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EwokEntourage posted:Have you looked to see the Minnesota bar has a lawyer search service? You might just have to call around I have been, I have one good lead and several iffy leads on lawyers. As far as I can tell, pursuing civil action for elder abuse is fairly specialized and a lot of lawyers are simply full up right now. That said, I've only been contacting lawyers with a 6+ rating on avvo; is avvo useless? Should I just be calling everyone?
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Jun 29, 2016 01:17
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Avvo is useless and poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2016 01:18
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euphronius posted:Avvo is useless and poo poo. Heard, search expanded tomorrow. I assumed avvo required lawyers to pay for registration, but that doesn't always mean it's a poo poo service (in my industry at least).
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Jun 29, 2016 01:28
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It's poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2016 01:44
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Avvo is poo poo. Edit:and also dumb.
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Jun 29, 2016 04:07
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Hi legal goons. I live in a rental townhouse with a patio that abuts the patio of a condo. We have a window air conditioner in our bedroom above our patio, which is supported by a brace made of treated lumber. We have permission from our landlord for the air conditioner and brace. The owners of the condo have complained to both our landlord and us that the brace is ugly and against building codes, and that they will call the police about it.  In the interest of being a good neighbor we're going to attempt to make the brace more visually appealing (stain and cover with privacy lattice). However before we do that I'm trying to research if it really is illegal, and I'm having trouble figuring out what part of building code, if any, applies to window air conditioner installation. The only thing I can find is from New York City where they don't want window ACs falling on busy pedestrian sidewalks. We're in California. Any help figuring out where to look would be greatly appreciated.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:41
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I can't see how the police would ever care about your ghetto a/c support. You might try calling the building code enforcement office for your city to see if there are any restrictions on how to secure a/c units. You might also check with your landlord about putting in some actual braces for the a/c.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:57
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It might also violate the CC&Rs for the townhouse, assuming it is subject to them, and most are. That doesn't make it illegal, though.
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Jun 29, 2016 06:05
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joat mon posted:I can't see how the police would ever care about your ghetto a/c support. The police won't care, I just don't want to put time/money into improving something I might have to tear down. I did check with the landlord; he thinks a brace isn't even required and that the window should support it. I'll try calling the building code enforcement when they're open. They're not now and I was hoping someone might know what part of the law these fall under. Eta: We're not in any HOA. Our whole building is owned by a single landlord and rented like apartments. I called it a townhouse because it's a multifloor unit--sorry that wasn't clear. Baja Mofufu fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 06:15
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Baja Mofufu posted:I'll try calling the building code enforcement when they're open. They're not now and I was hoping someone might know what part of the law these fall under. As a former code enforcement official I can tell you it falls under code enforcement. Building normally but the fire marshal can give you poo poo if it's super bad. But what you have going on sounds like a different story. This is going to end up with some homeowner's association bullshit where laws that are made up on the spot at a monthly meeting apply retroactively. And as soon as the property owner (your land lord) is notified they will do whatever is legally (or not) possible to make you comply because this little board of tyrants has an encumbrance against the title to the property they own that you are now living in.
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Jun 29, 2016 07:02
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Baja Mofufu posted:The police won't care, I just don't want to put time/money into improving something I might have to tear down. If your landlord owns the units and rents them, why is this your concern and not his?
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Jun 29, 2016 07:11
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True or false: Condo boards / HOA are basically the law equivalent of calvinball.
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Jun 29, 2016 07:44
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EwokEntourage posted:If your landlord owns the units and rents them, why is this your concern and not his? My landlord is fine taking full responsibility, and we're writing to the neighbors that they should contact him about any problems like this in future. The problem is that we're the ones who have to live next to them. They are retired and around all the time. The man is a belligerent rear end in a top hat who gets into shouting matches with everyone. He has called the police so often that most of the time nothing happens, but every so often he gets them to come out and question all of us about something a neighbor did (e.g. he made a noise complaint about my neighbor using a hand saw for a craft project on her patio for two hours on a Sunday afternoon). The woman leaves rambling screeds on tenant doorsteps, tucked under car windshield wipers, etc. when she has a complaint. The letters are creepy with observations about us and shift from friendly to angry and back really quickly. Although it wouldn't bother me to see a few feet of treated lumber out my window, I can tell that this lady is going crazy looking at it (she mentions lumber about 50 times in the letter she left on our doorstep today). She and her husband have all day to sit around and think of how to drive us crazy, so I would rather placate them for the least amount of money. To me that means hiding the dreaded lumber since that is her #1 concern. But I want to know if we should bother because the whole thing could be illegal. We've managed to avoid them for 4 years and are moving next year anyway, so we just want to shut them up until then. That is our main concern.
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Jun 29, 2016 08:04
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gently caress man, you should tell your landlord that one of their other tenants is insane.
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Jun 29, 2016 10:46
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FrozenVent posted:True or false: Condo boards / HOA are basically the law equivalent of calvinball. Your typical HOA is that, minus the lawyer sitting there to tell them what they're wanting to do is something that only a public meeting of elected officials actually has the power to do (and minus the elected official there to work with them to bring the idea to that meeting), or perhaps is just wildly illegal full stop. Put a group of people together and give them the appearance of power and they will start coming up with stupid ways to use it that don't follow any sensible rules.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:29
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Comedy option, keep all their crazy letters and get a restraining order against them for their stalking. I straight told a neighbor the other day that she was being irritating and I didn't care if she felt bad about the thing she felt bad about, and I am a mouse person. What is so hard about telling someone you're not going to interact with them until they grow up?
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Jun 29, 2016 17:31
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NancyPants posted:Comedy option, keep all their crazy letters and get a restraining order against them for their stalking. I was absolutely about to suggest this, especially if any of the weird details are things that require following you around or difficult peering into windows (like, from your patio instead of theirs) to know.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:02
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I'm back with a couple more questions about the case I posted about here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3266659&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=568#post461083975 So I spoke with D's insurance and sent them a copy of the judgement and they are still saying that based on the evidence they have it is still not D's fault. Am I correct that my only option here is to now sue D? Any downsides to this or any other options?
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Jun 29, 2016 18:45
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dalstrs posted:I'm back with a couple more questions about the case I posted about here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3266659&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=568#post461083975 I hate you for describing the opposing party "the defendant" and the driver who is your friend and just a witness D. I hate you for this a lot. It already kills me when Crown print capital A for accused and Δ for complainant. I mean, that doesn't even make sense. And also, your A and Δ look identical, and your signature is indecipherable so I dont know who to blame. This is why I have to call you every day and piss off the secretaries. dicks.
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Jun 29, 2016 23:23
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What does your copy of the judgment from the first case say? Does it assign fault and then take nothing, or just dismiss the case?
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Jun 30, 2016 00:41
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dalstrs posted:I'm back with a couple more questions about the case I posted about here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3266659&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=568#post461083975 you lost, right? that means you lose, dog. also res judicada. blarzgh fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 01:13
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EwokEntourage posted:What does your copy of the judgment from the first case say? Does it assign fault and then take nothing, or just dismiss the case? "It is therefore ordered, adjunged and decreed by the jury that plantiff, <me>, does have and recover nothing from the defendant, <her>. Nichol posted:I hate you for describing the opposing party "the defendant" and the driver who is your friend and just a witness D. I should have used a different letter, my bad. blarzgh posted:you lost, right? that means you lose, dog. I lost suing the girl who I thought caused the accident. I don't think it is unreasonable that my friend's insurance pay for the damages since a jury said the other girl is not responsible.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:40
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dalstrs posted:I lost suing the girl who I thought caused the accident. I don't think it is unreasonable that my friend's insurance pay for the damages since a jury said the other girl is not responsible. "D" means "Defendant" to us, so your question sounded like you were asking if you could get the Defendant's insurance to pay, even after you lost. Also, good luck suing your friend, who wasn't at fault, when you couldn't win against the party who was very clearly at fault.
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Jun 30, 2016 04:31
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blarzgh posted:"D" means "Defendant" to us, so your question sounded like you were asking if you could get the Defendant's insurance to pay, even after you lost. My friend was there helping (suing the other girl) and it ended up just being her word against the other girl. And the suing her is just to make her insurance pay. If her insurance company finds some way to weasel out of it I'm not going to come after her to collect or anything. From what I have read it is fairly common to sue someone you know because that is the only way to get their insurance to pay out.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:00
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dalstrs posted:My friend was there helping (suing the other girl) and it ended up just being her word against the other girl. And the suing her is just to make her insurance pay. If her insurance company finds some way to weasel out of it I'm not going to come after her to collect or anything. From what I have read it is fairly common to sue someone you know because that is the only way to get their insurance to pay out. weaseling out of paying is what insurance companies do
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Jun 30, 2016 05:11
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dalstrs posted:My friend was there helping (suing the other girl) and it ended up just being her word against the other girl. And the suing her is just to make her insurance pay. If her insurance company finds some way to weasel out of it I'm not going to come after her to collect or anything. From what I have read it is fairly common to sue someone you know because that is the only way to get their insurance to pay out. I don't think you've thought this through. You couldn't get that last 30% out of someone's insurance when the facts were stacked against them. Now you think you can get 100% from someone('s insurance) who's sworn testimony, that you offered into evidence, was that they weren't at fault.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:19
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evilweasel posted:weaseling out of paying is what insurance companies do blarzgh posted:I don't think you've thought this through. You couldn't get that last 30% out of someone's insurance when the facts were stacked against them. Now you think you can get 100% from someone('s insurance) who's sworn testimony, that you offered into evidence, was that they weren't at fault. I have to at least try. I didn't realize the odds were so stacked against me when I didn't take the settlement before, otherwise, I would have just accepted it.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:44
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Baja Mofufu posted:My landlord is fine taking full responsibility, and we're writing to the neighbors that they should contact him about any problems like this in future. IANAL, but I recommend covering the lumber brace the crazy neighbors have to look at with a tasteful drape or tapestry depicting your ballsack.
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Jun 30, 2016 07:27
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dalstrs posted:I have to at least try. I didn't realize the odds were so stacked against me when I didn't take the settlement before, otherwise, I would have just accepted it. Honestly this is why you hire a lawyer. Sure they're going to take their pound of flesh, but they save your rear end from these things.
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Jun 30, 2016 07:37
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Nick Rivers posted:IANAL, but I recommend covering the lumber brace the crazy neighbors have to look at with a tasteful drape or tapestry depicting your ballsack. Ah yes, the old "cover it in art" ploy. Which leads to copyright fun when they inevitably post unlicensed photos on their blog or whatever, taking the fun up a notch.
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Jun 30, 2016 14:07
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Mr. Nice! posted:Honestly this is why you hire a lawyer. Sure they're going to take their pound of flesh, but they save your rear end from these things. We tried at first, no lawyer wants a case for so little money. In theory, you shouldn't need a lawyer for small claims, but Texas 
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Jun 30, 2016 15:07
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I am redoing my will, and I am wondering if it is possible to include a bequest such as "I leave $50,000 to Mary to distribute to whatever charity she deems worthy". I am having a hard time figuring out if that is enforceable or not, but it seems to generally be (also, what exactly should the wording be for this bequest?). I am trying to accomplish 2 things with this: 1. Leave the residual amount of my estate to the executor to donate to whatever charities he sees fit, in order to lower the risk of any idiot family members challenging the overall value of the estate (by leaving them only specific dollar amounts). 2. My estate will not be subject to estate tax, so I figured I could pass on some tax deductions by bequeathing it to them and they can donate it to charity. My wife and I are both relatively young and the chance of us both dying is low, so I don't really care to deal with a trust at this point in life. I just figured I would try and make a decently efficient will.
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Jul 2, 2016 06:08
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Are you.... doing it yourself?
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Jul 2, 2016 06:45
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I am using Quicken Willmaker 2016 (updated from my previous 2009 version) which gives you a somewhat freeform box to enter each specific bequest.
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Jul 2, 2016 07:13
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Droo posted:I am using Quicken Willmaker 2016 (updated from my previous 2009 version) which gives you a somewhat freeform box to enter each specific bequest. You should really pay someone a couple hundred bucks to make sure your will has what you really want in it. If you have enough that this is actually an issue, then it's absolutely worth it to have someone who does this professionally look over it and make sure it's actually legally enforceable.
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Jul 2, 2016 08:23
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It's been a while since T&E for me, but I think bequests for a specific purpose are usually unenforceable- Mary just gets 50k in this scenario, she's just put on notice that you'd like the money to go to charity. Hire a lawyer.
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Jul 2, 2016 17:04
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Why not just pick a charity yourself if you are going to this amount of trouble?
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Jul 2, 2016 17:37
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If you have 50k to donate, and actually want to donate it and not just evade taxes, then absolutely spend 1000 on a lawyer to do this correctly. The charity will love the 49k they actually get.
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Jul 2, 2016 17:43
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This seems like something that would probably only sort of work if there's a trust or something and the disbursement is made to an acceptable charity by the trustee. It might be possible to set this up through a will if you're a will wizard but I don't have a clue how to even approach enforceability with it unless I think about it some more. Essentially you want to pay a wills attorney to if nothing else tell you what can't be done as will provisions that are unenforceable will cause exactly the situation you're trying to avoid with dipshit family members squabbling over the remainder. There are occasionally some pretty complex or twisted will provisions that are enforced but they have to be legally airtight as courts don't find them very cute or funny most of the time.
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Jul 2, 2016 18:39
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Once you start getting into anything more complicated than I leave X to Y person, you really want a professional to handle it to ensure that it is legal. It is significantly more likely than not if you try to set up something complicated yourself, you will do it wrong and will make a mess of the whole situation.
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Jul 2, 2016 18:45
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