EP #215: Cheryl-Dene Spring on Mastering Florida Real Estate Laws with Sobi Law and Title

Ever wondered how the sun-drenched state of Florida manages its real estate transactions differently than the rest? Tune in as we navigate the complexities of property deals with Sheryl Dean Spring of Sobi Law and Sobi Title. She brings a wealth of experience from her ascent as a paralegal to helming both a law firm and title company, dissecting the nuances of Florida's unique laws. Discover why sometimes, skimping on title service costs can lead you down a road fraught with legal potholes and why having an attorney in your corner could be your real estate silver bullet.

Selling or buying property can feel like steering a ship through a stormy market, but fear not, this episode is your trusty compass. We're unpacking the seismic shifts in the real estate industry, where soaring agent commissions are nudging buyers to walk the plank without a representative. Sheryl Dean Spring and I examine the resurgence of lawyers in contract drafting and the critical role of assembling a dream team of property professionals. Plus, get a toolkit of tips for those considering property renovations, ensuring you stay on the right side of the law and avoid the siren call of code violations. Grab your earbuds and join us for a deep dive into the real estate odyssey!

Call us: (954) 380-8778

Website: https://www.sobilegal.com

Visit us: 7900 Nova Drive, Ste 205. Davie, FL. 33324

Like us: https://www.facebook.com/SOBIRealEstate

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Good Neighbor podcast. I'm your host, jeremy Wolf, and today I'd like to welcome to the show we have Sheryl Dean Spring. Sheryl Dean joins us from Sobi Law and Sobi Title. Sheryl Dean, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 0:28

Well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:30

No, it's our pleasure, and thanks to our listeners for tuning in. So, sheryl Dean, tell us a little bit about Sobi Law and Sobi Title.

Speaker 3: 0:40

All right. Well, in a nutshell, it's actually I have both a mall firm and a title company. They both provide real estate services. So on the one hand I do real estate law, but then on the other hand I do title work. So any real estate transactions would go through the title company. So that's in a nutshell.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Okay, so how did you end up starting Sobi Title Is this? I imagine most people aren't dreaming of getting into title law when they're children. Is this something that you did have a passion for going way back, or did you just land in this? Talk a little bit about your journey leading up to where you're at right now.

Speaker 3: 1:25

So it's actually it's a great question because, no, no one actually goes to title school and it's certainly not something that you think. You know this is gonna be my thing one day. I accidentally dropped into it. So back a couple of years ago, many years ago, I went to, I became a paralegal and as a paralegal I was working for a real estate law firm and they were actually doing real estate transactions. So we were doing closings for remacs and so forth and so forth, and I was like, you know, this is kind of cool. It was during the peak of the market, so it was super crazy. I was incredibly busy and I ended up just running everything for the law firms and I decided, you know, I can probably do this myself. And that kind of led me to decide to go law school and do real estate law.

Speaker 3: 2:25

So title is a little bit different in that in the state of Florida, anyone can actually open a title company, as long as you just, you know, go file to open a title company, you get title insurance, you get a carrier, you do background checks. But the problem is, if you really look at title, it is legal work, which is mind blowing, because in many other states you have to be an attorney to do closings, but in the state of Florida we say no, anyone can do it, and so it's. I constantly see the battle between title companies that are not attorney owned and their ability to handle issues that come up because they actually do not represent anyone in the transaction. They represent an underwriter, and so their job is not to make sure are you doing what you're supposed to do? Are you on track for your closing? Are you contractually, you know, maintaining what you're supposed to do? They just simply check the box for things that they need to do in order to issue title insurance, and so they have very little duty to the ultimate consumer.

Speaker 3: 3:48

And people just don't know that. They're like I'm going to go to a title company that is cheap, and the first question they have is how much are you going to charge me? And they stop right there. They don't ask any other questions because they simply don't know, and so that's kind of how I dropped into it. I decided to open a title company Anilolf but simply because a lot of consumers don't understand the difference, and so by having a title company, I can provide them both services. I can do both title and I can do legal work for them.

Speaker 2: 4:21

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, right, pay no mind. Out there You're about to make probably one of the biggest purchases of your life and you're looking for the cheapest company to help with the transaction. Doesn't make a lot of sense to do that. So would you say that in Florida most title companies aren't attorney-owned, or what's the split between those and the ones that aren't titled on? Do they typically have? I'd imagine they have an attorney, if not on staff, somebody they work with closely or no. It's just kind of fly by night just the title company, and that's it.

Speaker 3: 4:51

Yep and it's nuts, because when you go to law school, you have the ability to specialize in certain industries. And one industry that you can specialize in is real estate, but it's not real estate closings. It's not knowing how to do a closing, how to do searches, how to interpret title, how to look at the history of a property. There are no CLEs on it, there is absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2: 5:27

CLE.

Speaker 3: 5:28

Yeah, so that is like continuing education for.

Speaker 2: 5:31

CLE.

Speaker 3: 5:33

Yeah. So there's none of those. You literally have to have the experience coming from some place and then get experience through your underwriters, and so a lot of attorneys don't actually know how to do it either, and when you get into the field you really need to have a support group because there's so many things that you need to learn. So for title companies, I would say probably about 80% or so are not owned by a lawyer. They are owned by regular people. They may say you know, I had a closing two weeks ago. It actually was a buyer that was supposed to close.

Speaker 3: 6:20

They called me and I said oh my gosh, I don't know what's going on. This title company is like giving me the run around. I jumped in and their sales pitch was that we have a lawyer, and then I said well, who's your lawyer? Let me talk to the lawyer. And it ended up when I talked to the lawyer I was like I don't think you've ever done any type of title work, like it was just. And so when I started doing research, what I saw was that the attorney kind of partnered with this title company so they can say that they're attorney owned, but the attorney doesn't actually know anything about what's going on in title and the title company was a complete catastrophe. So it really comes down to verifying who you're going to work with. You know, I would say this is probably where reviews matter. This is where a direct referral matters, because you don't know what you're going to get.

Speaker 3: 7:21

And sometimes it works out. Sometimes you're good, it's fine, and other times it is not. And you know what I tell people in real estate when things go right in real estate it goes really right.

Speaker 2: 7:33

I mean yeah for real estate I mean it? Is a great thing.

Speaker 3: 7:40

It is a place to invest in. But when things go bad, it goes real bad because people have money on the line. They have escrow deposits that can't get back. There's so much that you stand to lose and we try to be optimistic. We don't think that things can go wrong, but that's where I have a job, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:04

No, and it seems that having, obviously you get a title policy, a title insurance, you're protected in that regard. But having an attorney involved from the beginning of the transaction gives you an added layer of insurance. That to prevent a future problem. And if a problem does occur, you're prepared for it and you're not grasping at straws to claw your way out of a potentially harming situation. So, yeah, it seems to make a lot of sense to have an attorney involved on your side, protecting your specific interests, and not just a company trying to get the deal closed.

Speaker 3: 8:35

But it's also we have the ability to ask more questions. So, for example, when someone has a closing with me, I like to ask them about what they doing, like what's the purpose for buying? Do they have other real estate? Because the thing about real estate is that it is for most people and I will say in Florida, because that's where our practice it is their greatest asset, and so people tend to go on like TikTok or YouTube and they think that they need to do certain things with it, like they have to hold it in a certain way, they have to title it in a certain way and for the most part, it's completely wrong. So at closing, I typically will ask them questions like what's the purpose for it? What do you want to do? Do you have kids?

Speaker 3: 9:26

Because there's two things that flow from real estate. One asset protection you actually have to protect what you buy and you have to be really, really smart about it and the other thing is estate planning. So both of those play a role in it, because I can tell you a lot of properties that I close as part of my transactions are coming through probate where people thought, well, I have it in a will or I have a will and so everything is good. And what ends up? They die. And the kids are like what do we do now? And now you have to go through probate. Welcome to not planning properly.

Speaker 2: 10:08

Yeah yeah. People think that just because you have the will, you avoid the probate, but that's not the case. That's not true. It triggers the whole probate process.

Speaker 3: 10:17

Exactly, and so I really use closings as a way to inform my clients. You know it's important to be educated about the greatest asset that you have, and a lot of people just kind of, you know, closing is so overwhelming You're dealing with insurance, you're dealing with this and you kind of just like stop, and what I say to them is that this is actually when the real work starts. You really need to pay attention, and I encourage people at closing listen. You need to like think about your next property. Think about how you're going to diversify, because the truth is, this is in Florida how we diversify our income. You know this is how we create wealth. It's actually through real estate. You can't do this in Georgia. You know a property in Georgia over 10 years is increasing by 2% in value, you know, and Florida that's not the case. So use it, but be smart about making sure that you protect it as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:23

And I could actually speak from personal experience to not having an attorney involved in a transaction. The last house that I sold it was I forgot why I didn't get an attorney involved. I can't remember the reason why I didn't, but I thought I got it. I thought I had a transaction, for whatever reason, and I figured everything would be fine. And there was a little bit of a hiccup and I had to bring and I actually have a friend of mine that does real estate law. I didn't even think about it and I had to bring him in last minute. There were some things that had he been involved prior to the transaction initiating, I probably would have made a substantial amount more money on the property the way the transaction worked out. So listeners out there, you hear that If you're going to buy a cellar house, get an attorney involved to review everything. It is in your best interest.

Speaker 3: 12:08

I speak from personal experience there.

Speaker 3: 12:11

Well, and that's the thing. So I have this group on Facebook that's called Title Talk and it's only for people in title, and it's a place where I really want folks that's in title to have a place that can ask questions. Sure, and when you see the questions that are coming up, you realize that there's actually a lot of, there's a lot of things that people don't know and there's not actually a whole lot of resources out there and you cannot rely on Google, you can't, you can't rely on those type of forums to give you what it is that you need. And so I think having an attorney at some point, whether it's with putting together a contract or whatever it is, it's super important. And let me tell you, now that the commission structures are changing for agents, we are probably going to see buyer agents disappearing, right? Yeah, so you know there's a big lawsuit with NAR against you know all the different. Well, buy Salis representatives against NAR and all the other brokers and what they came up with, and that, unfortunately, nar lost and everyone has to pay a whole lot of money.

Speaker 3: 13:39

But the crux of it is that buyer agents can no longer require their commissions to be paid by a seller, right? That's huge. That's like it is changing the landscape of real estate in such an incredible way. Because this is what it means when a buyer has an agent and they want to go find a house to buy, they now actually have to say to their agent hey, who's paying your commission? Because what they don't realize is that that agent is going to make them sign an agreement. It's a buyer agent agreement that says if the seller does not offer me commission, guess what you are going to have to pay it. And it doesn't.

Speaker 3: 14:29

I know right, for most people think about commissions on one side could be, for the average house right now, $16,000. So for a buyer that is not you know, that already has to pay insurance and they have title and they have all these mortgage fees, now all of a sudden have to dish up $16,000. That's probably not. It's not going to fly with a lot of buyers. So what's going to happen? That's already happening. Buyers are saying I don't need an agent, I can have Zillow and I can go and look at a house myself, right, because I can't afford $16,000.

Speaker 3: 15:09

But the problem is someone has to put together the contract. Someone has to say, hey, have you done your inspections, have you done this, have you done that? And this is kind of where lawyers are going to come back into the initial stages, because lawyers have really been removed from that aspect, right, when someone comes to me, they already have signed a contract. I've not seen it, you know, and I'm like all right contract's not good the you know whatever supplemental language you should have had. Maybe it's questionable, right.

Speaker 2: 15:44

I'm having a flashback to when I spoke with my attorney friend and we had the same conversation right and it's like I'm like who put together this language?

Speaker 3: 15:52

because kind of like legal advice and there's a lot of shells in there and I shall do the following. So lawyers typically for me, I would find a client after they've entered into the contract and they now need to pay an escrow, and then it's too late. I deal with whatever it is that you sign, but what's probably going to happen now is we're going to see lawyers come back to the forefront where, if someone wants to go buy a house and they don't have an agent, they need someone to put together a contract. So it's going to cost them some money, but it's probably going to protect a lot of people in the long run. Yeah, so a lot of changes are happening in the real estate industry, a lot.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Yeah, for sure. I say this all the time across all industries, all professional industries, whether it's real estate, title mortgage, accounting, all these different industries. It's so important because we all do our job and we specialize in typically one thing, and it's important to have a team of professionals in place, people that you can trust, that you know are looking out for your best interests, so you don't have to bog yourself down with the stress when you're going through a transaction such as buying a home. Ideally, you'd like that to be a pleasant process, right? You'd like to transition into a new property. Whatever that transaction looks like you'd like it to be be is a limited amount of stress as possible, and the only way to really do that is to have a team of professionals that specialize in those areas to guide you through that process. So very, very important to to do that for sure.

Speaker 3: 17:26

Yeah, it's building a team and let me tell you, it's an ever-changing situation. I think that, listen, if you can give me a team that consists of a general contractor and subcontractors, like you'll be my number one person, but I will. I will say to you that in building a team, I think it's easier to find probably a law firm and a title company and and a mortgage broker. Everything else is one of those, you know. Welcome to South Florida, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:58

I think I think, when it comes to contractors, subcontractors, general contractor, it's just that it's the nature of that, of that, of that business and doing a project, that you're going to have issues regardless doesn't matter. You have the best team in place. There are going to be issues, but you definitely want to have somebody that knows how to handle those issues appropriately.

Speaker 2: 18:16

But I don't know it seems that every time I do a project, it seems no matter how good the work is or how good it is or some kind of hiccup or something that goes wrong. That kind of creates a bad taste in my mouth about the experience when it comes to construction anyway.

Speaker 3: 18:28

I think for 99.9% of them, folks in South Florida, construction is leaves us with some form of PTSD, right, absolutely, which is interesting. So, at closing, when I when I ask my questions, okay, what are you going to do? The one question I always have is are you going to do construction? Because people don't realize with construction there are supplemental things that happen with it. For example, just because you don't live in an HOA community doesn't mean you don't have rules right, probably about 50% of the work that I do have to do with code violations because people are doing things that are against ordinances in the city that they live. So, for example, you start doing work, you demo a wall and you don't get a permit, or you, you know and people just don't know about that.

Speaker 2: 19:31

Or there's, or you open a permit's open many, many years ago and that pops up at closing and there's a monkey wrench in the whole process. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah and then. So it's a very, it's an educational conversation as to all right, if you get a contract there, let me tell you the number one rule is they're going to send you an invoice. Your invoice is not a contract, right? It doesn't matter who it is. If you're going to pay their money, unless you want to lose the money, unless you want to lose 5,000, or you will pay with losing 5,000, then have at it, have your invoice. You know, stop the work, but one no contractor is your friend.

Speaker 2: 20:09

I don't care if they send you a number number one red flag when hiring a contractor when they don't give you a contract. When a contractor doesn't give you a contract, run the other way. That's a problem.

Speaker 3: 20:21

Yes, yes and it's. It's become the standard really of like just invoices that are going back and forth and this somehow has to tell you what you know what your?

Speaker 3: 20:31

rights are and if the work that they're going to give you is so far or not, you know how much they can fix. It's crazy, but I see it all the time and so I really tell people listen, unless you want to lose money, you know, take the time. Just talk to someone. Most of my clients like will just call me and say, hey, what do I? You know what do I do? Yeah, what do I do there, and it's a very quick conversation. All for this is just quick conversations. If you need to retain me, it's pretty much because we have a problem right and now we need to go solve it. So, but yeah, it definitely is the real estate industry.

Speaker 2: 21:13

So so I'm detecting, from speaking with you, I'm fairly certain here we're detecting a South South African accent.

Speaker 3: 21:21

You're good, yes.

Speaker 2: 21:22

Yes, so tell us a little bit about your journey from South Africa over here.

Speaker 3: 21:30

Well it's, it's a long story, but I tried it like just put it in like two, two minutes. So yes, I'm from South Africa. I actually came to America when I was 18 years old and it was by pure miracle. I was working in a little coffee shop. I was broke, like you know, south Africa was going through a lot of changes. I didn't really have the the means or the ability to go to university. It was just it was a really bad time situation and I was working in a coffee shop and one morning a guest comes in and I was serving them and they just say to me hey, so what do you want to do with your life? And I was like I think I want to go to America. You know, because literally back then America was like the grass is greener on the other side, and in fact it is. And that morning my tip was a check for me to hop on a plane and come to America. It was literally like that.

Speaker 2: 22:44

It was life changing.

Speaker 3: 22:45

It was crazy.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Wow, what a story that is, huh.

Speaker 3: 22:50

Yeah, now back then this is now almost 24 years ago, because that that's you know. I came here many years ago. I we didn't really have internet, we didn't have like these computers that you can just go to and start, you know, looking up things. So you have to go to the library, pull a, you know, pull a book, wow. So, um, and obviously I didn't do enough search because my flight was to New York and I had this summer job in California. So I ended up coming to New York with a backpack completely as green as I mean, I knew nothing. I've never been on an airplane in my life. I'm $50 on my name, which was raised by my friends. So I came, you know 50 bucks get to New York and I get off the airplane and I see these police officers stand there and I was like, listen, how do I get to California?

Speaker 2: 23:55

And they're like you need to take it's gonna be a very, very long walk.

Speaker 3: 24:00

Yeah, they're like it's a bus that takes two weeks and I'm like, what are you talking about? And they ended up just like, don't worry, it was summer, obviously, so Columbia University had all their students were already off campus, so I ended up staying there and I was able to get to California by calling people and saying please help me. So I've had a lot of help along the way to get to America, to get to where I am today, because and that's just kind of how the story went- Very cool.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Thanks for sharing that story. That was fun. I like that.

Speaker 3: 24:44

Yeah, yeah, listen. I am incredibly grateful for living here. I really, really am. I do a lot of work in Africa. Still, I've got a nonprofit there and we build schools and so forth.

Speaker 2: 24:59

What's the name of the nonprofit?

Speaker 3: 25:01

Just to raise a word. It's Project Change.

Speaker 2: 25:02

Project Change.

Speaker 3: 25:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you'll send me the info.

Speaker 2: 25:07

We'll link in the description below to the that would be great.

Speaker 3: 25:11

So we do a lot of events, but it really is about perspective, right. What I like about real estate is that everyone in America I would say for the most part have the ability to obtain real estate, and it really is such a privilege, because in other places in the world, the idea of ever owning your own piece of real estate is so it just doesn't really exist. And so I love America. I really really do. I'm a citizen. I feel like it's given me opportunities that I absolutely never would have had, and so a lot of what I do is just sharing that with people Be grateful for where you are, for where you live, for the opportunities that you have and capitalize on it.

Speaker 2: 26:06

So, yeah, Absolutely Gratitude super important. I try to incorporate that into my daily life, to be thankful for what I have, and sometimes you forget, when you grow up in a place as great as this, that we do have it. We are very fortunate and we do have it very good here.

Speaker 3: 26:25

So for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I have incredible clients. I have such. I do very little marketing. Almost all my business come from direct referrals and I think that if you're grateful, you work hard and you do the right thing, and so I kind of have built my practice on that. It's just I do not take for granted the ability that I can choose what I do. I can choose my work, I can choose clients, I can choose how long I want my day used to look. It's really incredible, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Cheryl, how can our listeners learn more? How could they reach you? Maybe share your website, your contact information. Let us know how we can get in touch with you guys.

Speaker 3: 27:12

Yeah, so I'm actually almost everywhere, like if you put my name in Google like thumbs up, but you can go to my website. It's Sobi Law Group, and then the other one is Sobi Title and we are in Davies, so we are right on the corner of Nova University and, yeah, that's how you can find me.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Perfect, and we will, of course, link down below to all of your contact information. Cheryl, it's a pleasure getting the opportunity to meet you and learn about your journey and what you do for our great community. So thank you for coming on the show.

Speaker 3: 27:47

Thank you for having me, jeremy, and thank you for this support course. It's great to have a place where you share. You know what people do and you know how they can serve the community, because that's what we do, right Service. We serve our community, so thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yeah, it's our pleasure, and thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in and we will catch everyone next time. Take care, have a great day.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to G-N-P coopercitycom. That's G-N-P coopercitycom. Your call 954-231-3170.