Dear Mrs. Lank: I don't have a question but I do want to share with you this official-looking mail I recently received. It irritated me because I'm sure many people will panic, think they need to get a certified deed, and send in the $59.50. Care to comment? -- P.D.
Answer: Thanks for sending me that scam mailing, which leaves the impression that the "U.S. Federal Government Citizen Information Center" requires you to have a certified copy of your deed.
Some homeowners may get nervous with all the legal language at the top, skip to the bottom of the page, tear off the "bill" and mail it back with a check. And as with the "but wait, there's more!" TV ads, some will even go for two copies just to be safe, and send off $79.
The mailing implies that you're in trouble if you don't have a copy of your deed. That's not true at all. A deed's one job in life is to transfer ownership of real estate. Once that's been done and a copy is entered in the county records for all the world to see, then as a young lawyer once told me, "You could tear it up and throw it in the wastebasket."
And more important -- anyone who does want a copy can get it for a modest fee from the local public records office.
Raffling It Off
Dear Mrs. Lank: My family and I live in a nice home but it is really more than we can afford. We owe more than we could sell it for. So I have come up with idea of possibly trying to raffle the property off but I am not sure of all the implications involved. Do you have any thoughts on this idea? -- Via e-mail
Answer: For starters, in almost every state, a private raffle is illegal.
If you did hold a raffle, you'd have expenses for legal help in setting up the project. For example, you'd want the right to call things off if you didn't collect a certain amount of money. You'd need money for advertising your project, setting up an escrow account to hold receipts and secretarial work to keep track of everything. If, as is most likely, you did not sell enough chances to reach the reserve price you set, you'd need to return the money you'd collected, entailing more secretarial work.
There's a reason why you almost never see a house raffled off. If it did happen, it would probably be done by a charitable institution that was legally allowed to take that route for fund-raising.
No-Risk Great Return