Real Estate Reassessments in Pennsylvania
The property reassessment situation is anything but clear in Allegheny County. Currently the issue on whether the assessments can be moved to a new base year or any base year or whether the base year system is constitutional, has many implications for local property owners. A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette described the current mess in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08249/909747-100.stm. If the 2002 base year is eliminated at some point and if base year assessments are found unconstitutional, you can expect to see a significant push state wide to raise local revenues by reassessing properties.
If you’d like to learn more about how the reassessment process works, 1-2-3 Law Group taped a free podcast with an experienced real estate attorney and a property appraiser last fall. Listen to this show further described below or many of our other free legal podcasts by visiting http://www.makinglaweasy.com/free-legal-resources/.
<strong>EPISODE 17</strong> - Making Sense of Real Estate Assessments. Listen to two experts, a real estate attorney with 34 years experience and a state certified real estate appraiser with 31 years of experience talk about the reassessment mess. What should you do? What do notices you might be receiving mean? Why is this happening? Recorded live on Jan. 10th, 2008 at 4PM.
For more information, call 1-2-3 Law Group at 1-877-7-123-LAW (529).
The Making Law Easy Show Episode 21: Identity Theft The Legal Issues
Listen to 1-2-3 Law Group interview attorney David Ries, a national expert on privacy law who will talk on issues associated with privacy law. Hear about the law. Learn your rights. This is a second part in a two part show on identity theft. Recorded Live on Monday, January 28th at 4PM.
The Making Law Easy Show Episode 19: Scary Facts On Identity Theft
Come listen to Certified Identity Theft Consultant Chuck Herring talk about what the risks are with becoming a victim of identity theft and how you can protect yourself. This is the first in a 2 part series. To be broadcast live on January 24th, at 11AM.
We will cover the legal side of identity theft on Monday, January 28th at 4PM where we will talk about your legal rights.
The Making Law Easy Show Episode 15: Lemon Law Tips If Your New Car Is A Dud
Hear an experienced lemon law attorney from 1-2-3 Law Group discuss your rights when your car is not functioning correctly. Recorded Live on January 2nd, 2008 at 10AM. Visit Legal Resources to listen to this and other law related podcasts which impact consumers in Western Pennsylvania.
1-2-3 Law Group Launches Lemon Law Practice
1-2-3 Law Group is proud to announce we now offer Lemon Law legal services. Our attorney has practiced in the lemon law field for many years. He is one of the few local lawyers who focusses much of his practice in Lemon Law work in Western Pennsylvania. Watch for our Lemon Law Podcast on the Making Law Easy Show located on Legal Resources to be broadcastlive sometime next week. 1-2-3 Law Group is Pennsylvania’s first virtual law firm located at www.makinglaweasy.com. Please visit our website for more information.
Professional Negotiators: Going Into Battle Without A Weapon!!
Some people who have been sued in local courts recently will first find out about the case by receiving a letter from what appears at first to be a law firm. However, if you receive one of these letters, you will soon discover that it is sent by a non-lawyer debt negotiator. Many of these services specialize in consumer debt, like credit cards and home mortgages. They can be amply described in three words: dangerous, dangerous and dangerous!
Why would anyone hire a professional debt negotiator instead of a lawyer in such a serious situation? When the complaint arrives, a responsive pleading must be filed within twenty days, unless an extension is granted. If no responsive pleading is filed and no extension is granted to file within that time, a ten-day notice may be issued under the Rules of Civil Procedure, followed by a default judgment. The whole case can thus be over, with a complete victory for the plaintiff, in about month after service.
With the clock ticking, hiring someone to negotiate a settlement who cannot legally prepare and file an answer makes little sense. Lawyers can and do negotiate settlements every day. But many attempts at negotiation fail, especially when one party believes that it has a strong upper hand. So the defendant is forced to hire a lawyer at the last minute – provided he is even aware that default judgment may be imminent.
Professional negotiators sell their services on the dubious basis that they know exactly how much to offer because they deal with similar creditors every day. They imply that they have some kind of cabalistic knowledge and that you or I, poor fools, would leave money on the table because we didn’t know the secret number. This dubious proposition ignores the obvious fact that negotiation is a test of power and they don’t have much. Every lawyer knows that a litigant often makes an unappealing settlement offer from the comfort zone of the office. He or she will only become truly motivated as the moment of truth draws perilously close – sometimes minutes away in the courtroom. Debt negotiators, who might be likened to warriors without weapons, can never make that moment of truth happen.
The law has come a long way in developing methods like private arbitration, mediation and conciliation as alternatives to expensive litigation. These methods often do work. But part of the reason is that the conflict can ultimately be resolved by force. Speaking softly may be an effective negotiating technique, but doing so while leaning on a big stick is still the approved method.