How To California Form Real Property: Fill & Download for Free

California real estate is perfectly priced to reflect the opportunities and overall environment offered by the state. In the most productive cities, qualified workers find plenty of opportunities to earn quite high incomes and investors can get huge investment returns, both some of the very highest in the world.While income taxes are high for workers, the laws are well established, making it easy to predict how much of their big salaries ends up in their pockets. Since time is money, workers must position themselves at the most proximate locations around the biggest companies. So, workers are constantly fighting over the available housing, which suffers from highly constrained supplies with Proposition 13 and a prevalent NIMBY attitude.Similarly, investors want to stay close to these qualified workers, as they are the cream of the crop, the very best in the world that money can buy. Since they're so concentrated around the main city centers, investors have similarly driven up prime and picturesque locations in the surrounding suburbs and hillsides.As a result, modest ranch homes with about 1800 sqft go for over $3M in good locations:Yes, in much of the country, homes like this might sell for 1/20th the price or just over $150K. But, it's not too much different in the rest of California. Once out of the top areas like Silicon Valley, LA, or San Diego, home prices rapidly drop and such ranch homes go for only 1/10th as much or around $300K. In most of those areas, the favorable property tax rates from Proposition 13 support the slight premium above the rest of the country.This analysis applies to any other highly productive parts of the country, like Seattle or New York City.Most certainly, California real estate prices are not being driven primarily by retirees. With nearly 40 million people in California, there's simply not enough super wealthy retirees in the whole country to make a dent on housing prices.

Republicans have more than one problem with California. Surely part is the fact that it will be Mexican-descended majority (along with a few other countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala etc.) by mid-century. Especially since our coming minority status for whites is a harbinger of things to come for the nation as a whole, eventually, probably.But the real problem is that California is so successful. As a nation it would now rank 5th in the world, well ahead of Russia. And it’s a bellwether state. For example, banning smoking in public buildings started here pretty much. But Republinomics require California’s economy to be a smoking ruin.California Surpasses the U.K. as the Fifth-Largest Global EconomyPlus it’s a maker state, sending more tax dollars to the federal government than it gets back.Does California give more than it gets from D.C.?Plus we have some of the strictest gun regulation of any state, yet all those “good men without a gun” aren’t being slaughtered wholesale by drug-crazed gangs of illegally-armed blacks and Mexicans.Are States With Tough Gun Laws Actually Safer?California’s violent and property crime rates are still at historic lowsCrime Trends in California - Public Policy Institute of CaliforniaIt should be noted that California is home to over 5 million Republican voters—more than, as I recall, half a dozen “red” states. Considering how Trumpublican policies often seem aimed at “sticking it” to California, I wonder how those millions of California Republicans feel about being included in the GOP’s selective punishment of our state?

First: none of this is intended as advice. I know I have a disclaimer below, but you should check with a lawyer and have that lawyer review all the necessary contracts and local laws before acting on your discovery.The question leaves many facts unstated and potentially unknown. The best course of action may vary greatly based on the legal jurisdiction in which you live. However, in a generic, common law country, the operable information is as follows:Base facts:Discovered Items: Loose Chattel (money)Hidden Safe -- may be chattel or fixtureContents (money) -- chattelValue: $1,000,000 USD + Safe ValueLocation: Your real propertyPotentially operable law (not advice):The safe's nature as a chattel or fixture may change the analysis in some jurisdictions. If it is a fixture and it was not emptied, in some jurisdictions the contents would also be treated as a fixture. If it is chattel, the entirety would be treated as chattel.The money is chattel, with the only potential exception as described above. Unless the real property sale contained a chattel provision as described in the note below, the money would become a "bailment" and the buyer becomes a "bailor". As bailor, you have a duty to the bailee to protect the property and attempt to return it.If the chattel was property of a tenant, it is subject to the landlord-tenant agreement, and you have to attempt to return it.If the chattel was property of the seller, you would have to notify the seller that "Did you leave anything in the home?" In some jurisdictions you would have to tell the seller what you found, but in others you simply have to give notice that there may be something.If the chattel was property of someone else, not tenant or seller, (i.e., prior owner, or someone dumping it there), you have a duty to try and figure out who and notify them.What if you cannot find the owner? With this much money, you may have to notify the local authorities depending on local laws (e.g., could be result of a theft). You may also be required to make public notice of found property (e.g., "Property found at [address], please send a description within 60 days to claim it."Note: Several people suggested it may invalidate the sale of the home. That is unlikely, but it is true that the money may not be subject to the sale of the home. You would have to check your purchase contract, but this is why you should use a standard REIQ contract that forfeits to buyer any chattels not removed from the real property. This should be in the requirement, because in some jurisdictions the default for the sale of real property is to be for the "vacant land" (including fixtures). Some contracts require notification to the seller if loose chattel is found, especially if over a certain value, but others simply put a time limit for the seller to return or hand it over wholesale once possession of the real property is taken.What should I do? If I was you, and I'm not and I do not know what jurisdiction you are in so really cannot advise you about what to do, I would do the following:Take a video of how and where you discovered it, plus photos, to fully document it. Keep all paperwork and write down the story of how you found it for posterity: stick to the truth!Hire a lawyer on contingency, "I found $1 mil, I will pay you $20,000 if you can help me keep it, or 10% of any finders fee if I have to give it away, whichever is less (attorney will say greatest)."Deposit the money in the attorney's trust account, file an IRS Form 8300. (make sure you can trust that attorney!)Notify the seller of "found property", but in vague terms.Notify any prior living owners of the "found property".Notify local law enforcement, with a notice of your claim to the property (e.g., to keep them from taking it). (Note, if your local police are corrupt, you may want to go to a higher LEA). You may be able to do this anonymously via your attorney, if you wish to protect yourself. Watch out for Civil Forfeiture!!Publish a notice, with cooperation of the police, in the local paper for "found property".File a claim against the money to claim possession over it.Hope that nobody can perfect a claim against the property and that the property becomes yours!This pretty much holds true to any finding of chattels. On the otherhand, let's say you buy a house for $100,000, and then find out the chandelier is made of real diamonds worth millions, it is a fixture and you are probably free and clear. Hope for diamonds built into a fixture, not cash!-------------UPDATE: The answers to this question seriously annoy me. Doing the legal thing is by far the simplest, least troublesome, and safest option. Yet people keep insisting that the author should lie, hide, and act with a guilty conscience. Rather than going on about why doing all of those things is utterly stupid, let's just cut to the chase and the news showing what some people who actually had this happen did and the results of those findings:$10 million in gold treasure found buried in California backyard -- not only did they get to keep the money, but they were happy keeping the money.The bad news? IRS wanted its chunk, Couple who found $10m haul of gold coins forced to give half to taxman. Except, you know what, so what? It's still more than you had, plus you have the strong argument that it was an existing condition on the property when you bought it and therefore you actually paid for it, taxes were probably paid for it originally, and thus you can keep it. If anything this reinforces why you should talk to a tax attorney about it.8 People Who Accidentally Found a Fortune - ODDEE #3 here argues a bit in favor of some of the other answers, but again that comes down to an issue of the house's purchase contract and the contractor being the finder.Carson City man leaves behind millions in gold hidden inside his homeThat said, this is why the law of the place you are in matters: $500,000 Found in House Walls Belongs to Estate, Not Homeowners Basically if the prior person who owned that money and sold it knew the money was there, it is yours. If the house had been inherited and it was unknown, but then sold, it might not be yours. However, a lot of courts (go ahead, check out Google Scholar and look for cases on point) have split the difference in those instances. And in other states the homeowners got the money, Who Gets Cash Hidden in House By Deceased Former Owner? It really comes down to what does the deed say and what is the laws of the relevant jurisdiction. i.e., Hire an Attorney.Summary: It really is better be honest and to be prepared to negotiate reasonably. With an honest approach you will likely get to keep some, if not all, of the money. In contrast, with a dishonest approach, even if you have a right to keep it all, you very well could lose it all because you would create suspicions of laundering/etc that would otherwise not exist.