Homestead Waiver: Fill & Download for Free

First thing you should do is “Homestead” your house; if your lawyer doesn’t recommend it at the closing then you should go to town hall and do it yourself. The Homestead laws prevent creditors from seizing your house for unpaid debts. It’s always a good idea to Homestead.Follow up on all those imperfections that the Home Inspector found and reported in his book. You paid 750 dollars (or whatever) for it so don’t ignore what he found. If he says the circuit box is overloaded, get it replaced. If he thinks the roof needs work, plan on getting it done. The job isn’t over because you own it now - it’s just begun.Meet The Neighbors - many people don’t do this. Make a big effort to go and meet the neighbors. You’re going to be stuck with them for a long, long time. You want to make friends and avoid troubles.Walk the property lines and make certain your stakes and corners are real and accurate. At some point it is worth paying an engineer to survey the plot and put in orange stakes so you know exactly what you own - and are paying taxes for. I’ve seen many people lose their property to neighbors who encroach for years and years. I had an aunt who lost a significant part of her property when a neighbor plowed a driveway on her land and she didn’t do anything for “n” years, after which the town said it was too late - she had “abandoned” it. Don’t do that.Hire cleaners and clean, clean, clean that house. Clean it up before you move in! It will be too difficult to clean while you’re moving in and impossible to clean afterwards, not to the standards you like.Same goes for plastering, painting, etc. If you can manage it, paint it before you move in. It’s a pain in the ass afterwards.Change those locks! Hide an emergency key somewhere. You WILL need it eventually.Have a tradesman you trust inspect your furnace, hot water tank and AC systems. You don’t want that furnace to crap out in the middle of your first winter, as mine did.If you’re on city sewerage, consider having the soil pipe reamed. It’s only 250 dollars; you don’t know if the old owners ever did it and it’s cheap 5-year insurance to get it done now so you know what you’re facing. If a sewer line is clogged or collapses, it’s hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it fixed as an emergency. I’ve been there. It’s worth getting that sewer line checked.If you have a brick chimney and your inspector suggested repointing or recapping, now is the time to get it down. The top bricks on chimneys fail and fall over over time, especially with oil heat which is corrosive to masonry. Keep on top of that.Get those gutters and downspouts cleared.Check your casement windows for rot and replace with modern, secure windows. It’s easy for a burglar to get into the house through an old casement window. If they are rotten, it’s much easier. And usually they are low and hidden so no one sees him doing his dirty work.Know exactly where the furnace cut-off switch is.Know where the furnace filter is and change it right away. If you have water filtration do the same thing. Then you know what you’re getting and that it works.Know exactly where the main water cut-off is - and any other valves that cut off water. I guarantee that sooner or later you will need to cut off the water in an emergency and that is no time to be hunting for the right valve. Not many homeowners realize that the weakest link in your house is the hoses that go to your washing machine. If they are rubber, they WILL fail eventually. If they fail when you’re on vacation - congratulations - you will have a new indoor pool in your basement when you get home. If you move in your old appliances in your new home, replace those hoses. Replace them with braided metal hoses. When you go on vaca, turn off the water to the washer.If your new house has a sump pump, for god’s sake replace it at once. If you don’t want to replace it because a new Goulds costs 250 bucks then at a minimum hand-test the trigger to make sure it fires. There are few things more discouraging than depending on a sump pump that fails when it is needed most. And DO NOT skimp and buy the 69 dollar Home Depot special. Buy the quality model. You do not know heartbreak until you go down in your basement after a big storm and find all your precious photo albums floating around and the carpet and furnace ruined.Check the connecting pipes between the valves and faucets in the kitchen an bathrooms and see if the nuts are plastic or metal. If the nuts are plastic replace them with pipes with metal nuts. The plastic degrades over time and results in a leak. I have had happen twice. I even go as far as using braded steel pipes if available.Know exactly how to pull the main electrical breaker. If someone is being shocked or there is an electrical fire that doesn’t trip a fuse, you cannot stop this event without killing the electricityGas company doesn’t often let you turn off the gas - but you can if there is an emergency. Find the gas meter and know where the valve lug is located. It may require a pipe wrench. If you have gas appliances, know where the cut-offs are.If your house was built before 1974 then you have lead paint, almost guaranteed. You had to sign a lead paint waiver at closing. If you have small children then it is absolutely critical you deal with the lead paint. Children are drawn to eat lead paint because it tastes like sugar. You cannot cover it with paint; you have to encapsulate or remove it and encapsulation is sometimes forbidden by law. Removing lead paint is an expensive and intensive effort. The same goes for asbestos. Asbestos is found in outside shingles, floor tiles and pipe insulation and removing it is expensive; screwing with it yourself is dangerous. You have to look to your inspection report for their determination and recommendation. I have steam pipe insulation on one of my apartment buildings; as long as it’s not disturbed, it’s okay. Once it’s disturbed it requires an expensive remediation process.This will most certainly come out in the inspection report but one thing you absolutely should check is the age and condition of your oil tank if you have oil heat. If just five gallons - even fewer sometimes - spill from the tank, it requires hazmat remediation at enormous expense. Tanks are not that expensive and should be modern with modern piping to the furnace. If your tank has oil stains on the bottom, it could be ready to fail and when they fail it is a disaster; the smell of the oil alone will drive you from the house, even in small amounts. Check that tank!Make sure your smoke detectors are in place and work. If not there, put in a combo, CO/Smoke detector hot wired in the basement near the furnace.This is something to consider too. If you have a stone or cement unfinished basement then before you move in buy a 15 dollar insect sprayer and fill is 1/4 with bleach and the rest with water and spray the basement thoroughly. Make sure all windows are open, all doors and work backwards towards a door. It’s best if you have a respirator. Bleaching the basement will kill or reduce incipient mold build up and you want to do this before you move in because the strong smell of bleach will drive you from the house. After a day it will be gone and your basement will smell clean, not like bleach.Please remember that if you do get a contractor to do a job you never, ever, ever pay him the full amount until the job is completely done. Many contractors will ask for a sizable deposit to start the job. That’s usually ok as long as it does not exceed half the estimate. Then when the job is “nearly done” they will want the remainder of the money. IF YOU PAY THEM, THEY WILL DISAPPEAR. If you want, give them half the remaining money and tell them you will pay the last on completion. It doesn’t matter how much you like or trust the contractor - once you pay him, he will disappear, never to be seen again.There is no end of stuff you can and should do - almost all of it requires money. All of it requires effort. But you sleep better at night knowing that something is done because you did it than depending on people who were moving out and knew they were moving out for awhile to do the maintenance before they left.

You are not betting half your stuff when you get married. If you have one million dollars, and you get married and then divorced, you do not have to give your ex-wife half a million dollars. I am honestly quite surprised how few people understand this.You only divide up joint income when you were married, not existing property you had before the marriage.Okay, so with that out of the way:In the United States, the Federal government grants about 1,400 special rights and privileges to married people. The various states can add special rights and privileges of their own; if you count Federal and state rights, married couples receive about 1,700 special legally defined rights and privileges.You mention a couple of those rights that you can get other ways, such as through a PoA.However, of those 1,400 Federal rights and privileges, about 1,100 can not be obtained any other way. Not wills, not contracts, not PoAs, not any other arrangement.A handful of examples:Spousal immunity. Legally married individuals can not be made to testify against each other in court.Protection of joint property from civil forfeiture. If Alice and Bob own property, and someone sues Bob in a civil lawsuit and wins, that person can attach a lien to the property as part of the settlement. However, that lien can not be exercised as long as Alice is still alive. If Bob dies before Alice, the lien is voided.Survivorship benefits for pensions and Social Security.Military benefits.The right to be stationed with an active duty spouse.Tax-free transfer of assets. A married person can transfer assets to a spouse without the spouse incurring income tax liabilities.Joint filing of taxes.Employment assistance benefits for spouses of people leaving military service.Property tax abatement for people who own property and are married to a spouse who qualifies for an abatement, such as a spouse with certain kinds of disabilities.Transfer of Medicaid benefits.Tax waivers for a person employed by his or her spouse.Joint bankruptcy protection.Transfer of certain property easement grants. If your spouse is granted an easement for use of property that does not transfer in sale, your spouse can sell that property to you and the easement persists.Transfer of homestead rights.Federally-protected funeral leave.Transfer of certain kinds of trust funds.Transfer of certain custodial rights.Transfer of educational and housing assistance of a deceased spouse.Transfer of certain union benefits from a deceased spouse.Continued eligibility of employer-sponsored health insurance from a deceased spouse.Automatic transfer of certain kinds of intellectual property rights belonging to a deceased spouse.“Family partnerships,” a special class of business partnership available to married persons allowing disbursement of profits from a business within a family with reduced tax liabilities.The ability to create and manage certain types of family trusts, with certain tax benefits from such trusts.Exemption from estate taxes for property willed to a spouse.Federally guaranteed family leave to care for a sick or injured spouse.The ability to renew a lease signed by a spouse.Transfer of crime victim recovery benefits.Transfer of worker’s compensation benefits.Transfer of IRA accounts.These are just a few examples of benefits that are only available through marriage and in no other way. There are about a thousand more.

Non Aggression Principle (NAP)An ethical principle that states, "One should not commit aggression."AggressionThe initiation or escalation of coercion against others.CoercionForce, threats of force or fraud.Example 1If Jack swings a stick at peaceful Jill, Jack is “initiating or escalating” coercion against Jill and thus committing aggression.Jill using the minimal amount of force necessary to block Jack’s attack to prevent injury is not aggression, because Jill is not “initiating or escalating” coercion.But if Jill kills Jack and his friends in retaliation, then Jill is committing aggression by “escalating” coercion against Jack and “initiating” coercion against his innocent friends.By "initiating or escalating coercion against others”I’m referring to “other human beings including their body and their property.”ExampleWhether Jack initiates coercion by hitting Jill’s body, stealing Jill’s TV or smashing Jill’s car… he is committing aggression against Jill.By ”property”I mean physical items acquired legitimately in one of the following ways…Voluntary exchange with the rightful owner.Voluntary gift from the rightful owner.Homesteading resources that have never been used or have currently been abandoned by other human beings.In contrast, if Jack steals something, I don’t consider it to be Jack’s property because it was not legitimately acquired in the ways I just mentioned.By "rightful owner" I mean someone who acquired the property via...Homesteading resources that have never been used or have currently been abandoned by other human beings.A mutually voluntary trade with the person who homesteaded it.A series of mutually voluntary trades that can all be directly traced back to the person who homesteaded it.By “homesteading” resourcesI mean putting to use, or mixing one’s labor with something to make it more valuable to human beings.I can homestead an abandoned field by planting, irrigating and harvesting crops each year throughout that field.I cannot homestead an entire continent by simply planting a flag in the ground, because at that point I’ve only made use of and thus homesteaded 1 square inch of soil.ConsentIf Jack gives you consent to hit him, and you hit him, you’re not the one who initiated force. Jack initiated force against himself by giving you consent to hit him. Since he’s initiating force against himself and not against others, he is not committing aggression and neither are you.If two mixed martial arts fighters both voluntarily sign a waiver so they can fight in the ring for a title belt, it’s not aggression. It’s a mutually voluntary fight. Each fighter initiating force against himself. As soon as one fighter taps out or goes limp, he’s withdrawing consent to continue the fight according to the contract. Any violence after that is aggression, because the attacker no longer has the other’s consent.