Jamie Johnson has featured three videos on his bio page which contain the following text.
Video Transcript:
What can I do to reduce the risk of litigation in real estate transactions from the buyers perspective?
Well I think with a buyer, it’s again down to expectations. People who may not be experienced home buyers or are just getting out in the market and haven’t seen a lot of houses, that’s one of the keys that I found, is if they’re just not, um, their expectation is the perfect house then you’re more likely to get involved in litigation. You have to go into it understanding that there may be quote, “hidden defects” the sellers honestly don’t know about. And so what you need to do is hire the right experts to find that out ahead of time. Not be afraid to spend some money up-front. If you’re going to invest $400,000.00 in buying a house, you should be able to afford a house inspection for four hundred bucks. But there are people who want to cut corners and not do that inspection. But hiring a good house inspector who really knows what they’re doing and will find even the slightest thing. Now, you may end up getting a laundry list, 40 to 50 items long. Okay, now you can look at that and at least you have the power then to choose — which one of these do we need corrected by the seller; which other ones can we live with? Now if you say they all got to be corrected and you give a realistic deadline for them to accomplish that and the sellers really want to sell the house for what you’re paying they’ll do that. If you set an unrealistic deadline for all that stuff to get done, it’s not going to get done.But there’s only so much you can do ahead of time to avoid total litigation ’cause you can have litigation over even unreasonable issues. But as a buyer hiring the right experts and then conducting your own multiple inspections. Where I see a lot of litigation is from both the buyer and the sellers perspective: turns out the buyer was never even in the house — they just sent an agent to go look at it or they sent their spouse and they didn’t go themselves; or they went just once for 15 minutes. I recommend that buyers go through the house themselves two or three times before they buy any house that they’re going to buy and then still hire an inspector to go through it for the little, smaller things or the functioning of the house ’cause you’re not necessarily going to turn on every faucet or flush every toilet like a house inspectors going to do.
What can I do to reduce the risk of litigation in real estate transactions from the buyers perspective?
Well I think with a buyer, it’s again down to expectations. People who may not be experienced home buyers or are just getting out in the market and haven’t seen a lot of houses, that’s one of the keys that I found, is if they’re just not, um, their expectation is the perfect house then you’re more likely to get involved in litigation. You have to go into it understanding that there may be quote, “hidden defects” the sellers honestly don’t know about. And so what you need to do is hire the right experts to find that out ahead of time. Not be afraid to spend some money up-front. If you’re going to invest $400,000.00 in buying a house, you should be able to afford a house inspection for four hundred bucks. But there are people who want to cut corners and not do that inspection. But hiring a good house inspector who really knows what they’re doing and will find even the slightest thing. Now, you may end up getting a laundry list, 40 to 50 items long. Okay, now you can look at that and at least you have the power then to choose — which one of these do we need corrected by the seller; which other ones can we live with? Now if you say they all got to be corrected and you give a realistic deadline for them to accomplish that and the sellers really want to sell the house for what you’re paying they’ll do that. If you set an unrealistic deadline for all that stuff to get done, it’s not going to get done.But there’s only so much you can do ahead of time to avoid total litigation ’cause you can have litigation over even unreasonable issues. But as a buyer hiring the right experts and then conducting your own multiple inspections. Where I see a lot of litigation is from both the buyer and the sellers perspective: turns out the buyer was never even in the house — they just sent an agent to go look at it or they sent their spouse and they didn’t go themselves; or they went just once for 15 minutes. I recommend that buyers go through the house themselves two or three times before they buy any house that they’re going to buy and then still hire an inspector to go through it for the little, smaller things or the functioning of the house ’cause you’re not necessarily going to turn on every faucet or flush every toilet like a house inspectors going to do.
Video Transcript:
Why would clients who are having problems with insurance companies come to you?
People come to me with issues with insurance companies because I’ve worked for insurance companies. I still do, predominantly for defense of injury cases, so I recognize what the issues are that insurance companies look at. But the types of cases that folks who have come to me, and I’ve had, you know, friends and strangers come to me saying, “I have this damage to my roof. The company is not willing to pay full value. What do I do?”So it may be arbitration is what we need to try on a cost effective basis, or maybe it’s just simply making sure that they follow the right procedures. Again, insurance policies typically aren’t read by the average policy holder. They get issued insurance and they’re given the policy and it gets tucked away and they never look at it and they just pay the premiums. And then when they have an accident, or an issue, a claim to file, then all of a sudden they’re being told, “Oh, that’s not covered.”And so if you have an issue where you thought you should be covered and you weren’t, I would recommend you come to me and I can help you work through that, work with the insurance company, see what we can do. This has happened in vandalism cases, in fire cases, in hail cases. So if folks are out, and many times it can be in the thousands of dollars, so it’s very worthwhile to get an attorney onboard early, helping you out, so that you’re not forced to go to litigation.
Why would clients who are having problems with insurance companies come to you?
People come to me with issues with insurance companies because I’ve worked for insurance companies. I still do, predominantly for defense of injury cases, so I recognize what the issues are that insurance companies look at. But the types of cases that folks who have come to me, and I’ve had, you know, friends and strangers come to me saying, “I have this damage to my roof. The company is not willing to pay full value. What do I do?”So it may be arbitration is what we need to try on a cost effective basis, or maybe it’s just simply making sure that they follow the right procedures. Again, insurance policies typically aren’t read by the average policy holder. They get issued insurance and they’re given the policy and it gets tucked away and they never look at it and they just pay the premiums. And then when they have an accident, or an issue, a claim to file, then all of a sudden they’re being told, “Oh, that’s not covered.”And so if you have an issue where you thought you should be covered and you weren’t, I would recommend you come to me and I can help you work through that, work with the insurance company, see what we can do. This has happened in vandalism cases, in fire cases, in hail cases. So if folks are out, and many times it can be in the thousands of dollars, so it’s very worthwhile to get an attorney onboard early, helping you out, so that you’re not forced to go to litigation.
Video Transcript:
As a client, why use a branch office firm that has offices in Minneapolis and Hudson?
We happen to have our office in Hudson, Wisconsin, right on the border. We’re actually closer to – as close to St. Paul practically as we are River Falls and other bigger towns in Wisconsin. And so having the ability to have resources in both states – I happen to practice 90 to 95 percent of my time. I’m licensed in both states. I’m aware of the issues and some of the differences in the law in the primary areas where I practice, but in those areas where I don’t practice frequently, I have 25 partners in our Minneapolis office, and so we have somebody who usually has had that issue come up in Minnesota.Certainly we can do the research in both states, but in Hudson, we have a half hour to Minneapolis and then we practice in about a 20 county area, so we’re quite familiar with Wisconsin, and there are many times, with people moving across the border. A lot of people that live in Hudson actually have lived in Minnesota at some time, and so they bring sometimes their legal issues with them, and having somebody that understands the issues in both states can help work through those processes and understand, well, there is a major difference here. Either you do have a case. One example is the statute of limitations in Wisconsin, for injury cases, it’s three years, in Minnesota it’s six years. And it varies depending on the type of injury we’re talking about, but those, understanding what those differences are helps a lot. And then when you need to go beyond and sink deeper into the issues, you’ve got the resources of the other office. And I know our Minneapolis office, they rely on us in Hudson to be able to give them the current state of Wisconsin law and help their clients who need to be represented in Wisconsin courts, and we can do that.
As a client, why use a branch office firm that has offices in Minneapolis and Hudson?
We happen to have our office in Hudson, Wisconsin, right on the border. We’re actually closer to – as close to St. Paul practically as we are River Falls and other bigger towns in Wisconsin. And so having the ability to have resources in both states – I happen to practice 90 to 95 percent of my time. I’m licensed in both states. I’m aware of the issues and some of the differences in the law in the primary areas where I practice, but in those areas where I don’t practice frequently, I have 25 partners in our Minneapolis office, and so we have somebody who usually has had that issue come up in Minnesota.Certainly we can do the research in both states, but in Hudson, we have a half hour to Minneapolis and then we practice in about a 20 county area, so we’re quite familiar with Wisconsin, and there are many times, with people moving across the border. A lot of people that live in Hudson actually have lived in Minnesota at some time, and so they bring sometimes their legal issues with them, and having somebody that understands the issues in both states can help work through those processes and understand, well, there is a major difference here. Either you do have a case. One example is the statute of limitations in Wisconsin, for injury cases, it’s three years, in Minnesota it’s six years. And it varies depending on the type of injury we’re talking about, but those, understanding what those differences are helps a lot. And then when you need to go beyond and sink deeper into the issues, you’ve got the resources of the other office. And I know our Minneapolis office, they rely on us in Hudson to be able to give them the current state of Wisconsin law and help their clients who need to be represented in Wisconsin courts, and we can do that.
