violates your First Amendment rights when you want to buy alcohol or something this violates my First Amendment rights because I have to show you age from
• 5:25
  Track 1: that's a great illustration.
• 5:26
  Track 1: you go down to the liquor store and you're 22 years old, but you've got a baby face and you look like you're 18.
• 5:32
  Track 1: You've gotta show your ID card to buy the alcohol you want.
• 5:35
  Track 1: That doesn't violate your first amendment rights.
• 5:38
  Track 1: All kinds of reasons that we verify people's age.
• 5:40
  Track 1: I don't think, an adult's first amendment rights are violated because you ask adults to verify their age for certain things.
• 5:47
  Track 1: I think this is a great law.
• 5:48
  Track 1: I think these big tech companies are crooked.
• 5:50
  Track 1: They don't really care about.
• 5:52
  Track 1: First Amendment rights.
• 5:53
  Track 1: they don't care about their kids.
• 5:55
  Track 1: their hope is that, oh, all these kids are going to get addicted to social media.
• 5:59
  Track 1: And this is just like what the tobacco companies did for 100 years.
• 6:03
  Track 1: Get the kids addicted to tobacco, and then you've got customers for life.
• 6:07
  Track 1: I think what these social media companies don't realize is that we're going to have a whole generation of wasted kids.
• 6:13
  Track 1: Because the social media has made them so stupid.
• 6:16
  Track 1: They're not even able to be productive job holding members of society.
• 6:21
  Track 1: So they're going to have all these users of social media.
• 6:24
  Track 1: That's not worth anything to advertisers.
• 6:26
  Track 1: And if they're not worth anything to advertisers, then the advertisers aren't going to pay ad dollars to meta and Tik TOK.
• 6:33
  Track 1: So they've, they're basically ruining the country and this is all going to backfire and this is bad for everybody.
• 6:39
  Track 1: So great job, Florida.
• 6:41
  Track 1: We're in a war for our kids and these tech companies are the enemies.
• 6:45
  Track 1: I told my teenagers this week, we're moving to Florida.
• 6:49
  Track 1: let's keep moving.
• 6:49
  Track 1: Now we're going to stay in Florida.
• 6:51
  Track 1: We've got another interesting law passed in the state of Florida Ron DeSantis signed a new anti squatter law, and this law abolishes all squatter rights in the state of Florida is bill 621.
• 7:05
  Track 1: And it gives the police the right to remove squatters.
• 7:09
  Track 1: It makes it a felony for anyone to do over 1, 000 to damage property.
• 7:14
  Track 1: Let's talk first about how squatting works.
• 7:16
  Track 1: we're Texas attorneys, but it works pretty much the same all over the country.
• 7:21
  Track 1: squatting is known by real estate lawyers to be adverse possession.
• 7:25
  Track 1: The idea is that you come along and you see an unproductive property and you as a squatter are going to move in.
• 7:34
  Track 1: You're going to fix it up.
• 7:35
  Track 1: You're going to start paying taxes on it.
• 7:37
  Track 1: You're going to make that property productive.
• 7:40
  Track 1: And for hundreds of years in Texas, as a policy standpoint, we wanted this kind of behavior because we want Properties to be made productive.
• 7:49
  Track 1: And we, this government wants the tax revenue.
• 7:50
  Track 1: it's good for everybody.
• 7:52
  Track 1: So
• 7:52
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: one likes seeing that dilapidated property with weeds growing all over it, right?
• 7:56
  Track 1: Now it's been abused.
• 7:58
  Track 1: what's really set everybody ablaze on the internet is there's this one migrant.
• 8:03
  Track 1: I guess he's illegal and he has a TikTok account, Something like half a million followers on TikTok.
• 8:09
  Track 1: And he starts posting videos about.
• 8:11
  Track 1: How I don't work and you got to come here to this country and not work.
• 8:15
  Track 1: I get all of my money for free from the government and I move into people's houses on these things called squatters rights.
• 8:23
  Track 1: And it's really upset a whole faction in this country.
• 8:27
  Track 1: So how is this supposed to work?
• 8:29
  Track 1: let's say Austin, you own a property, you go on a two week vacation and you come back and there are squatters in your house.
• 8:34
  Track 1: do they just get to stay there?
• 8:35
  Track 1: Do you have to go through a formal eviction process?
• 8:38
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I live in Texas.
• 8:39
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I think we can just shoot him, right?
• 8:41
  Track 1: let's not do that.
• 8:42
  Track 1: let's not do that, but no, it's ridiculous.
• 8:46
  Track 1: if I go on vacation and I come home and I see squatters in my house, I'm just going to call the police and say, look, they don't, they're not alleging any real right of possession or any title interest, they are merely trespassers and they're committing a criminal trespass and they're and a civil trespass.
• 9:04
  Track 1: I'm going to call the constable.
• 9:06
  Track 1: They're going to kick him out of the house.
• 9:07
  Track 1: That's the way it works in Texas, except there are probably some circumstances where the police come over and the squatters say, Oh no, we've got a lease.
• 9:19
  Track 1: Or we've got a title interest and they're just completely fraudulently alleging some type of title interest or some type of leasehold interest.
• 9:28
  Track 1: In that case, the police are getting confused and they're saying, you know what, it's a civil matter.
• 9:32
  Track 1: And when that happens, then you have to go through an eviction process.
• 9:37
  Track 1: it's not an extremely long eviction process in Texas.
• 9:40
  Track 1: You can evict someone maybe in about a month or two in Texas.
• 9:43
  Track 1: But if I come back from vacation, I certainly don't want to be out of my house for a month or two while the squatters destroy my house.
• 9:51
  Track 1: I think that's what's got Florida really worked up about this.
• 9:54
  Track 1: Something I would have preferred to see done instead of just eliminating all adverse possession and squatters laws, is create an emergency court where if someone has this happen, they can go get a hearing in a day or two, have a judge make a decision on it, and then get them out of the house.
• 10:10
  Track 1: So that way you have some sort of mechanism that happens very quickly.
• 10:14
  Track 1: to determine whether what the squatters are doing is absolute fraud or if it's a real adverse possession claim that needs to go to a district court and a long process.
• 10:24
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: this law, if there even is a real adverse possession claim, police are probably going to just remove them.
• 10:30
  Track 1: All right, We're moving on to Trump now.
• 10:32
  Track 1: some of you may know that there's been a fight going on with this Trump case in New York.
• 10:38
  Track 1: What happened was the Trump organization and the Trump kids and Donald Trump, I'm just going to, I'm just going to collectively refer to them all as Trump.
• 10:46
  Track 1: They humming along doing their real estate business in the state of New York.
• 10:51
  Track 1: And as part of having a real estate business, you've got to get loans.
• 10:54
  Track 1: It's just part of the business.
• 10:55
  Track 1: And as part of getting loans, you need to do financial statements.
• 10:59
  Track 1: That's going to list the assets of your business.
• 11:02
  Track 1: It's going to list your collateral.
• 11:04
  Track 1: So Trump's organization, he lists the collateral on these financial statements.
• 11:10
  Track 1: The attorney general accuses him of fraudulently overstating The value of that collateral, the value of all of his other real estate holdings to induce lenders to get loans, which is a type of mortgage fraud.
• 11:23
  Track 1: So the attorney general prosecutes him, judge rules in favor of the attorney general, Trump loses, says, Hey, you've absolutely committed a mortgage fraud.
• 11:35
  Track 1: Trump appeals the ruling and the trial court judge set an appeal bond.
• 11:41
  Track 1: If you get a judgment, the judge says, Hey, if you want to appeal it, you've got to pay this bond.
• 11:46
  Track 1: It was something outrageous.
• 11:47
  Track 1: 464 million.
• 11:51
  Track 1: So before we get on to Trump's appeal of the bond amount and on just the other merits.
• 11:59
  Track 1: Let's talk about some interesting things about mortgage fraud allegations in this case.
• 12:04
  Track 1: Number one, the banks that Trump was dealing with.
• 12:07
  Track 1: These aren't small mom and pop banks.
• 12:09
  Track 1: These are big players in the state of New York.
• 12:12
  Track 1: Sophisticated parties.
• 12:14
  Track 1: They testified that they love the deals.
• 12:17
  Track 1: That they all of the money was paid back that they were happy with the deals that they made interest and the banks aren't complaining.
• 12:23
  Track 1: They said, we don't have any causes of action.
• 12:25
  Track 1: we got paid back.
• 12:26
  Track 1: this is essentially a victimless crime and it was I've seen over the years of being a business lawyer.
• 12:34
  Track 1: It's very common for real estate people and business people to do this kind of thing, to overstate their assets, to get loans.
• 12:40
  Track 1: no, that's not right.
• 12:41
  Track 1: we, as lawyers, if you have a client, tell them, Hey, you, you shouldn't commit mortgage fraud.
• 12:46
  Track 1: we try to keep our clients from doing that, obviously.
• 12:48
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: encourage any kinds of fraud.
• 12:50
  Track 1: We try to do that.
• 12:51
  Track 1: But I have in all the years I've practiced, I've never seen a prosecution, either a civil action from a bank when they've been completely paid back in whole is never seen it happen.
• 13:03
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Sure.
• 13:03
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: banks aren't bringing the action.
• 13:05
  Track 1: So this is clearly the attorney general.
• 13:07
  Track 1: I am not a Trump fan and I'm not a Trump supporter, but to someone like me, this reads like a political persecution.
• 13:15
  Track 1: This case specifically, anyway, so Trump, has this big bond and it's 464 million.
• 13:22
  Track 1: And this is how it does work, If you're a defendant and you get a judgment against you and for whatever the amount is, the second the judge signs that order, the plaintiff or the, who's now the creditor can start collecting on that judgment.
• 13:39
  Track 1: just because you appeal alone, that doesn't stay collection, that doesn't stay collection proceedings on the judgment.
• 13:45
  Track 1: And the attorney general very aggressively was going to start foreclosing on Trump's assets, so very sizable.
• 13:51
  Track 1: and luxurious pieces of real estate.
• 13:53
  Track 1: And it was going to be a real hindrance for Trump, his kids and the organization.
• 13:58
  Track 1: So Trump has to appeal this thing.
• 14:00
  Track 1: And he's staring down the barrel of a 464 million bond.
• 14:05
  Track 1: And he's saying, I just don't have that kind of liquidity.
• 14:07
  Track 1: I don't have that kind of money.
• 14:09
  Track 1: So he appeals this thing and the appellate court says, no, 464 million is unreasonable.
• 14:18
  Track 1: 175 million seems like the right number.
• 14:21
  Track 1: what is this doing?
• 14:22
  Track 1: this is, it's galvanizing his base.
• 14:25
  Track 1: His base is thinking guys, they're more fired up to vote for Trump than ever.
• 14:30
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: yeah,
• 14:30
  Track 1: it's taking people like me who are basically a moderate.
• 14:34
  Track 1: And saying, cause I don't love our our judicial system being weaponized against anybody, because it's only a matter of time before you're on the wrong side of that, whether you're a Democrat or Republican.
• 14:44
  Track 1: I don't like This kind of persecution.
• 14:46
  Track 1: And this reads like a political weaponization.
• 14:50
  Track 1: have you heard of Truth Social, Austin?
• 14:52
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: yes, I've heard of Truth Social.
• 14:54
  Track 1: Okay.
• 14:55
  Track 1: Now, are you an avid, Truth Social user?
• 14:59
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I've never even downloaded it once, nor gone to their website.
• 15:04
  Track 1: Truth Social, when Trump websites, he launched Truth Social, which is a social media platform where.
• 15:14
  Track 1: if you have really conservative things to say or outlandish things to say where it's not going to be super.
• 15:20
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: you saying those two can be correlated?
• 15:23
  Track 1: drawing making no connections, but let's just say they're going to be a truth.
• 15:28
  Track 1: Social is probably going to be a little loosey goosey with fact checking, which is the irony of being called truth social
• 15:35
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I don't even think it is though, right?
• 15:37
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: If you have to name your social media site Truth Social, I think that, I think doth protest too much, right?
• 15:46
  Track 1: Okay.
• 15:46
  Track 1: Okay.
• 15:47
  Track 1: there's some debate over whether, Instagram and, TikTok are filtering, but I do believe the big social media companies are filtering some of this stuff out.
• 15:56
  Track 1: I'll give you a perfect example.
• 15:57
  Track 1: there's a new setting that just came out where you can toggle on or off your desire to see politically affiliated content.
• 16:07
  Track 1: And in Instagram's complete boldness, they decided that we're too stupid.
• 16:12
  Track 1: To make our own selection.
• 16:13
  Track 1: So they just defaulted that toggle button to I do not want to see any political content.
• 16:20
  Track 1: So you, you actually have to go in and uncheck that.
• 16:23
  Track 1: First of all, you'd have to know about it, which nobody knows about.
• 16:26
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I,
• 16:26
  Track 1: And then you'd have to go in and uncheck that.
• 16:30
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: and okay.
• 16:31
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Hear me out though.
• 16:32
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I actually don't think that's very bad.
• 16:34
  Track 1: Okay,
• 16:35
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: and the reason for that is I actually don't think the majority of people do really want, politically affiliated content on their feed.
• 16:44
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I don't think the majority of people want it
• 16:46
  Track 1: you may be 100 percent correct about that.
• 16:49
  Track 1: my libertarian tendencies are to say, I don't want Instagram meta deciding who gets to see political content or not, but truth.
• 16:58
  Track 1: truth, social is out there and it's, Trump decided to take it public and he owns 60 percent of that company.
• 17:07
  Track 1: And this is a company.
• 17:09
  Track 1: That did 3.
• 17:10
  Track 1: 4 million in revenue.
• 17:13
  Track 1: if you don't know anything about, stocks or business, that's a really small number for a publicly traded company.
• 17:21
  Track 1: That stock IPO this week.
• 17:25
  Track 1: And it now, I think as the date of this podcast has a market.
• 17:29
  Track 1: valuation of 6 billion with the B.
• 17:33
  Track 1: So a company that does 3.
• 17:35
  Track 1: 4 million in annual revenue is valued at 6 billion.
• 17:39
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: So I'm actually looking at a article that was updated two days ago, and It's valued at 11 billion.
• 17:46
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah.
• 17:49
  Track 1: so it's still a big number.
• 17:51
  Track 1: It's still a bigger.
• 17:52
  Track 1: now this is my favorite, like CNN quote, okay.
• 17:55
  Track 1: See, and I was looking at an article on CNN and one of the commentators or the author or somebody they were quoting said, The valuation of truth social defies logic and I'm like, of course it does from a financial standpoint, but it absolutely doesn't from just a Practical understanding standpoint, the liberal media has persecuted Trump and he's been politically weaponized.
• 18:21
  Track 1: I'm not saying he's not a saint.
• 18:23
  Track 1: Trump is not a saint.
• 18:24
  Track 1: He's done things that are wrong.
• 18:25
  Track 1: I don't know for certain, but I'm going to say he definitely paid hookers and strippers to shut up
• 18:30
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: we've all done that, right?
• 18:32
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: When our wives are pregnant, we all go pay like hookers and strippers, like hush money.
• 18:36
  Track 1: or porn, porn stars.
• 18:37
  Track 1: I think it was a porn star.
• 18:39
  Track 1: he's not mother Teresa.
• 18:42
  Track 1: He's not a saint.
• 18:43
  Track 1: He's made his own fair share of mistakes, but the logic in this CNN is that what you've done is galvanized his base so much.
• 18:55
  Track 1: you have to recognize he's, he was elected president.
• 18:58
  Track 1: So he's got somewhere over 45 percent of the popular vote, right?
• 19:02
  Track 1: So there's enough people out there that are really big Trump supporters.
• 19:06
  Track 1: that are really upset and they all went and they bought true social because they're Trump supporters.
• 19:11
  Track 1: And they basically made this thing a meme stock.
• 19:13
  Track 1: it's a huge windfall for Trump and we're going to have to see how much he decides to sell or if he's going to pledge true socialist collateral for the bond and how that's going to work, but this is a big win for Trump.
• 19:25
  Track 1: All right.
• 19:25
  Track 1: Let's answer some legal questions, So someone dies and they've got a vehicle and oftentimes it's not a very nice vehicle, but they don't have anything else.
• 19:35
  Track 1: What are you going to tell that person?
• 19:36
  Track 1: Austin?
• 19:37
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You probably just need to go get a, an affidavit of airship for a motor vehicle.
• 19:40
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: It's usually a local form that they'll have to take care of that.
• 19:43
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: similar to an affidavit of airship that's done for real property.
• 19:47
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: and you take it, you fill it out and then you'll just it over to, you can get to the DPS.
• 19:53
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: They'll transfer the title of that car to your name and you'll go forward from there.
• 19:57
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Track 1: If you got someone that all they've got is a vehicle or a couple of vehicle, no other assets.
• 20:01
  Track 1: probates are somewhat expensive.
• 20:03
  Track 1: We're not going to do a whole probate.
• 20:06
  Track 1: It's pretty easy enough for them to do on their own So it's a good option If someone was really uncomfortable, they could pay us to do the affidavit of airship for motor vehicle But I don't recommend it's pretty easy You can do it on your own now If you're trying to clear title to real estate and you're just doing the affidavit of airship I do recommend you hire an attorney for that.
• 20:24
  Track 1: We do those all the time Real estate is just a little more complex.
• 20:27
  Track 1: It's a little more important.
• 20:29
  Track 1: And that does get recorded in the real property records.
• 20:31
  Track 1: And I do recommend you hire a lawyer for that.
• 20:34
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: don't want to do it yourself and then be selling the property, have the title company reviewing everything.
• 20:39
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: And then they look at your affidavit of ownership like, Oh, we can't take this.
• 20:41
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah.
• 20:42
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You don't want that
• 20:43
  Track 1: All right.
• 20:43
  Track 1: let's move along talking about wholesalers.
• 20:46
  Track 1: What is a wholesaler?
• 20:47
  Track 1: when someone says, Hey, I'm a wholesaler, what they're really saying is I'm a person that goes around and I try to get people to enter into a contract with me at a low price, And then after they enter into the contract I go and try to immediately find another buyer to sell it to.
• 21:08
  Track 1: at a higher price, and then I assign the original contract I did.
• 21:13
  Track 1: with the seller to the new buyer.
• 21:18
  Track 1: And I make the difference on, on the spread, right?
• 21:21
  Track 1: So if I entered into a contract for a hundred grand, and then I find a new buyer willing to pay 110, I assign it to the new buyer.
• 21:30
  Track 1: And I take the difference.
• 21:30
  Track 1: I take the 10 grand.
• 21:32
  Track 1: these situations cause so many problems.
• 21:34
  Track 1: They're probably a big part of our real estate practice.
• 21:36
  Track 1: Thank you to wholesalers and everybody out there that
• 21:39
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: business.
• 21:40
  Track 1: for giving, for keeping us in business.
• 21:42
  Track 1: So our wholesale is required to be licensed in Texas.
• 21:45
  Track 1: Real estate license?
• 21:47
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I don't believe they are right?
• 21:49
  Track 1: no, there's no requirement to be licensed in Texas.
• 21:53
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 21:54
  Track 1: there was some recent regulation and what the law said, I think this is in the last 2 or three years, they said, look, if you're gonna wholesale, you have to disclose that you're not actually marketing an interest in the real property, because that does require a real estate license if you're out there advertising the property.
• 22:12
  Track 1: Then that's that requires a real estate license.
• 22:14
  Track 1: when you go on these various websites.
• 22:17
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: they
• 22:18
  Track 1: And, maybe you're on Craigslist or you're on Zillow and you're posting a listing, how many of the wholesalers are advertising that they're selling contracts and how many of them are advertising they're selling property?
• 22:28
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: all advertise they're selling property.
• 22:30
  Track 1: They're all advertising they're selling property.
• 22:31
  Track 1: So there's basically no real compliance.
• 22:34
  Track 1: All the wholesalers are doing this illegally wholesalers love to call us up and they say, Hey, can you do a double close now?
• 22:44
  Track 1: Have you heard that term before Austin?
• 22:45
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I have heard that term before.
• 22:47
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: It's a, sure that term is what started multiple litigation files.
• 22:51
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I'm currently involved in at the moment, but yes, I have heard it.
• 22:55
  Track 1: let me tell you.
• 22:56
  Track 1: what a wholesaler means when they say, Hey, can you do a double close?
• 22:59
  Track 1: And we have a title company as well.
• 23:00
  Track 1: We're a fee attorney for Fidelity National Title.
• 23:03
  Track 1: So we close deals through Fidelity and we'll get wholesalers that calls up, Hey, can your title company do a double close?
• 23:09
  Track 1: What they're really meaning to say is.
• 23:12
  Track 1: Can you open an escrow file and close the property that I have the contract on without me providing the seller any money, and then close the other file where I found this new buyer?
• 23:27
  Track 1: And then just pay me out the spread.
• 23:30
  Track 1: And our answer to that is absolutely not.
• 23:32
  Track 1: we can do a double close in the sense of we can have two escrow files open and we can close one at 2 48 PM and close the next one at 2 49 PM.
• 23:45
  Track 1: But you're going to have to pay money.
• 23:46
  Track 1: at least that I'm aware of.
• 23:47
  Track 1: There's no such thing as the.
• 23:49
  Track 1: the double closed without money.
• 23:50
  Track 1: And that's all, that's what all what they, they mean to ask about.
• 23:54
  Track 1: So creates all kinds of problems.
• 23:57
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 23:57
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: way is to
• 23:57
  Track 1: the,
• 23:58
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: owner finance.
• 23:59
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Just take title that way.
• 24:00
  Track 1: yes, that's a better way.
• 24:01
  Track 1: you can do wholesaling the right way.
• 24:03
  Track 1: The better way is when you find the seller that wants to sell the property at a lower price.
• 24:10
  Track 1: Go ahead and buy it from him on some type of, of owner finance deal where the wholesaler is going to take title to the property.
• 24:19
  Track 1: That way the wholesaler actually owns the property, and then you can enter into another agreement to split some percentage of the profits with the original seller when the wholesaler indeed finds that new buyer, that's by far.
• 24:34
  Track 1: the better way to do it.
• 24:35
  Track 1: moving right along.
• 24:36
  Track 1: Here's our final legal question today.
• 24:38
  Track 1: Does a bankruptcy get rid of mortgage debt?
• 24:42
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: not always,
• 24:43
  Track 1: not always.
• 24:44
  Track 1: now this is a fine nuance of the law.
• 24:47
  Track 1: So what happens is it's usually a second mortgage, but they've got some type of mortgage.
• 24:53
  Track 1: They declare bankruptcy.
• 24:55
  Track 1: And the bankruptcy court discharges the debt.
• 24:58
  Track 1: And then that person goes and sells the property years later and the title company says, there's still a lien on the property.
• 25:04
  Track 1: And the guy who filed bankruptcy years ago says, no, the bankruptcy court discharged the debt.
• 25:09
  Track 1: And if it's a good title examiner, that underwriter is going to say, no, you misunderstand because there's a difference between discharging the debt and actually removing the lien.
• 25:18
  Track 1: And the title company's right.
• 25:19
  Track 1: Now, a lot of them miss that because the title examiners don't really understand the difference.
• 25:23
  Track 1: But here's the thing.
• 25:24
  Track 1: there's a special proceeding you need to ask your bankruptcy attorney about, and it's called an adversarial proceeding where you're specifically going to ask the bankruptcy court Not only to discharge the debt, but to also strip the lane, to remove the lane.
• 25:38
  Track 1: and that's the only way you're really going to get the lane and the debt removed.
• 25:42
  Track 1: And then you can go and sell the property truly free of that lane.
• 25:45
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: and if you've already finished your bankruptcy proceedings
• 25:48
  Track 1: that's a problem.
• 25:49
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: then you'd have need to try and talk to the mortgage company to get a release lien, which is not going to
• 25:54
  Track 1: No, yeah.
• 25:54
  Track 1: That's a, that, that's a big problem.
• 25:57
  Track 1: All right.
• 25:57
  Track 1: That's our legal questions for the day.
• 25:59
  Track 1: Now we get to the rants and raves and.
• 26:04
  Track 1: We are ranting about something that is probably very personal to Austin and many people at our firm, but also people all over the country.
• 26:11
  Track 1: College tuition and student loans.
• 26:14
  Track 1: I'm just going to give some facts.
• 26:15
  Track 1: 1.
• 26:16
  Track 1: 73 Trillion dollars in student loan debt doubled over the last two decades.
• 26:21
  Track 1: that's the amount of debt that people in this country have.
• 26:25
  Track 1: That's more than all the credit card debt.
• 26:28
  Track 1: That's more than all the auto debt.
• 26:31
  Track 1: We're talking about consumer debt.
• 26:32
  Track 1: it's creating all sorts of financial hardship on people.
• 26:35
  Track 1: Now, you got to remember, college is free or heavily subsidized in most other countries, but not in the United States.
• 26:43
  Track 1: In the U.
• 26:43
  Track 1: S., college tuition has increased by 20 fold since 1969.
• 26:50
  Track 1: And this is because the colleges know they can get it because the federal government is basically handing out money, via loans.
• 26:58
  Track 1: one third of total debt is owned by 7 percent of the borrowers who own more than 100K.
• 27:04
  Track 1: That's people like lawyers.
• 27:06
  Track 1: A lot of our lawyers, young lawyers that work for me, they had a ton of debt.
• 27:09
  Track 1: They went into debt to pay for college.
• 27:11
  Track 1: They went into debt to pay for law school.
• 27:13
  Track 1: people believe this is the only way to get ahead.
• 27:16
  Track 1: You go to college.
• 27:17
  Track 1: you get a degree, you go into debt and that's the road to the American dream.
• 27:21
  Track 1: All right, Austin, what do you have to say about it?
• 27:24
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I don't know a single person that I grew up with where they were told anything about the possibility of trade school or something like that.
• 27:32
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: it was just always college is the only pathway you've got to go to.
• 27:35
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I took on debt for law school and I was able to take on a large amount of debt for law school at a time when the government doesn't even trust me to rent a car.
• 27:45
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: that's just insane to me that they think that people who are, like 22, right?
• 27:52
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You can sign loan documents for over a hundred K, but we don't think that you're mature enough to rent a car at this time, but you can do that.
• 27:58
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: and I just think that's crazy.
• 28:00
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: And then you have all these people, a lot of, Very right leaning people like to say, you took out the loans.
• 28:07
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You just pay for it.
• 28:08
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: We'll do your nine to five job and you'll pay it off.
• 28:10
  Track 1: you could spend 10 to 20 years working, paying off that debt, there, there are other ways to get ahead.
• 28:20
  Track 1: And I think people are finally getting it for the first time, I think ever.
• 28:25
  Track 1: The total student loan debt ticked down just a hair in 2023.
• 28:30
  Track 1: And they did a survey recently and 73 percent of high school students will eliminate college because of the price alone.
• 28:37
  Track 1: You need to start looking at this from a value standpoint.
• 28:40
  Track 1: If you're going to spend a hundred grand for school and you're going to go teach history or something like that, you need to run away from that deal.
• 28:50
  Track 1: That is a bad deal because you might make 40 grand a year teaching school and you're going to be paying that debt down for a very long time.
• 29:00
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: with public like debt forgiveness programs, even with that, you will,
• 29:03
  Track 1: There's been a big push, to forgive student loan debt.
• 29:07
  Track 1: I think the Biden administration tried to do it.
• 29:09
  Track 1: I think they ruled that they didn't have the power to do that.
• 29:12
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Some was forgiven for some people.
• 29:14
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I'm not
• 29:15
  Track 1: Yeah, It wasn't whatever was forgiven.
• 29:18
  Track 1: It really wasn't that significant,
• 29:20
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: only forgive debt to really big banks.
• 29:22
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: that's who
• 29:22
  Track 1: right?
• 29:23
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: that too.
• 29:24
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Track 1: It, whatever was forgiven, it wasn't super significant.
• 29:28
  Track 1: we need to about think we need to start thinking about the value of these schools and I'll give you an example.
• 29:35
  Track 1: my Hometown of Houston where our premier university is Rice University.
• 29:40
  Track 1: Austin.
• 29:40
  Track 1: Did you know that's the Harvard of the South, Mm.
• 29:44
  Track 1: Mm.
• 29:45
  Track 1: I, mm.
• 29:45
  Track 1: I don't, I don't know about that.
• 29:47
  Track 1: Rice is an incredible school.
• 29:49
  Track 1: Okay.
• 29:49
  Track 1: You can go to rice if you can get in.
• 29:51
  Track 1: it has a 9%, that's nine single digit, 9% acceptance rate that if you can get in rice is gonna cost you 20 grand a year.
• 30:00
  Track 1: Great school.
• 30:01
  Track 1: You get a job as an engineer and you come out making a hundred K as an engineer.
• 30:06
  Track 1: That is a killer deal.
• 30:08
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Absolutely.
• 30:09
  Track 1: let's take the opposite end of the spectrum.
• 30:12
  Track 1: Let's say you're a musician or you're an aspiring musician and you go to the Berklee College of Music.
• 30:20
  Track 1: The tuition there is 43, 000 a year.
• 30:24
  Track 1: It has a 65 percent graduation rate.
• 30:27
  Track 1: That means when you start your school there, you look around the room and four out of every 10 are not going to graduate.
• 30:35
  Track 1: after six years of graduating from the Berkeley college of music.
• 30:41
  Track 1: You're gonna make 30 grand a year.
• 30:44
  Track 1: Terrible deal.
• 30:45
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I have people come to me all the time, like who, who say Hey, should I go to law school or something like that?
• 30:50
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I always tell them, If you're going to, know why you're going.
• 30:54
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Same thing with undergrad, right?
• 30:56
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: If you're going to go to undergrad, if you're going to go to law school, med school, whatever, know why you're doing it.
• 31:01
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Know what you want to do.
• 31:03
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Don't go just because people around you going and you think that's the only pipeline.
• 31:08
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You don't have to go right away.
• 31:09
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: You're not putting your life on hold.
• 31:10
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: That's, that was always the perception around people my age at that time.
• 31:14
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: If you didn't go to college right out of high school, then you're putting your life on hold.
• 31:17
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: If you didn't go to law school or med school right after undergrad or.
• 31:22
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Get a master's you're putting your life on hold or something like you're not.
• 31:26
  Track 1: alternatives.
• 31:27
  Track 1: you can pay your way through school.
• 31:28
  Track 1: You can do the first two years at a junior college.
• 31:31
  Track 1: You can get your basics out of the way.
• 31:34
  Track 1: Not everybody needs a college degree.
• 31:36
  Track 1: Not everybody needs a liberal arts history major
• 31:40
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: I did dual credit at my local community college when I was in high school and had like half of my credits taken care of going into undergrad.
• 31:46
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Track 1: there's nothing wrong.
• 31:48
  Track 1: you can make a ton of money being a plumber being in H in HVAC guy.
• 31:54
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: absolutely.
• 31:54
  Track 1: vocations out there, welders.
• 31:56
  Track 1: there are vocations out there that make an incredible amount of money.
• 32:00
  Track 1: That may be a heck of a lot better deal than giving some of these universities a couple hundred grand to get a liberal arts degree.
• 32:09
  Track 1: Now there is the mommy and daddy factor.
• 32:12
  Track 1: If your mommy and daddy are so rich that it doesn't matter.
• 32:16
  Track 1: And they're just going to pay for you to go to, whatever school to get your liberal arts degree and they think that's a great thing for you, then, so be it.
• 32:25
  Track 1: that's a different thing.
• 32:26
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: the real villains here are the schools and the professors that are being paid.
• 32:31
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: The tuition is way too high.
• 32:32
  Track 1: I'm a capitalist, if you let capitalism do its thing and you take away this artificial, basically funding that the federal government does,
• 32:41
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Yeah,
• 32:42
  Track 1: these schools will get more competitive.
• 32:43
  Track 1: Now you're going to have Ivy League schools and you're going to have Stanford.
• 32:47
  Track 1: And maybe those ones can get the money because people believe it's a worth degree.
• 32:51
  Track 1: if that's the case, if the people want to pay for it and they see value in it, capitalism will do its thing, but I promise you, the Pepperdines of the world and the Amherst of the world, okay, they're not going to get 60, Grand a year anymore or whatever they're getting.
• 33:08
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: you seen the Pepperdine campus though?
• 33:10
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: It's really pretty.
• 33:11
  Track 1: Yeah, it's gorgeous.
• 33:13
  Track 1: 22, 23 tuition at Pepperdine is 63, 000 a year.
• 33:19
  Track 1: So if.
• 33:20
  Track 1: If mommy and daddy want to pay 63 grand a year for you to go to Pepperdine go for it.
• 33:26
  Track 1: capitalism will work itself out.
• 33:28
  Track 1: And we'll see if we take the federal money away, we'll see how much Pepperdine can get in tuition.
• 33:32
  Track 1: That, that is it for our show.
• 33:35
  Track 1: I've been your host, Phil Silberman.
• 33:37
  Track 1: Austin Black has been my co host.
• 33:40
  Track 1: Like us, follow us, review us wherever you get your podcast.
• 33:44
  Track 1: If you have a legal question, email us at info at SilbLawFirm.
• 33:49
  Track 1: com.
• 33:49
  Track 1: I N F O at Silb, S I L B like boy, lawfirm.
• 33:54
  Track 1: com.
• 33:54
  Track 1: don't forget to put that you want your question publicly answered in the podcast.
• 33:58
  Track 1: All right, everybody Have a happy easter weekend
• 34:00
  austin_3_03-28-2024_140848: Thanks.