Yeah, ripped, you need advice so you don't have to run in just
as as the can Shooter's gonna help come Man Dix is the Troubleshooter Show.
No Tom Martino, Hi, Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show.
Three oh three seven one three talk three oh three seven one three eight two
five five. What's going on in your life? And how can we help
you? That's what I'm asking every day. And all you have to do
is call. Listen. Here's the bottom line, call right away at the
first sign of problems, because we can probably avoid trouble with liars, cheats
and ripoffs. And unfortunately there are a lot of liars, cheats and ripoffs,
by the way, the worst of the worst. At Sleazbrigade dot com
sl ea ze slez Brigade dot com. I just put up one Rizzy.
I've been promising to put this clown up and my headline I try to be
creative with my headlines. I don't know if this is how about this one?
One Rizzi is one bad guy? Anyway? I like that one?
Uh Sleezbrigade dot com. One Rizzi taken nearly a million dollars from consumers with
little or no work one Rizzi. Can you believe that? Now, listen
to this. It's hard to believe a scumbag like this is walking free one
hundred and twenty one thousand dollars from one couple, seven hundred thousand from another,
hundreds of thousands. This guy walks away with Rizzy our Zzi one Rizzy.
I wish I had a phone number for this clown. Sleesbrigade dot com.
Yeah, by the way, slees Brigade's wonderful. Now that's the worst
of the worst. Of course, it's the total antithesis of referral lists dot
com, which is my good guys, my good guys like water Pros that
give you those the wonderful water systems at the lowest prices. And uh,
every time I have coffee, I think of water Pros. I know because
I honestly God, it was the one thing that made my coffee perfect,
the Ververse osmosis water. Anyway, you can get that done for fourteen hundred
at the kitchen, saying whole house systems starting at like two thousand. Hey,
waterpros dot net three h three eight six two five five five four.
Now, if you want to call, i'd like your opinion on a few
things. First of all, we're going to talk a little legal stuff today
with John Fuller. He is with Fuller Law, and uh I also want
to talk about some other stuff. How is it that phenoleprine pheno efyrin,
which has been depended on for decongesting and for cold medications, has been found
to be totally useless? It does nothing? Think about that. Now,
for the FDA to say something does nothing, that either means it's something went
wrong. I mean, because that's sixteen member FDA panel. They usually love
big pharma, but this advisory panel unanimously voted that phenol efrine, the active
ingredient in most cold medicines, has zero effect zero for treating congestion. Have
you heard of that, Deputy doc? Did you hear that? Of course
it's been all over the news. But how the hell? I mean,
how did it get through? And by the way, just so you know,
they're still selling it still, and the FDA could force removal, but
they don't, not necessarily. Mostly the FDA mostly does one thing, and
they do it pretty well. I don't want to down the FDA too much.
And what they do pretty well is what's called gross gr as GRS.
Do you know what that stands for? Doc? I do not, And
it's an FDA designation, generally approved, generally recognized as safe. So that's
their number one thing. They just don't want you putting strych nine in a
bottle and calling it or putting some kind of poison in a bottle in calling
it Socrates Choice or something for infection or something like that. You get there.
My main beef with the FDA tom is all the supplements that people advertise
and they can make whatever claims they want as long as they label it as
a supplement or an herbal product. And the FDA has no control over that.
Well, they can't. They can't tout it as a specific cure for
anything. They can say compare to you see, that's how they get around
it, compared to you know, valium. But you know, a couple
of years ago, I think it was sixty minutes went to a whole bunch
of vitamin stores and checked supplements and brought it to a lab to see what
the ingredients were. And the range of active ingredients in products was literally from
ten to twenty percent, and even some had no active ingredient. That it's
set on the label. Well, I think some of the biggest ripoffs are
in supplements. Some of the biggest ripoffs are in homeopathic remedies. And I'm
not saying that there isn't some validity to some of it. I'm talking about
ripoffs and alternative medicine. But see, I believe there's ripoffs in conventional medicine
too. But alternative medicine takes advantage of people who are looking for an answer,
and You're right, Doc, they get away with a lot. Now,
they may not do it openly and advertise it, but when you're in
their office and they talk about their remedies and what they can do, it's
a bunch of bs. And look at I'm not a disbeliever in homeopathic remedies
or prolo therapies which is a self healing kind of stuff, or allipathic medicine.
I like them all. I like them all to a certain ext But
you brought something up about active ingredients that happened in the CBD business as well,
and CBD went out like a flash, didn't it. CBD still has
some great properties to it, but what happened was a bunch of clowns got
involved and ruined it, and some really great companies got caught up in the
static. But CBD does work. Now here's another thing you brought up,
ingredients. Did you hear about the Alo controversies Alo? Well that was in
the news too. Alo. Most Alo products don't contain ALO, and Bloomberg
did a study on that along with some other independent lab and found and Bloomberg
didn't do the study. Bloomberg hired people to do it independent And I don't
know why they target it Alo, but bottom line is Alo does little well
Alo. We don't know what Alo does because these products they tested they don't
have Alo in them. So think about that. Alo Vera was not in
most of the things tested. Alovera was a scam. Uh so they found
I mean I was I'm trying to find an article now because they actually named
brand names of Alo products that have nothing in them. Nothing, you know,
alcohol and other stuff. But as far as Alo goes, it was
a big scam. So be careful with alo Vera products. You know that
I think it comes from a cactus, right, and they make this cream
and these lotions, but again they were found to have little I'm gonna I'm
gonna look that up and I'll find it. Hey, Tom, And while
we're on the subject, can I just say something, People need to be
really really careful about scams because now with AI, it is so easy to
replicate anything on the Internet that you have to really double check. Any time
you get any kind of message that you're not one hundred percent sure of,
you need to either shut off the computer, hang up, and go to
the website of the organization that's getting in touch with you, because you know,
like we talk about these groups of course, of course, I mean
it's you know, it's gonna be worse. It's gonna be worse as time
goes on. Because AI is getting smarter and smarter and smartly. They're trying
to they're trying to put into AI a certain morality and that's even dangerous by
the way. So if you go on to AI and ask it questions,
that is a against AI morality, Like you know, show me something and
it's against the narrative. Show me why the COVID vaccine is not effective or
has there been Can you show me examples of where it's harmed people? It
won't do it, it has a serve or can you can I if I
wanted to list things so I could fight or against such and such a product.
It won't do it anyway. This New York based consumer lab dot com
tested several ALO products from Target, Walmart, CBS. Virtually anything they sell
Walmart, Target, and CBS with ALO doesn't have ALO. That that's that's
the longest short of it. And uh, there are just so there's just
so much junk right now on the market. And how does it? How
does it happen? We don't have the gatekeepers we think we do now that
goes for basically anything. I mean, okay, we have John Fuller with
us, John Fuller, Fuller Law. John, I'm going to tell you
what happened to me one time. God's on a story. I checked out
a independent medical examiner, and I am e. I went to this doctor
and I went there because at the time Farmers was the other person's insurance or
something sent me there. And he told me that he didn't even look at
me. He came in the room for five six seconds. I never touched
me, just asked me some questions, had me twirl around like a model
in a gown, and then left and wrote up a six page report on
how I have no injury whatsoever. None, no injury whatsoever. That was
an independent medical examiner, which is really their whores, but they call themselves
independent medical examiners. So I was working at Channel four at the time,
and I went back there and I complained of certain problems. It was hard
to get an appointment because most of his waiting room was filled with insurance people.
But I went as an individual patient and guess what happened. He recommended
all kinds of therapy. Oh, he didn't say there was nothing wrong with
me. Same patient, same place. In fact, they did more of
a check up on me and said that I had certain problems with my vertebrate,
my lower back, just like I knew I did the which was exacerbated
by this accident many many, oh as many years ago, more than thirty
probably, But can you believe this? The same doctor and same patient weeks
apart when he worked for the insurance company, he said there was nothing wrong
with me. What do you think about that? Do they out and out
lie like that? I mean, doc? How do they get docs to
out and out lie like that? Seriously? Do they know when an insurance
company shows up a client that the insurance company sends do they know they have
to lie? Tom, You know as well as I do. There are
bad apples in every profession. There are bad doctors, there are bad lawyers,
there are bad conquerors. And I think what happens is that these doctors
are incompetent in their own field, and so they wind up doing something and
they become whores to the insurance company. Now, now hold on, Brian.
Brian wants to talk about a house. I got to take a break,
But Brian, I swear to you I will take you up right after
the break and answer your qu question. Please hang on. I'm Tom Martino
through and then I have Brian Burns from Compass with a problem You're just not
gonna believe. Eight eight eight Heating dot Com will do high efficiency heating replacements
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now three oh three seven seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his
only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate man dot com to list
your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Time Tom Martine here three three seven one three talks seven one three eight two
five five. What can we do for you? Let's go to the phones
and talk and uh, Brian wants to know about purchasing a house. Go
ahead, the Brian online one. Go ahead Brian oh sar and son in
law to buy a home. He is a financial advisor for a pretty large
company and recently, as tax has done, his gross annual is one hundred
and eighty thousand. The tax account was so darn good he got it down
apparently to forty nine thousand. Yeah, that happens all the time. It's
called chattel, meaning okay, all kinds are right off. Go ahead,
Okay, what will the lending company look at for you know, the amount
that they can borrow. They use a greater number, or they used the
EAGI, they used the adjusted gross income. Let me explain what people have
done a lot of self employed people have written themselves out of the home buying
market because of that. Now I have some friends self employed who bit the
bullet and showed higher gross or higher adjusted incomes and paid the tax in order
to qualify. Now, I'm going to tell you some devious stuff, Brian,
that people have done. I'm not suggesting it. I'm not recommending it.
I'm telling you as a fact. Some people actually went back and amended
their return after they qualified for a mortgage. So they they qualified for a
mortgage with a higher adjusted gross and then got into the house. And once
they were into the house, they went back and amended their taxes, saying,
oh, I forgot about these deductions and then got money back. I
know it sounds devious, but people have done that. Here's the deal.
Here's the deal. Good accountants should be able to get your income down,
but it should be pretty accurate. See a lot of people say, well,
wait a minute, I really made one hundred and eighty thousand. I
know I'm only showing forty. Well that's that's the way life is. If
you show forty, that's what you made. Now, sometimes though people have
cars and all kinds of expenses, they run through their corporation, so their
personal income shows down. But now there are some mortgage programs that will add
back in a certain amount of chattel for self employed people. Okay, some
mortgage companies. In fact, I would like for you. You can listen.
I know your time is limited right now, but I'm going to get
one of our mortgage people on to answer about Chattle. Okay, now,
Kelly, try to get try to get try to get Brent Ivinson on or
someone for Ideal and if you can't, then call Kurt Rogers. I know
Kurt might be I don't know what he's doing at Affordable Interest Mortgage anymore.
I know he stopped advertising and he says he's cutting back on his business,
but he still is an expert though on the industry. So Kurt Rodgers would
be another one. Or but try Brent Ivenson first at Ideal Home Loans because
Ideals he is still pretty active and they're doing Ideal is still doing mortgages,
by the way, and they have the they have that interest rate guarantee so
they refinance you when rates go down. So hold on, Brian. If
you can't stay on the line, I will get an answer for you.
On some of the mortgage companies that may allow certain chattel to be added back
in three h three seven to one three talks seven to one three eight,
two five five. Now there's another. I got three Brian's okay. I
got Brian from Compass. I got Brian from I just took and I have
Brian online too, Brian Burns from Compass Insurance Group. We have to have
this discussion. I want you to hang on for after the break. This
other Brian, though, needs advice on a moving company. Brian, what
advice do you need? Because this is man, there's probably an eighty percent
chance you will be ripped off when hiring a moving company. What is your
question, Brian? Yeah, I just thought you might have a reputable company.
I'm here at Morrison, Colorado, going to Screenville, South Carolina,
and there's plenty of options out there, but I really don't want to do
the work myself, and I didn't know if you had some bad ones.
Yeah, yeah, we do. I have some really good recommendations that I'll
tell you what. I'll give you some recommendations that will save you and probably
prevent you from being ripped off if you can hold on. I'm Tom Martine,
we have more coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer
Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time
for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance
paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh
three seven to seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer
when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home
with Remax Alliance three oh three nine to zero sixteen twenty two. I am
Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three three seven one three. Talk Brian needs advice
on moving? Brian, you're moving from where to wear? Uh Greenville,
South Carolina. Okay, I'm gonna explain this to you real quick. When
when you contact a moving company, most likely you won't get a moving company.
In fact, I would say eighty five percent of all the people advertising
are not moving companies. And here's what they do. So I'll give you
the dangers and then you'll know how to you know, work around it.
Whoever you contact Normally, who you contact is what's called well I don't know.
I call them a scumbagy. They represent themselves as a moving company.
They give you a price, it sounds good to you, and you sign
up with them. Okay, when you sign up with them, they you'll
never see those people again. They sell that contract to someone else. Sometimes
they sell it to a guy with a truck. Sometimes they sell it to
another consolidator. Whatever it is they sell that contract. Then the people show
up to your place to move you, and when they get there, they
tell you that the first guy miscalculated and you're going to have to pay more.
You're going to feel desperate. This happens all the time. You're going
to feel desperate because they're there to move you, and you agree to pay
a little more. Those people then pick up your stuff and you never see
them again. Now they give it to a transport company who then takes it
and calls you to deliver it. But they tell you, by the way,
we weighed this stuff and it was way more than the second company said,
and you're going to have to pay this to get your stuff. Now
you're going to get hit up three times with three increases or two increases.
The first price, then the two increases. Sometimes even more than that.
If it has to sit on a truck. While you're arguing with them,
they're going to say, now you owe storage. You get to a point
where you're desperate, I'm going to tell you some other stuff. Most of
the time, people who want to move, it doesn't pay them to move
what they're moving. Most of the time we have junk, and it's cheaper.
Listen to me carefully. It's cheaper to sell your crap and buy new
stuff where you're moving than moving. I'm going to tell you that right up
front. Unless you have like serious stuff that you love. Okay, now
you have, But most of the stuff that you love can be shipped in
boxes. I'm talking about like pictures, photos, whatever, files, or
consolidated into a U haul van. So all I want to tell you is
upfront, most of the time, moving does not pay. Period. Now
let's talk about if you do move and you want to bring all your stuff.
What you need is an actual moving company, a movie company, preferably
that has a national affiliation with a moving agent. Okay, a moving company
like a North American agent or a United Van Lines agent, somebody who is
reputable that will pick you up. They will take care of you and they
will get you to the right place with their agent on the other side.
Okay, now, now listen, that's I'm going to get. Now,
if you want to know who to use, I have some good people to
use. I'm going to tell you that American Moving is a Beacons agent and
they're on a referral list. They have a five star rating. They've been
with me for ten years. Okay, now, now, American Moving is
a great company. So there you can start there. The number is three
oh three four six nine six nine six six's eight three. But if
you shop around, it's okay. Just make sure when you shop around you
find a real agent that's been around, that actually owns trucks and get everything
in writing everything. And an estimate is not a contract, it's an estimate.
Thank you, Brian. Let us know if you need anything else.
Three oh three seven to one three talk for now. I have another Brian,
the third Brian Trifecta today. This is Brian Burns Compass Insurance Group.
They do free insurance checkups, as I said, and they're really important by
the way, because what they do is they help you no if you're not
paying, if you're paying too much or you're not insured enough. Brian,
I'm gonna tell you call I had today and they were so distressed. They're
in a complex of duplexes, if that makes sense. Yep, so a
number of duplexes, and they have an HOA and they have a management company.
They re heavy. What's that. I know where this is going.
I've been getting a lot of these phone calls. Go ahead, they have
a number they have storm damage and have to replace the roofs. Okay,
not all of them, but some of them. First and foremost. I
want to tell people in a condo, or in a town home, or
in a complex of duplexes, whether your roof is partially destroyed, completely destroyed,
or not even touched, you could still be socked with an assessment.
Yep. Somebody will say, wait a minute, tom My roof was not
touched. Yes it was. I'll tell you why. Even if your actual
complex, your duplex, was not touched, if the project was touched,
you were touched. That's what you agree to when you move in to a
group community. You agree to it. Here's the next thing you need to
know. When your HOA said you're covered, you have insurance and you only
have to buy insurance. She just bought this place, and they said,
oh, you just buy your insurance for the inside. We take care of
the outside. So now this young woman says, oh, then I'm covered
for the outside. Come to find out that roof of hers may have cost
twenty five thousand dollars to replace twenty five. Both sides would have cost fifty.
She was assessed twenty thousand. She said, wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, that's it would have cost twenty five to get a whole
new roof. Why am I paying twenty grand? Why am I paying twenty
grand if we have insurance? They said, well, we don't have that
much insurance. We have a big deductible. She said, you said you
were covered. Well, yeah, we're covered, but we have a deductible.
And this person thinks, oh, I don't owe it. The HOA
owes it first of all, the ha is her. Well, then the
management company owes it because they didn't have enough insurance. I said, if
they had enough insurance, your HOA fees instead of being four hundred and thirty
five dollars a month, may very well be eighteen hundred dollars a month.
That's Brian explained to everyone what has happened to insurance premiums on these projects.
Yeah, and I actually thought you were going a different direction with this because
the number of calls that I've gotten is that some of these hoas can no
longer get insurance or afford insurance, and so they are telling the individual unit
owners they have to ensure their properties. So you know, you have shared
walls, which complicates things, especially if it's a condo where you have you
know, you're on Well, how would I ensure a roof if I'm living
in a complex, Right, Well, if it's a town home, you
can do it. I could get insurance carriers to do that because you at
least have you know, a part of your home is covered by this roof
that we could assign to you. Where it would be impossible is if you're
on the second floor of a four story unit and you're trying to get it.
But I'm seeing I'm getting calls from from town homes, you know hoa's
that are dissolving, that cannot cover and we're not dissolving, but they are
no longer providing insurance. And then the individual unit owner that is actually happening
I've gotten. I bet you we've gotten ten call this year so far,
since since December of Hoa's that can no longer do the insurance, and they're
converting it to where the individual owners have to change their policy from a condo
policy to a home policy so they can cover the roof, and what can
they even get? Okay, so does the does the third floor on a
three fourth story building end up paying for the roof? Or how how would
I if I'm in a condo, how do I get insurance from my unit
that would cover my portion of the roof? Yeah? And I haven't run
into it where it's a condo where they're on a different floor. I'm just
saying it goes that way. I don't know how I'd get insurance. So
the ones you were you were talking about were mainly town homes or yeah,
or like this situation here you're talking about where at the duplex. I know
that's not what you were saying on the No. No, I understand.
So what's so listen, what as an owner of a condo yep, you're
or a town home. I mean, if you if your place cannot afford
the insurance, what could a premium very well be if we're talking about a
three hundred unit condo. Oh gosh, yeah, uh, you're talking about
you know, several hundred thousand dollars a premium. But the bigger problem they're
having is deductible. Sure, yeah, they're they're they won't cover the roofs
or they're putting, you know, ten percent deductible on it, so ten
percent of your dwelling limit. To your point that this is probably what happened
with this duplex where they have such a high deductible that the amount they're having
to assess is almost the cost of the roof. And it gets more complicated
than that, Tom, because even if you get loss assessment coverage, which
I would highly recommend everybody hold on because I want to explain loss assessment coverage
and I want to talk about that. And then John Fuller is still with
us, and we're going to go back to talking about independent medical examiners and
also people who claim they can tell you what your case is worth. All
of that coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an
insurance checkup, free, no obligation in comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much
your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven
to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand
the real estate man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh
three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three
O three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five Brian Burns,
Compass Insurance Group. Have to sum this up? How the hell do
we sum it up? How? What do people do? I would say,
I mean, what do they do if they're buying a condo right now?
There is no answer. You could end up either paying outrageous HOA dues
or you will eventually be assessed. Yep. Well, and I think the
key to that is if it is if there HOA is still covering the xterior.
Make sure you have as high a limit as you can of loss assessment
cars. How much can you get on loss assessment coverage? Yeah, some
carriers will go up to fifty thousand, but here, Oh my god,
that's wonderful. But would that be expensive? No, it's really not right
now I think it will be in the future. But here's the big thing
I want people to hear. There are a lot of companies out there that
will offer higher loss assessment coverage. But then when you read the policy,
there's a caveat that says that if this is the result of an HOA to
deductible, it's limited to a different amount. Let's say you bought twenty thousand,
but if you read the fine print, it says that if it's results
of an HOA deductible, they'll only pay five thousand. So I warn people
to look at that. I pay attention to this very closely. I quit
writing companies that offer it that do that where they have a separate limit for
HOA deductible, because that's the most common claim for a loss assessment is because
the HOA deductible. All right, Brian Burns, Compass Insurance Group, I
want you to call them for an insurance checkup three oh three nine nine six
nine thousand. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing dot com.
You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup,
free no obligation comparison. Call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at
dozens of insurance companies. Find out now three oh three seven seven to one
help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real
estate Man dot Com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine
two zero sixteen twenty two. Yeah, ripped up news needed, that's who
you don't have You come running just as fast as we can. Shooter's gonna
help. Come Man Dix is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino, Hi,
Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. We are here and I
want you to call anytime twenty four to seven three oh three Martino three oh
three six two seven eight four sixty six, and we will get back to
you. Always dispensing such important information on this show. To recap the insurance
are insurance experts Brian Burns Compass Insurance Group, told us about a trend going
on right now, not just in Colorado, but in areas that have been
storm ravaged in the West. Wherever it is condo developments, townhome developments,
They're not able to provide insurance in some cases. It is so outrageously expensive
and people aren't going to tolerate two thousand dollars a month HUA fees. They're
not going to tolerate it. So instead they're taking to homeowners. Okay,
buy your own insurance, but what happens if you're in a condo. How
do you buy insurance to cover the roof? You don't, And then if
you do get coverage in a town home, you got to make sure your
deductible's not too high not too low either that you get a good value.
It's very difficult now for the huas that are offering insurance. They have to
make the deductibles so inredibly expensive to make the premium manageable. And in that
case, guess what happens. You're stuck with an assessment. If you have
a loss, a big assessment, you could be in financial ruin. So
there's loss damage assessment coverage. That means if you have damages due to an
insurance loss, you can get covered up to a certain amount of money,
But some of those policies limit that coverage if it's for an insurance deductible.
So you have to be very very careful on what you buy. That's why
we love Compass Insurance Group at three Zho three nine nine to six nine thou.
Now we left off with Steve and he has an issue at work.
So Steve, I want to recap this. You needed to take time off
of work? Is that true? Yeah? Said I had a workplace injury,
and then they actually took me off work for almost three months. Okay,
now on workplace injury. And were you collecting workers compensation? Yeah?
And that was only a portion of your pay right, Yeah, that was
only the two thirds of the pay. So yeah, I came in I
asked the bosses here if I might be able to get some of my sick
paid to kind of cover some of my gosh that I'm not getting paid.
And so your employer allowed you to get paid some sick pay. I had
forty eight a care They paid me twenty eight. And then they're trying to
say that I was zero out and it's like, no, I just still
have twenty left over. So you were paid. Now, when you were
paid this, were you paid it in with a pay stub and money?
How were you paid your your sick pay? Yeah, it was paid out
on basically a regular pay stub. How many hours did it show on the
pay stub? It was twenty eight hours out of the forty eight hours?
Now, does it actually show on the pay stub twenty eight hours taken?
And because the pay stub keeps track of sick time, did the pay stub
show twenty hours left? Yep? And it actually showed I cured like the
two point four hours, which I shouldn't have, so it was like a
twenty two point four. But it's like, yeah, I should still have
at least the twenty left over. Yeah, but did that I'm asking again,
do you have a pay stub that shows twenty eight hours paid and twenty
still remaining? Yes? Okay, good, that's all you need. And
then and that was kind of thing. And then I just went up there
kind of asked him about it because I asked the owner and then, well,
hold on, what do they say when you you showed the pay stubs
saying wait, when you show them the pay stub and it shows you have
twenty hours left? What did they say? Yeah? Because then when the
year rolled, they took it back down to zero. But and then I
went in and talked to him and she got all defensive. She's like,
I shouldn't even be talking to you about this, and Steve. You're Steve.
You just see Steve, Steve, Steve. Hang on, bro,
I just asked you a question. You have a pay stub that shows twenty
eight hours paid and twenty hours remaining. Then you said they issued another one
that doesn't show any Is that right? Okay, Well then you don't have
a pay stub showing twenty eight hours left or twenty hours left because I had
the one that was on there originally. And yeah, once the year rolled,
but you still but you still have you still have that original one,
right? Yeah? When did they issue the second one, the second pay
stub where they took away the twenty hours? When did they issue that one?
That was when I came back to work, So that was the first
couple of weeks of her Just here what last week? I think? So
when you came back to work and you were actually paid, the little window
that shows sick hours showed you had none. Yeah, so that I cured
you. I had none, and I accured the two point four. So
now I have two point four. I get you, bro. Now what
I want to know is this, how do they reconcile from one pace dub
to the next that shows you took an additional twenty hours, because there is
none that was well, I know, how do they reconcile? What do
they say about that? When I went in, she just says, no,
you were zeroed out. You were overpaid. We shouldn't have Okay,
well okay, now wait, now we're getting somewhere. We're getting somewhere.
When this is important because when you get sick time, you don't get gross
dollars. They may have overpaid you. So when they gave you twenty hours
of sick time, how much did it amount to or excuse me, twenty
eight hours. When they paid you twenty eight hours of sick time, how
much did it come to all together? After taxes? It was like seven
hundred and something. Okay, so it was they did take taxes out.
Oh they did, that's a yes, Steve. Yeah, okay, so
you netted seven hundred dollars. Okay, that it's for some reason. Okay,
So so how do they how do they figure you were paid for the
additional twenty hours. I have no clue. It's just like even when I
came in and I got paid for those twenty eight he was like, after
paying you this twenty eight years, zeroed out and It's like, no,
I should still have the twenty Well, O, Kate, I have no
clue. Is it possible you never had forty eight hours to begin with that,
because even on all my pace check stubs up until that point, you
could see it at Charring all the way. Okay, got it so hour
at the time you got injured, you had forty eight hours. You had
forty eight hours. Man. I don't see how they get around this man.
So what's the latest you heard from them? Basically she just said talk
to the owner. And yet when I talked to the owner, he said,
talk to her. Okay, you're going to have to go to wage
an hour and wage an hour. The good news is they investigate stuff like
this that is compensation. It cannot be taken away from you, willy nilly,
It just can't be. So if you have a pay stub, what
you're telling me is you have two pay stubs issued. How far apart,
one showing one showing twenty hours left, one showing you didn't have twenty hours
left? How far were they from December to February? And in that time
from December and in that time from December to February, did you take any
sick time. I'm not asking pay. Did you take any sick time?
Or were you still on workers comp? I was on the work comp.
You were not. They did not mark you ready to go back, and
you stayed out another week or two. No, because that would eat up
that twenty hours. Yeah, because I have never got paid for it and
basically have just disappeared. Okay, Okay, then I don't see how they
get around it. Have you ever contacted wage an hour? I know I
have not been. I'm telling you, I'm gonna tell you some good news.
They really do. They really do help people. I mean they do
sometimes to a fault. I mean, I promise you that there have been
times that people have complained and I didn't think they had a good case and
it ended up that they got they they they got the employer in trouble.
So I would go, you've been on there, I'm trying to get you
a number here, what's that server? And even on their new employee handbook,
it they show like they got a new I guess PTO system for their
paid time off and it's I could even show us on there that any hours
you had would have rolled over at the end of the year. And it's
like, where's my hours. Okay, you're gonna come. You're gonna have
to go to Labor and Employment and here here it is. Okay, seriously,
I want you to do it. Don't don't think I'm kissing you off.
I want you to call me back and let me know about responses.
Okay, because we will help you. We'll even call your employer, but
I don't want to do that. First, you need to go here to
c d l E. That stands for Colorado Department of Labor and Employment c
d l E. C d l E dot Colorado dot gov. Okay.
Now, when you do that, you can drill down to filing a complaint
or you can call them, but we have had very good luck with people
getting attention. I'm trying to find out here where you go. Once you're
on there, okay, cd cd l E dot Colorado dot gov. You
go to the bottom and there's a contact us and you can file a complaint
if you can't call them and ask but it they really will look into it
because this is a compensation thing. This is where they literally took money away
from you. And then call us back and let us know and then we'll
call your company, but I want you to first do this three oh three
seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five and uh yeah,
I want to I want to try to help you, Okay, So just
do that first, get a get a claim going, and then you might
be able to get treble damages. Brent Ivnson Ideal home loans. Brent,
I got to take you because I know you're busy. I want to take
you right now. So, Brent, we had a guy who made one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year looking for a loan, a home loan,
all right. Now, he has a good accountant who took every bit
of chattle you can imagine and wrote down his income way down, I don't
know, fifty six whatever he wants to know when he goes apply for a
loan. When you have someone like this, what do you look at,
Brent? Does that hurt them in the long run? Critical qualifying. Yes,
we will take the net income after all the expenses have been written off
against it. But we do have products available that will go off of gas
flow through bank statements, so they'll look at that top line income as well.
And now again, remember anytime you do anything creatively outside of the norm
that typically carries a higher interest rate or additional fees. But there are ways
to use that top line income, but for normal purposes, for a conventional
loan, an, FAK loan, anything, you know VA, you're going
to be using that net income after you've written off all that expense. So
a lot of self employed people they hurt themselves, don't they Well, they
don't necessarily hurt themselves. It just makes it tougher to qualify. And look,
there weren't products out there for a long time that would allow you to
use that top line income, but we are seeing more and more of them.
They're called non qualified mortgages m mortgages, And so that works where you
can take the cask flow running through their bank statements, will do a twenty
four month analysis. You'll tell us what their growth income is, and then
we can use that as their income as opposed to the net income off of
their tax returns for the last two years. And about how much more do
you think they pay than market interest? A quarter or more? No,
No, it's a point to a point and a half in some instances,
just depending wow, it could be a full point higher or a point and
a half higher. Yeah. Depending again, that's depending on credit, that's
depending on loan to value, that's depending on property type, that's depending on
how long they've been in business. But yeah, you know, it's definitely
you pay a premium to be able to do that. But you know,
what we're finding with a lot of our self employed clients is they look at
what they're able to shelter an income from a tax perspective that the higher interest
rate really isn't that you know, isn't that bad considering how much we're saving
on taxes? Okay, and Brent, a real quick question, what's going
to happen this year with interest rates? I'm not asking you to make a
hard and fast prediction. What is your gut? You know, I think
at some point the day, all all that we hear going on is going
to catch up with the data. So I do think ultimately we are going
to start to see some interest rate cuts here as we get deeper into the
year. Now, the thing that will be very interesting, and I mentioned
this when I was on the show a couple of weeks ago with Mark,
is that the FED is going to get very quiet as you get closer and
closer to the election because they do not want to be seen as political to
one side or the other in any way, shape or form. So I
think what you're going to have them do is they're going to be cutting in
the summer, and likely cutting somewhat aggressively, and then they're going to stop
now. Again, our clients, they don't really worry about that, simply
because of our interest rate guarantee. If you take advantage of where prices are
at now and lock in an interest rate, lock in a purchase price close
on your new home. When rates go down later, you can refinance with
no lender fees. Thanks for our interest rate guarantee. Thank you. That's
ideal home loans. You heard them about the interest rate guarantee. Three oh
three eight sixty seven seven thousand. Go with a sure thing Denver's best rufer
excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time
for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance
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three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you
choose Frank durand the real estate man dot com to list your home with Remax
Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi, I'm Tom
Martino doing a show for you, solving problems, answering questions, taking complaints
when I'd really rather be eating ice cream and drooling. Hey, John Fuller's
with us, my accident lawyer dot co. He had something to say about
independent medical examiners and Hilda, I didn't forget about you. Hang on,
please, Hilda, Hang on, John, go ahead, I said,
I went to an independent medical examiner once. Another company that hit me another
client was insured by Farmers. They sent me there and the guy looked at
me for five minutes or less and left the room and wrote a six page
report on how there's nothing wrong with me and I could have possibly been improved
by the collision. And it was a joke. Okay, let's I don't
know if he really said that, but anyway, So then I went back
as a regular person to that clinic and it was amazing what they found wrong.
So go ahead, John, Well that didn't surprise me at all.
I mean that the thing that irks me about the whole process is you know
doc said earlier, these are people that are bad doctors, and they're incompetent
and they can't you know, they can't make it on their own. That
is absolutely not the case. These are very smart doctors. They've just learned
how to game the system and what they've learned. And I've actually had cases
where when we get the expert disclosures and we really find out what these doctors
are all about, we come to find out that many of them are making
six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars a year from these insurance companies doing
these quote unquote independent medical exams, and so there's nothing like, you know,
six or seven or eight hundred thousand dollars to keep you motivated to make
sure that your reports go a certain way. And from an insurance company perspective,
they're one hundred percent predictable. So I mean that these are not just
dumb doctors. These are super smart doctors that are gaining the system. And
the lesson to be learned here, much like everything else, is that these
insurance companies are not your friends. They are a you know, every dollar
they don't put in your pocket is a dollar they keep in theirs, and
they'll do. They'll stop short of nothing to get the outcome that they want.
And that's why it's so important to have an advocate on your side that's
been there, done that, and see all these tricks before that these insurance
companies are playing. And here here's what I'd like to say about that.
It's not just with I am ease independent medical examiners or prostitutes of the industry
as like to call them. They also come when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
You know, you're not supposed to promise. Hey, if you do this,
I'll do this. But what happens if they don't promise anything at the
end of the year, get a You get a round trip ticket to Hawaii
from the pharmaceutical company saying thanks for all of your you know, whatever care
you give to patience, and blah blah blah. Now next year, the
following year, they didn't promise anything in advance, They just rewarded you.
The next year, you're going to think about that company for prescriptions. Now,
I think they've tightened that up a bit, Deputy Doc. And they
tightened it up on like when you were practicing, doc, did you get
a lot of gifts from people? First the whole thing has changed. Tom.
You know, third years ago, you could give a talk, get
paid for it, and you could say basically whatever you wanted. Now you
have a specific curriculum that you have to follow giving a talk, and they
have like secret shoppers that go in to make sure that you don't deviate from
the written material. And it's very difficult now to who's controlling it. Who's
the secret shoppers from the pharmaceuticals? No, no, No, from the
FDA. Okay, okay, So here's what I want to know. Do
pharmaceutical companies reward doctors very very little anymore. The only way that reward them
is by having them give these pre set speeches about their product. Okay,
and you give this preset speech and you get two hundred and fifty grand.
No, it's I mean, it's not that much, Tom, But the
point is it's really and it's in Hawaii or ta heat you know, it's
it's in it's in your little glaria. You're not allowed to go and take
a trip and speak at a convention. It's very very tight. And Tom,
they've really cut that onto abuse. They're trying to know, but the
reality is it still goes on there was a movie out right now that's great.
Everybody should watch it called Painkiller that talks about the whole evolution of the
oxy crisis that we have leading up until the end. And I mean,
these these doctors were just strung along by these beautiful reps that would you know,
Oh yeah, there were female reps. Did you know? Absolutely?
Because it just makes you want to buy pills from them, you know.
You know. When I first started tom, the drug reps were basically a
whole spectrum of people. There were older men, older women, young women,
young men. But as time went on, it's only young attractive women
that came into my office as drug reps. Yep, Kilda, what's going
on with you? High? Hilda held up, Hi, Hi, Hi,
what's going on? So? Thank you for taking my call. I
purchased a home January twenty sixth Okay that an infection. Everything came out good,
passed, everything was cleared, moved in a couple of weeks, and
I noticed water came by the way. Was this a new home or a
used home? It's a US home. Okay, they remodeled it so it
looks it's new to me. Okay. The water coming out from benderneath the
bathroom. This is in the basement, This is after you moved in.
You found water? Yes, okay, we removed one of the four one
of the wall panels in the closet next to the bathroom. And when we
looked underneath the cub, there's no plumbing. What do you mean? Wait?
Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You noticed water
coming from beneath a tub in the basement, yes, and to look underneath
the tub to see maybe if I was that maybe the pipe of squad.
Now was this a finished basement, yes, finished basement remodeled of Okay,
now hold on, was this a remodel where they had never used that basement
before? Do you think? No? In the I found there listening from
when the first one Wanner bought it before he flipped it. And it was
a shower, so it must be a shower dreen. But they didn't convert
it to a tub drain, so they just stuck a tub over it.
And it's not even lining up to go all right, So hold on,
they set a tub, they put a rectangle tub. Was this a tub
shower combo or just a tub that it was a combo? So did they
place it? They placed it over the shower pan. There's no pan,
there's just a hole. And is the hole on concrete. It's there's still
tile there from where it used to be a shower. So they really placed
a tub over where a shower used to be. And the tub obviously is
bigger than the shower footprint, right correct, So the the tub sits on
top of tile. And what they were hoping is that the water went down
the drain, onto the tile and into the floor drain, which it did
during the inspection because it was only ran for But I get it, But
how the hell, how the hell could that ever pass inspection? And that's
what I said, And then how did it? How he didn't disclose that
there was any gamage obviously at the closing, But how did you not know
your contact? You never finished the job or did you do the job?
Well? If you know, here's hold on a second, we'll come back.
You hang on all right? I got to explore this. This is
terrible. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roof of excel roofing dot com.
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com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen
twenty two. Tom Martine, your troubleshooter, Hilda, I I would say
you need to look at your disclosure documents. I mean, this is incredible.
John, Do you realize what she's talking about? John Fuller's my guest
today, John. She's talking about this tub was placed over where a shower
used to be, just on the floor, and the open drain goes down
to the floor and then wakes its way to the what used to be the
shower drain in the center. And then if you run it too much,
it's going to come out the sides of the tub. Right. So two
things. I hope that a competent person can fix that relatively easy for you
guys. But number two, they're gonna have to lift the tub. They're
gonna have to plumber they are they're gonna have to plumbering. Yeah, but
the drains there. I mean, it's it's not like the I mean,
I don't think it's gonna be the most complicated repair in the world. But
I look at these dang home inspectors and I think, by and large,
some of these inspectors are just absolutely worthless because either their agreement disclaims any responsibility
for anything that they don't find, or they just do a cursory look and
they don't. I mean, any inspector ought to run every bit of water
in every tub and sink and shower and everything else and verify that that everything
is working correctly, and so you know, I don't know. I mean,
they probably disclaim any liability, but their last fallback is going to be
to just sue the dang owner for just outright misrepresentation and fraud. Pull that
off. You know how much. I'm sure you got an estimate. What
will it cost to fix? It's between twenty and thirty thousand. No,
No, somebody's ripped ridiculous. Somebody's ripping you off, Hilda. They have
to, they they say, because they have to do the water mitigation,
because they got into the closet and they say the water damage is up two
feet. Oh wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute,
did the water wait, Hilda, did the water damage happen after you bought
it? Yes? How we shot after I showered? Did you shower in
the downstairs? Uh? Yes, well I shower. If one person showers,
it'll drain. If we do multiple showers. That's when we saw the
water coming out from underneath. You're not going to figure that we had a
back that so one one shower or multiple showers had enough water leak out that
did thirty thousand dollars in total damages. That's what the I've got too who
recommends that are about that? And then just the plumbing is about five grand.
And that's just the punning. But he says he sent me to somebody
who does a tile on the wall, and somebody sent me to somebody who
does water mitigation. Was like, I have to find somebody that does all
three things. You see. But here here, okay, hold on,
hold on this this is a this is going to be really difficult. You
had water coming out because you used it and it wasn't plumb properly. And
okay, did the disclosure sheet say anything about anything being done to code or
improvements? What did it say? Did it say that because that's obviously wasn't
up to code, and there are questions about permits. Was that done with
a permit? I went on to regional after the fact and there's no permit.
Pools Okay, Now did the disclosure tell you that? No? Well,
the homeowner to the seller, but yeah, the seller is going to
be responsible if they lied to you. Yeah, and the disclosure is going
to the seller is going to want to turn around and name somebody else and
claim. You know, the seller is going to say we had no idea,
right, and the only way that they can officially say we had no
idea is to blame the contractor or the person that did all that work.
Somebody. I'm going to have some insurance and somebody's going to have John.
There's there's something else that's the disclosure sheet. If the owner if the no,
I'm talking about the disclosure about permitting. It says on the disclosure sheet,
were any improvements done without permits? It doesn't tell you they weren't done
without permits? No, it just remodeled, retiled. That's not that remodel
retitled is not Can you send us your disclosure sheet because I don't trust you
to know what I'm talking about out there's a specific question about home improvements,
and it specifically asks about permits. Do you see the question don't? I
don't have it with me, but I will grab an email it to you.
You got to because really, here here's the deal. The whole idea
about non disclosure is them knowing about it and concealing it from you, it's
not. And if they don't know about it and they say that the like
John said, the contractor did it, but if they lied to you about
the permit, that has nothing to do with whether they knew it or not,
because they know if they lied to you, If they said they did
it with a permit, and they didn't do it with a permit, that
in and of itself would tell you it didn't have the proper inspection and they
lied to you about it. I just think you're going to have a hard
time either way, even if you sue them, John, Can you see
them suing where they're going to make any money on this? I mean,
don't you think it's gonna cost him that much money? Unless these people cave.
It's gonna cost him ten grand to get him to cave. John,
You know, legal fees. What do you think. Yeah, it's possible.
I mean, but it's also possible you get a judgment against this this
former owner, and he's got to come to the table and say, let's
work something out. I mean, I don't know all the details about this.
Yeah, you know, the guy just got a pile of money when
he walked away from closing. So you know, there's no time like the
present to try to try to get something squared away on it. But I
mean it's clearly fraud. Yeah, clearly it is. Now we got we
gotta take a break. It's chargeable. I mean, there's a lot of
good stuff on your side. That Okay, there's another quick question. I
got to take a break, and he'll that you got to hang on because
I need to know, uh, some other stuff right after this. Go
with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay
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to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty
two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three all three seven one three talks
seven one three eight two five five So uh killda? You know I need
to know something. This is really important because fix and flippers have gotten away
with stuff like this by saying they had no knowledge. Was this a fixed
and flipper? Huh? Yes, there was? Okay, if they've never
lived there. I'm telling you this has been a defense in the past for
people. Okay, there's still no reason for lying on the disclosure sheet if
they lied, unless they say they were misled and they thought everything had to
permit. John, don't you agree that a fix and flipper will make this
more difficult? Yes, because you have to have actual knowledge. So I'm
going to tell you something, Hilda. I would call my referral list and
get people to give you honest to god estimates before you decide economically is it
worth going after them. You may even want to get an attorney like Brad
O'Brien O'Brien Legal Services. He's a real estate attorney. Call Brad O'Brien,
because here's the deal. You need to get an estimate on what he thinks
it might cost, or you might get him to write a letter and to
start threats to see if they'll come to the table. That's what you need
to do. First call Brad O'Brien, O'Brien Legal Services or anyone that you
feel comfortable with, but he handles real estate stuff like this, and then
see if he can get them to scare up some money before doing a full
fledged lawsuit, because I'm not sure you come out ahead with a full fledged
lawsuit. Now, I personally believe the statute should provide for attorney's fees when
you have disclosure cases like this, because I truly believe that people do the
math and they figure, you know, what the hell with them, let's
not disclose it and if we get away with it, fine, and they're
not going to have enough money to sue us anyway. So I would say,
you know, that's where you start, and then send us the disclosure
statement to I still want that. Kevin, you have props kudos for Brothers
Flooring. Tell me about it. Yeah, you know, we have a
pretty good sized hardwood floor and I know you have Buddy on all the time,
but they don't do refinishing of hardwood floors. So I looked at your
list. I found Brothers. They came all the way up to us here
in Eerie. They showed up the day they said they were going to show
up. They showed up on time every single day. Go with a sure
thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until
you're content. Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison call
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three all three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home
with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Yeah,
ripped news So you don't have is the cam Shoot's gonna help coming man?
This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino, Hi Tom Martino here three
oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five. Welcome
to the show. Here we are solving problems for you and listen. I
don't care what you say, but it's truly the only place in the media
where this is done anymore. And we have John Fuller with us Fuller Law.
He's a personal injury attorney and he's on to lend a hand on your
calls if you have questions on anything, and then also to talk about personal
injury. And one of the things I wanted to talk about, I want
to talk about valuing your case. We hear this a lot. Call me
and I'll tell you what your case is worth. In fact, I've seen
a lot of these kinds of ads. Tell me what your case is worth.
By the way, our number is three oh three seven one three talk
three oh three seven one three eight two five five. I also want you
to remember and pass this around everywhere three oh three Martino, because if you
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They help along with everyone else, three oh three eight six two five
five five four, John, value my case? What's the worth? John?
That's a really tough question, Tom, I get that all the time.
And here's the here's the most honest answer that I can give you.
Okay, your case is worth what ultimately a jury says it's worth as long
as there's enough insurance to cover that judgment or proceeds to pay that judgment.
Okay. So when you talk about valuing a case in the first week or
two days whatever you know following an accident, here's all the things that you
don't know that prohibits you from actually giving an honest answer about value. You
don't know the full extent of the medical care. You don't know the full
extent of the bills. You don't know the amount of coverage that's in place.
You don't know about the subrogation rights of those insurance companies, and you
know what obligation you have to pay back those companies. We don't know what
the policy limits are of the insurance. We don't know whether we have umbrellas
or anything else that may provide additional coverage. We don't know about resident relatives
and stuff that may be living in your home that could provide additional coverage.
There's just simply so many things that we don't know and can't know in the
very few days or weeks following an accident. So any law firm or any
attorney that tells you that they can go out and look at some jury verdict
reporter and look at their AI databases and all this crazy stuff and tell you
what the value of your case is is just completely full of it. And
they're just trying to get your information to sell that to another firm to get
you to sign up with them. That's exactly what the entire thing is about.
Okay, Then I have another question. We hear a lot about multimillion
dollar verdicts, a lot of firms like talking about them. Then nothing wrong
with that, right, yep. But what I want to know is what
percentage do you feel in all your years, what percentage of cases actually pay
out? And I mean that because you just said, you know, a
verdict is one thing. You could get a verdict. For example, that
woman that got a verdict against Trump, he has the wherewithal to pay eighty
two million. He'll appeal it, but he has the wherewithal to pay it.
So when you get a when you get a verdict against Trump or against
someone they that has the ability to pay, that's a good thing. Or
you get it against an insurance company that is obligated because of the coverage,
that's a good thing. But I think the great secret here is how many
verdicts go unpaid. Yeah, and I don't know any particular statistic on that,
but I suspect it's more than a few, because you know, if
you have insurance coverage, great, you're going to get that paid. But
you know, if it's an excess verdict where the verdict is greater than the
amount of coverage, I mean, there's there's all these issues that are going
to require additional litigation. It could be years and years and years. I
suspect that the judgment that you're talking about with Trump, probably the check is
not in the mail, and that one's not going to be you know,
paid anytime soon, if ever. And so you know, these are the
concerns. The other thing to be aware of is that there are caps on
different levels of damages in Colorado, and we don't need to go into them
because there's a number of them depending on the type of case and the type
of damages. But recently there was a thirty million dollar verdict that was well
deserved and strictly based upon the evidence, and it was just a catastrophic case
that the application of Colorado's law cut fourteen million dollars of that verdict off just
with one fell swoop. And so, you know, we really have to
ask ourselves about whether those caps are appropriate given you know the fact that we
do trust a jury to listen to the evidence and come up with an answer
of what it's worth. But the reality is these companies could drag these things
out forever. They could run down and file bankruptcy. You know, there's
so many factors, So just getting a verdict is not the end of the
you know, that's not the be all and end all. And sometimes the
bird in hand is worth a lot more of them in the bush. Okay,
I want to know something, as far as bankruptcy, are all personal
injury lawsuits subject to bankruptcy? Is it that easy? They are subject to
it, But only certain types of damages can be wiped out in bankruptcy.
So if you have damages based on fraud, or you have damages that are
what we call punitive damages, those are not going to be dischargeable in bankruptcy,
damages to the extent that you have insurance coverage or not going to be
wiped out in bankruptcy. So there's a lot of exceptions, but you know,
the bottom line is, if you get a massive judgment against somebody that
has nothing, there's a pretty good likelihood that you're not going to ever get
anything. And whether they declare bankruptcy or not, you're still just you know,
it's just a piece of paper. So when you look at a claim,
and I want people listening to know this, because you have to have
several elements. First, you have to have life ability, right, I
mean you have to look at it and really feel someone has a case.
Second, you have to have a bad guy that has either insurance or the
or a reliable person that has insurance or wherewithal personal wealth. Yeah. Yeah,
we have to have we have to have liability, meaning we have to
have somebody else at fault. You can't recover when you're at fault. We
have to have damages obviously that were caused by the accident. So that means
you can't necessarily take a pre existing condition and make it. You know,
the responsibility of the ad fault driver. And then once you once you have
liability and damages, we have to have insurance. We have to have collectibility,
and that may mean individual assets, but most of the time it means
insurance. And so the biggest tragedy in the world is having catastrophic injuries and
either no or state minimal limits of insurance, which is just a paltry amount
that that really does nothing to help you out. John Fuller, my accident
lawyer, dot cio. Teresa, what's going on with you? Hello,
Teresa? We have lines open at three three seven one three talk seven one
three eight two five five TESA, what's happening? Hi? Well, I
was listening to you about the HOA issue with the roof damage from the hailstorm
last summer. Yes, and our HOA of fifty eight town homes is experiencing
the same thing because the deductible was ten percent, But in fine print discovered
recently, there was also a forty seven thousand dollars additional deductible per unit.
Now, wait a minute, why is there an additional amount. It's in
the fine print, in the fine print of the insurance policy. Yes,
forty seven, six hundred and seventy seven per building additional wind hail deductible.
Oh yeah. You know what Compass mentioned this that many insurance and policies are
now, righty, are being written with two kinds of deductibles, one for
regular losses and one for hail and wind loss. Right, because hale and
wind is so plentiful, they up the deductible for that particular loss. So
you're saying, where you live, if you have a hailstorm, that building
has to meet a deductible of that much money. First, well, I
guess the entire loss for all the buildings reached a number that was in excess
of anything our HOA has. So, in other words, you have fifty
eight units, fifty eight buildings. Did you say, no, divide that
by two. It's a townhouse, neighborhood. Okay, So how many actual
buildings do you have? Twenty six? Okay, twenty four so yeah,
twenty six, yeah, twenty six. So if you have twenty six buildings
buildings, yes, okay, each one of those has a deductible. Well
it's just per building, yes, yeah, but okay, and so that's
an enormous deductible in addition to that standard ten percent of the total loss.
Oh my, God, So it's possible with a hailstorm, you're going to
have a massive, massive assessment deductible yees ye, personally or we have to
personally go to our insurance companies now and file that catastrophic loss assessment claim for
I think our total is I don't have the exact number in front of me,
abound twenty two thousand per But but do you have the coverage? Do
you have loss assessment coverage? I do, personally, I don't think everybody
does in the neighborhood because we were told that was something we needed to carry
with on our insurance. So my question to you Tom, given that rajo
A has told us it's getting harder and harder to have insurance coverage, and
even if you do, the deductibles so high that's right, that's right.
Yes, So how and in addition to that, insurance companies are leaving Colorado,
they're leaving Florida, they're leaving California. They don't want to do business
in our states anymore. So how the homeowners protect ourselves? Okay, you're
not going to, but I want to ask Compass about this because it's a
good question. But here's what I suspect is going to happen. It's going
to have to happen. John Fuller is somewhat of an insurance expert when it
comes to personal injury, and he knows how insurance companies think. John.
If it becomes massive losses for companies, they're not going to be in these
markets anymore, and there's nothing that prevents them from leaving. They can simply
we're no longer going to do business in this state, and they do that.
Yeah, okay, So what happens. The answer is the government must
step in and become an underwriter. To a certain extent. They had to
do that with flood insurance. On floodplanes, they had to subsidize because I
suspect if it really gets bad in the future, we will have hail belts,
much like you have floodplanes, hail and wind belts possibly or hurricane belts
or earthquake belts, and these will be rated as in certain risk patterns,
and then you will be eligible for subsidized insurance. I think that is the
only way this goes, John, Do you think that's possible, Well,
you only have to look at areas like Florida and stuff where that's exactly what's
happened and on the on the hurricane insurance where you have big companies like you
know, Warren Buffett and stuff that just completely pull out and say we're not
insurance property anymore in this area. Eventually there's nobody to write that insurance and
the you know, the banks that have all this collateral. It becomes a
you know, a crisis for the government and so they have to step in.
And that's what they did in Florida. So they'll do it everywhere else
if they have to. Now in Florida, do they do you have subsidy
insurance, subsidized insurance for hurricanes. It's not subsidized, but there is a
thing called Citizens Insurance, which is basically a government insurance cooperative. I believe
there's those now here's where. And this is why the government in very few
cases can the government do anything right? Okay, But here's why insurance can
work with the government. And there's one big word. One word will describe
why the government could do this and make it work work where another company can't.
And the word is profit. Well, yeah, because if the Citizens
company in Florida, to use it as an example, if they take a
massive loss one year, which they did last year. They just simply passed
that along to their consumers and everybody across the entire state's rates grew up.
The next year they took a bath. But they don't have shareholders. They
don't have to make a profit. If they lose money, they just added
on and collect more from them. But it's a dead cost kind of thing.
Yeah. In other words, it's a cooperative. There's no profit incentive.
Now. By the way, I love profit. I think profit's a
great thing I personally feel personally, and I don't know if I've ever expressed
this. While I love free enterprise, and while I love profit motives,
I don't think it belongs in the insurance industry. It just doesn't in my
opinion, because you are you should not profit on people's misery. I mean,
And they'll argue that they're not profiting on people's misery. They're actually profiting
when people don't have misery, and that's true. But if you aggregate losses
across a field of people and participants, I don't believe that profit should be
your motive. And let me explain something. You know, state, I
love profit truly, I love capitalism, but think about insurance. Insurance is
saying we're going to pull our money, and we're going to by pulling the
risk and the money by spreading out risk, we're going to have enough to
pay claims in certain areas. That works perfectly for all insurance. If you
don't have a profit motive, then it doesn't work perfectly. It still works,
but not perfectly. And here's why, because then a company and I
want to cast aside cheats and all of that. Of course, we don't
want people cheating insurance and all of that, but let's talk about normal people.
If they have a loss, the only reason an adjuster goes in,
obviously they want to make sure a proper amount is paid for that loss.
That's what it's supposed to be. But with insurance companies now it's not just
to see that a fair price is paid for the loss. It's to see
that the insurance company maximizes profit for shareholders. I believe the only shareholders should
be insurance participants in other words, clients, and there should be no profit.
Now. A shipbuilder had this idea once and did what I consider one
of the most perfect health insurance companies in the world at the time. It's
changed a bit. There's still not a profit incentive. It's changed a little
bit. But Kaiser is a perfect model, perfect model of health insurance,
so is Medicare. What I mean by that is there's no profit. Where
you get into a problem with Kaiser. It could be is overpriced or overpaid
people who get overly compensated. Maybe, but that doesn't happen as much as
it does in a private insurance world. I just like the Kaiser model,
and I think when you aggregate loss over a large pool and take away profit,
then you don't have people increasing other people's misery to make more money.
And again, I don't want to sound like a crying, bleeding hard communist.
I'm not, and it's not socialism. I'm talking about paying our way,
but you but the whole notion, by the way of insurance, The
whole notion of insurance is aggregating or spreading out risk. That's the whole notion.
But when you add profit to it, it really becomes almost impossible.
Dream I don't know, I gotta take a break. We got more coming
up. Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer excel roofing dot com.
You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup free,
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at dozens of insurance companies find out now three O three seven seven to one
help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real
estate man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine
two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martine, your troubleshooter. Three tozho
three seven to one three talk three oh three seven one three eight two five
five. I can't stress enough how bad it is in the condo and townhome
development market. And I foresee that real estate market taken a big, big
hit as a result of the insurance industry, and well not because of the
insurance, because of the massive hail and wind losses, which is going to
result in some major problems in the economy. Do you know that there's one
place that hasn't even rebuilt, They haven't even started because they're embroiled in lawsuits
with the insurance company and people have been out of their homes for a year.
Film what's going on? Tom? Hey Man? Hey Tom, thank
you refer me to Icon. I here over a month ago for did you
go Thereery, Oh, you sure did. What kind of surgery? Did
you have a clear lens exchange? Or did you have actual cataracts? I
have two cataracts. I have a hole in my left eye through the REDNA.
So I have to go to Colorado, Rednew for over a month yet.
Now, so let me ask you something. So you went to be
examined by ICON and they found these problems before surgery, right, yes,
then I have surgery. They are on the twenty third. What kind of
surgery did you have at Icon? Well, evidently it was they took out
the lens and put it in a new lens. That's all. Okay,
Well what I'm asking I'm asking Field did you have cataracts when you went there?
Yes? Okay, so you had cataract surgery at ICON? Right,
Okay, they did they do a good job. You said you have a
hole in your red I think I think so. Okay, But the problem
is, Phil, I want to get right to this first. The problems
you're having now are not as a result of ICON. They're in it.
They're just are they coincidental or what? Well, my left eye I don't
have surgery on it yet. The right I had the cataract done. Okay,
I can see a little bit. I wanted. I wanted to get
it for Phil. You still haven't answered to me, so I'm sorry I
can't move on. You had you had cataract surgery in your right eye?
Is that right? Yes? Sure? Okay? Is that I healing?
Okay? Yes it is. Can you see out of it? Yes?
I can? Okay. Now the left eye you did not have surgery?
Is that the one where you're having issues? Yeah? What kind of issues
are you? What kind of issues are you having with your left eye?
The left eye is some kind of a whole or information or something. Is
the REDNA is collapsed or something? And I have to keep taking these drops
until March twenty ninth, and then what's then? I go in and then
the REDNA doctor will check me out and see if I'm I can nate for
catereract surgery. Okay, I get it. So they're trying to heal the
left eye first before you do surgery. Yeah, And it's driving me nuts
because I'm just seeing wavy lines and it's foggy. Everything is just like a
war zone. Okay, I can't figure it out to Well, you know
you're going to what Retina place? Are you going to Colorado Retna? Yes,
so they have a pretty good reputation. Yeah, over off of Independence,
I think, And well, they have a good reputation. So what
are you calling about for another recommendation? No? No, I wanted to
follow up on you know, let you know where I'm at on them.
Okay, so when but I think, listen, do they say there's hope
for your eye or nothing? Or yes? The surgeon says that she's hoping
that I don't have to wear glasses ever again. But you know Colorado Retna.
Just are you you're calling about Colorado Retna Associates? Right? Yes?
Which doctor are you seeing there? You know, I can't think of his
name. I've only said about three times. I just can't recall his name.
Let me tell you something. They have some of the best that this
is one of the best places you can be for Retina, right, one
of the best. Hey, have you heard about wearing a patch on your
eye? So you only have one one good eye? Doc on my regular
lenses that I have my glasses. I popped out the lens on the right
eye, so I could more or less see the left eye, but I
can't see how the left eye because it's all cloudy and wavy and everything else.
Like I said to Tom, it seems like looking through a war zone,
you know, being in a war zone. I hate it. So
I'm doing four drops today on that eye for at least another month or so,
four and a half cataract surgery. But it's just driving me nuts.
Well, you know, it's one of those, uh, one of those
things that you just have to go through. But here's here's what's wonderful.
They have a lot of advancements. They have a lot of advancements that were
really really help you. And Colorado Retina is the best place you can be.
So I would have recommended them for you. I'm glad you found them.
And thanks for the update. Phil. Yeah, I want, I
wanna. I want to update you again on my left eye after the end
of March. You're gonna be You're gonna be pleased. I mean, they
would tell you if they thought you had no hope in that eye, they
would tell you that. That's what I want to do, Tom, is
call you back later on when I have that surgery on the left eye and
everything and tell you good, I'm alive. I'm alive, Thank you Phil
three oh three seven one three talk three O three seven to one three eight
two five five. So I want to talk to John Fuller again, my
accident lawyer dot co. Right after this. I want to you know,
people say, Tom, well, you can't while you can't value a case
really until you know where you can collect and all of that. Are there
some cases and this is a good question where it really doesn't pay to pursue,
I mean or not not for the patient but for the attorneys. Do
They sometimes say, Look, you're out of luck. We're going to talk
about that coming up. Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an
insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call company insurance paying
too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three
seven seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer when you
choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax
Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martine,
you're a troubleshooter three all three seven one three talks seven one three eight two
five five Sir John Fuller, And by the way, we're taking all of
your calls as well, John. What happens in a case, I mean
where it's it's kind of has to be heartbreaking, where somebody has a good
case but damn it, there's just no one to go after, or the
person has no money, no insurance, or the insurance is substandard. I
mean, what do you do in cases like that? There must be places
or times when you have to just be honest with somebody. Yeah, I'd
say there's really two different categories. One is where you know, the liability
is great, the damages are significant, and there's just simply no coverage,
you know, the the libel party has nothing. There's no um coverage out
there, There's there's just nothing. There's nothing to go after, and so
all of the best efforts in the world are not going to result in us
being able to collect any money. And on that circumstance, I have a
duty to tell my client there's nothing here, you know, And so those
are tough. I hate when that happens, But it does come up the
second circumstances where there's just you know, there's there are clients out there that
have you know, that believe in their mind that everything under the sun that's
wrong with them was caused by the accident. And sometimes I think you really
have a professional duty to you know, to be honest about those circumstances.
And and I don't think the attorney's job is necessarily to go down with the
ship and just say, well, if you said it, by day it,
we're going to trial and we're going you know, we're going all out.
And so those those happen as well, and those are those are probably
more you know, heartbreaking than anything else, because the clients believe wholeheartedly that
that you know, an accident, no matter how minor, might have been
the final straw that broke the camel's back. So why are insurance minimums so
small? Well, it's a it's an issue that that really comes down to
our legislature. If they, if they really wanted to protect citizens, they
would mandate you know, super coverage, say one hundred thousand dollars in coverage.
But then the collateral effect of that is more people can can't afford insurance,
and so you have you have more people that are uninsured on the roadway
because they can't afford to buy that state minimal required amount. And so you're
kind of danged if you do and danged if you don't. We can make
you have better insurance, but we can't necessarily make people buy it when it's
so easy and so many people drive without it. All right, maybe we
should figure out another way to have minimal insurance based on road taxes or gasoline
or well, now with ev cars, we'd have to change that. But
there's got to be a better way. Kevin, you have a question on
the ballot. What is that? Sir? What's going on? Good afternoon?
My question is on primary ballots. I've never been affiliated with a party,
but we did receive a Democratic presidential primary ballot just a new cower.
It'll policies sending out without a party affiliation. No, you should not get
it. You should have gotten either both or that's right. Yeah, as
an independent you would get both. I think if are you did you say
you're unregistered? Correct? Well, I'm a registered voter. I'm just not
affiliated with a party. Okay, are you registered as that? Then I
think you're registered in you'd get both of those? Okay, usually, but
I don't. But wait a minute. When you get both of those,
are you allowed to vote in both or in just one? No? Just
one? You can only ever cast one vote, but you can vote in
either one. You can vote in either either the Democratic or the Republican primary.
Kevin, did you get the Republican one as well? No, you
should have. I think he should have gotten both. I really do.
Now you might want to call and find out why. In case you do
want to vote in one of them, you should have that opportunity. I
got to take a break. I'm Tom Martinez three three seven to one,
three A two five to five. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer
Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time
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seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer When you choose
Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance
three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi, Tom Martino,
you're troubleshooter three O three seven one three talk three O three seven one three
eight two five five. I think we took Kevin's call on that right,
Yeah, on his ballot. So uh yeah, if you get if you're
an independent, you'll get both primaries, and you're able to vote in either
one, but not both. Some uh around the country they're doing all kinds
of tricky things on both sides. They're either registering independent and so they can
screw up the other one, or they're registering as a party member to screw
it up totally. I don't know what's going to happen this year, but
man, is it going to be a wild ride. And I guess the
biggest thing I'm wondering, what do people do now? We just had another
state take Trump off the ballot, So what happens? I mean, if
the Supreme Court comes back and says he should be on the ballots and we
pass the primary. I mean, don't they have a tickler in their file
saying, by the way, we have a deadline coming up, Like when
is the Colorado primary? When is that happening? And on these absentee ballots
that people are filling out, what happens? Is Trump in there right now?
Can they vote for him or not? Do you know, John,
Yeah, he's on the ballot. So he's on the ballot even though he
was supposed to be taken off the ballot. Why is that, Well,
they state it until the Supreme Court rules on it. So he was,
he was and always will be on the bout and until they rule. And
if they should happen to rule that he's ineligible, then all of those votes
would just be you know, negated. So is that the way they're doing
it in the other states? Then yep. Exactly when are they going to
rule on this damn thing? I kind of thought, based on everything that
I heard, that we were going to see an opinion real quickly. I
would say, even potentially, like tomorrow. We're coming up on Super Tuesday
next week. I think, isn't it go with a sure thing? Denver's
Best Roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content
time for an insurance checkup free no obligation. Comparison call Compass Insurance paying too
much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
durand the real estate man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Yeah, Rip, bad news,
need advice, so you don't have come running. Just as fast as
we can. Shoot's gonna help. Come Dix is the Troubleshooter Show. Now
Tom Martino, Hi, Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. Three
oh three seven to one three talk three oh three seven one three eight two
five five. What's on your mind today? And how can we help you?
You've got a lot happening. Uh, We've been talking about a number
of things that are troubling today, and one of the things I want to
bring up is about the insurancing we talked about, or the dilemma facing condo
owners and town home owners. I just want to briefly recap that because it's
very important. Very bad news for townhome and condo owners are those looking to
buy them Homeowners' associations. They're at a breaking point when it comes to ensuring
their properties. Insurance carriers have faced massive hail in wind losses over the past
ten years. Now, that's making Colorado a less attractive market. Many insurance
companies have either left Colorado or increased premiums and deductibles to impossible levels. In
some cases, insurance premiums have quadrupled. That can be outrageous. Okay,
So hoas are now faced with impossible situations. They either have to increase their
homeowner dues to astronomical levels or in some cases except giant deductibles or self ensure,
both of which can result in I mean, geez in these assessments that
can be crazy. So what do you do? What do you do?
I'm telling you it's going to be a big, big problem for the entire
economy. And you heard it first here on the show. You also heard
about some other troubling things like like non disclosure in real estate. I want
to say something about that. When you buy real estate and the previous owner
does not disclose everything, it almost never pays to sue them. And home
inspectors are you know, it's better to have a home inspector than not have
a home inspector, but they don't take responsibility in most home inspection contracts.
John John Fuller is my guest today, my accident lawyer dot Co. He
has a good legal mind for stuff like this, you know, John,
in most of these cases, I don't know what's considered unconscionable. But these
contracts for home inspectors say that if they miss something, the most you can
get your is your feedback that you paid them. Right, Yeah, that's
actually very true. If not just nothing. I mean, they limit their
liability to the amount of the feed but they don't just offer up that amount.
I mean they disclaim liability for anything, their mistakes, unknown discoveries,
I mean, anything and everything. It's amazing how those people can charge what
they charge and have a legal document that says I am not responsible for finding
anything in this property. How do they get away with that? I mean
really, because people, because people do, because people just feel like they
have to have it. Realtors say, oh yeah, I would recommend it,
and so they get spoon fed. These clients that pay this money,
they get largely a pre printed report. If you've seen inspection reports, you
know they're as boiler plate as they could be. And I have just found
them to not be very valuable at all. I mean, I truly,
maybe the best value would be to physically walk through the entire property with the
inspector while they're doing it. But to look at the report, there's not
a there's not an original word in that report. Okay, I agree with
you. By the way, Rita, what's going on with you? Rita?
Welcome? Hi? I love it like stone Cliff Apartments, I mean
rental. Yeah, I'm renting a apartment and they Wyatt Towing came and towed
my car and I went to get it. Now, why was it Toad?
Now listen, I just want to say something. A lot of people
have read about why it's Towing getting into trouble with the state for a lot
of illegal activity or exaggerations or whatever. But I want to say this,
Okay, I don't want people believing that why every toe Wyats does is illegal
or that they can get out of being told there was a problem with Whyatts
to be sure, and the state came down on them to be sure.
However, you still have legit toes going on every day depending on the apartment
complex. So stone Cliff Apartments, you were told, but I need to
know why you were told. Okay, they told me it was I guess
they had a digital thing for your car where they registered it in apartment complex.
Yes, and you were supposed to have that legally register And the problem
is is I never heard about that. I never heard about registering my car.
Okay, Rita, how long have you lived there? Yeah? One
year, February first. Okay, now, Rita, let you have it?
Do other How do they know if you're registered? Is it? Is
it your license plate or do you have a tag you put in the window?
How do they know? I guess it's a license plate? Okay,
Rita, Listen, this is a This is a bad situation, and I'm
going to tell you why. If that complex has a policy where you have
to register your car online or with the office and your license plate is on
a list. If that's the case, then you have to do it.
Now. I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say I didn't know
about it. If there is at least one sign in that parking lot that
alludes to that, or other residents know about it, you're gonna have a
tough time proving that they never told people. You see, you not knowing
about it is not a good enough excuse. You have to show that no
one knows about it. Yeah, rita, rita, do a lot of
people know about it? Are their signs up? Be honest with me,
because we're gonna find out anyway. So tell me. Are there signs up
that say cars? You know? Must anything at all that warns you?
Okay? I hadn't seen anything, know. Okay, there's no signs anywhere
in that parking lot. If there are no signs there, then they can't
toe you. So that's so. Now you can take them the small claims
court and win, so I don't even have to move on. If there's
no signs you want already? Okay, you can win. You'll absolutely win
if there's no That's the very first thing I ask. If there are any
signs? You said no, so I'm gonna believe you. And if there
are, is this the one in by the way Greenwood in an Aurora on
Greenwood Drive? Yeah? Okay, And you say there's no signs anywhere,
well I can go home and drive around. You need to. You need
to because listen, this can help you. If there are no signs anywhere,
this can help you. Now it looks like a pretty nice project there.
It doesn't look bad. So and I don't see any signs from this
Google map. I don't see any obvious signs at all. I'm not saying
they're not there. I don't see any. Did they did? There have
to be signs, okay, at least warning people. I'm looking at the
entrance here, I don't know is it gated by the way? No?
Okay, So what about, Hey, deputy doc, would you call over
there and just say we have an inquiry and just you know, we don't
have to be confrontational. Can you ask them if there are signs about being
towed? Absolutely? Ask him that and ask him how they let residents know.
And we don't even have to mention this woman at this point. I
just want to know how did they let people know that they have to register
their car? She's lived there a year and she says she doesn't know.
But here's what I have to ask you. Okay. I see in that
parking lot on this Google map a ton of people park there, and can
we assume that not all of them were towed? So someone knows about this?
readA Did you ask them? Read it? Yes? I? Well,
when I got home, I called a neighbor of mine who lives upstairs
and I said, well, hold on, don what did your neighbor say?
She said, uh, yeah, we were notified. I said,
I was never notified, and because I thought it had something to do with
my handicap parking tag. And when they said registered, I said, but
it's hanging in my they're hanging on my window. I didn't how long you've
lived there? A year and you've never been bothered before. But your neighbor
said, yes, we knew you had to register. How did your neighbor
know maybe when they rented the apartment? Read I rented minds Ebyruary, and
I think she said she came in May and that's when she found out or
you know where she was ripped. Yeah, I want you to be very
I want to be very clear with you. Not knowing about it does not
excuse you, Okay. The only thing that would excuse you is if the
apartment never ever notified people. Okay, And if you were notified, I
don't care how you were notified. If you were notified with a sign,
if you were notified with an email, if you were notified with when you
signed up doc. That's the central question. They notify people, and okay,
just find that out. We'll do okay, Doc three all three seven
one three eight two five five. Now listen that that's going to be key.
Okay, that is going to be key. Not what somebody says,
but what what actually happened. So many people don't know what's going on.
All right, We have more coming right up on the Troubleshooter Show. Go
with a short thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay
a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free, no
obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three O three seven to seven to one help.
You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate
Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two
zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter. Hey Andrew has
a comment on that. Go ahead, Andrew, you have a comment on
the insurance for condos and townhomes and the dilemma they're facing. Go ahead,
sir, Yes, thank you. It's more a question, but something's not
really adding up to me, I mean, why does it what's the difference
between a Why are the condo companies having trouble getting the insurance and it's not
affecting homeowners or it's not affecting commercial real estate. I mean, okay,
certainly the hail and the wind hits all these roots. I get it that
a condo complex may have a bigger route than a house, but it's not
like the So what's the difference between And I'm going to tell you that right
Andrew, I'm going to tell you that right now, first and foremost,
it is affecting everyone, including homeowners. I don't know if you looked at
insurance rates lately, but they're going through the roof, no pun intended.
But here's another thing. They're also increasing deductibles on wind and hail to percentages
of the asset value. So there they are going out of sight. They're
going way out of sight, and they are affecting commercial building. But let
me tell you why they are affecting condos more. The reason they're affecting condos
more is because you have clusters of buildings owned by one entity. When I
say one entity, meaning the HOA, I understand that each has their own
unit. When you have that much concentrated in one area, you have a
giant, massive premium, and then what you have to do is aggregate the
cost among owners. Here's the problem. We have conventionally been used to paying
for an HOA. For example, in a beautiful community, HOA fees could
be four or five hundred dollars a month, and even six and eight hundred
is considered a lot. If you take the new cost of insurance, it
could make those premiums. It could make everyone's hoafee go up one thousand dollars.
No one will pay that, so instead of doing that, hoas are
trying to get policies that are affordable. In order to do that, they
have to accept giant deductibles and hope they don't have a lot of losses or
worse, they self ensure. As a result, when a storm hits,
that deductible has to be aggregated among all of the owners, which results in
a loss damage assessment. So insurance companies would rather have a thousand homes spread
out through the metro area than one thousand of those homes in one area,
because they because there's too much loss at one time and that's why cluster developments
are facing more of a problem, way more of a problem. So that's
why, Andrew, it's terrible. And let me tell you the real problem
here is a lot of people buy condos and town homes because they can't afford
the expense of a home and they end up with a giant assessment they can
never pay. I predict we're going to see a bunch of foreclosures as a
result of this. It's going we haven't even seen the problem yet. Look,
I made a prediction once, I swear to God years ago. I
made a prediction when they were doing loans at one hundred and twenty five percent
loan to value. I said, we are going to have hell to pay
ensure as hell. Well we did. I mean, we had a massive
recession. Now that wasn't the only reason, but that was a big part
of the reason. A lot of it was nondocumented loans and all of that,
but bottom line, there was not enough asset base to cover the debt,
and when people did their own, when people didn't have a lot of
skin in the game, they walked away. We had massive problems. Three
oh three seven to one to three talks seven one three eight, two five
five. Jeralin Uh called us yesterday and Jeraln said, look, I worked
for a company had a four o one K. They sold out. They
transferred my four oh one k, and they transferred it to a new trustee,
and they're a scammer. I got some good news for you, right,
Jenalene, they're not a scammer. I looked at your transfer docs and
I contacted the company. Okay, now your transfer doc. Your transfer doc
is nothing more than an introduction letter, and that's what they always send out.
And the introduction letter. I'm well acquainted with these kinds of letters,
and I looked at it, very well written, very clear into the point.
What they did. They can't maintain a four to oh one K for
you because you're no longer contributing or working there and the company's been sold.
So they converted it automatically to an IRA. Okay, that means every dime
that you had in there, seventy five hundred dollars almost seventy six is going
to be it was transferred to an IRA. So you have an IRA,
and that's kind of good news for you. So it went to this company,
Millennium Trust, and they gave you a QR code, and they gave
you also a pass a registration code. Did you follow that process? I
did, and what happened? I could not log into it wouldn't take my
password. I had to reset it and this one locked me in. And
that's when I had to try call them and get ahold of them, and
I couldn't get a hold of them either. Okay, I think you're facing
frustration, but not a ripoff. Okay, these companies, including this one,
are heavily regulated. Okay, some let me tell you some of the
least ripoffs we have in our sector in America. In in sectors. Home
improvement are a big ripoff. Moving companies big ripoff. Financial companies, believe
it or not. Now now if they're truly, financial companies are not big
ripoffs, especially trust companies. So what I'd like to but but I have
some recommendations for you. I think you can log on unless the access have
since expired, you can log on. Or I went on there there there
they have an email help and everything on their website. If you go there,
and and all you have to do is just basically go to onboard my
trust company dot com. The one they sent you to and and and and
if you're if you have trouble logged in, there's a place to hit a
link to get help. But what I'd like to tell you is you should
probably get it out of there anyway, if you have any you don't have
to keep it. There is where I'm telling you if you don't like their
customers. Ser Okay, are you going to cash it in or are you
going to move it? I'm going to move it? And where are you
going to move it? Well? I was looking at Roth or Fidelity,
but I'm well, Roth is not a thing. Roth is the name of
an Ira. So just if you want to convert it to a Roth,
which isn't a bad idea, but when you do that, just know that
you have to take a tax hit on that when you do that. In
fact, honestly, Tom, I'm getting ready to start with a new company
division here soon, so once I get the benefits open, I'm I'm hoping
I can just move them out of it, Okay, if you want to.
If you just want to cash it out, you can do that too.
You'll pay it. You'll pay a penalty and you'll pay unless you're over
fifty nine and a half. But no matter what, you're going to pay
tax on it. If you're under fifty nine and a half, you're going
to pay a surcharge. But you can get either get the cash or you
can send it to another trustee. You can't put it back into a four
to oh one k okay okay. It has to remain as an IRA and
you can contribute by the way to that IRA in the future as well.
So if you get it to a trustee that you want to, you know
and trust, you can contribute to it. Now, there are two kinds
of trustees you can go to. You can go to one where they automatically
invest it for you, or you can go to a self directed trustee.
So you make that decision. But I promise you this is not a ripoff.
That money is safe there. You just have to you just have to
go on there. And I think you got frustrated, just go on to
that website they give you you and have and hit the link for a trouble
logging in. They don't take phone calls unfortunately, and a lot of them
don't. But that's just that's that's just the way it is. Anyway,
Thank you very much. Three O three seven to one three talk call us
back. If you have a problem. You shouldn't have a problem, Deputy
Doc, did you call that apartment complex yet? I would just like to
know how they notify people of registering cars. I did, and I just
got a voicemail. So I left the message for them to call me back
as soon as they can. But I bet you we're going to find that
people do know about the registration process, and that is why you don't have
everybody being towed every night. I mean, it's really sad when people don't.
Some people throw away e mailings and just throw away things from from their
mailbox, or they delete emails without reading them or without familiarizing themselves, and
then they end up in trouble like this. It can happen, It really
can happen. But there's got to be a sign in the parking lot somewhere.
They have to by Colorado law. That alone will help you. If
there are no signs, they have to have a sign. I will let
you know as soon as I hear find it, Tom, and you better
let them know they need signs. Three oh three seven one three talk Go
with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay
a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation.
Comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies
find out now three oh three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're
his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to
list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Hi Tom Martino here three three seven to one to three talks seven one
three eight two five five Back with John Fuller, my accident lawyer dot co.
We've, as I said, taking many cases recently, and the case
about being told I can't emphasize enough the ignorance of the policies don't help you,
especially when you say you haven't been notified and people around you have been.
That's going to be, uh the biggest problem. Now, what about
somebody wants to know by text hitting a pedestrian they were told the driver's always
wrong, but recently they heard a discussion that I had with John Fuller,
and that's not necessarily the case. John, can you elaborate on that yeah,
I can. I mean, listen, there's always some circumstance where the
driver can be accused of being negligent and stuff. However, all of the
protections that are afforded the pedestrian when they're in the crosswalk and crossing with the
light and all that stuff go out the window when you're crossing in the middle
of the block or something where you don't have a light that's telling you to
you know that it's safe to cross and stuff. So the rule basically is,
you know, look, it's never safe. You never get a free
shot to hit anybody. But there are cases where pedestrians get hit in the
middle of a block where there's no protection for crossing, where the law does
not really support that the driver is going to be held negligent for that.
Okay, Now does that go for cyclists as well? Well. Cyclists are
entitled to be on the roadway just like you are, so they're considered,
you know, just the same as a vehicle when they're driving, and so
they have to comply with the rules of the road and so do you.
So no, you never get a free shot on a cyclist, but the
cyclist may also be accused of being you know, being negligent themselves and having
some role and causing the accident. So have you heard John these new smartphone
apps that insurance companies are starting to require where you have to carry your phone
with you and it tracks your driving, much like those devices did that you
plug into the data port, but now they're doing it by smartphone app.
Have you heard of it? Yeah, I've heard of it. We actually
had a case where and I can't think of the name of it, but
there's an app that a lot of parents will put on the car to track
their children when they're driving, and it tracks the speed and the direction and
where they're going and everything else. And it's amazing. We were able to
get the data from one of those apps in a really bad accident case improve
the exact speed at the time of the accident, the exact speed over an
elapsed period of time, which was critical for that, you know, that
particular case. And there's an enormous amount of data that those things collect,
and so, you know, I think it's just like a dash cam.
It can help you or it can really hurt you if it shows that you're
at fault for the accident. So the point is this is that in this
particular case of the smartphone apps, or in these cases I should say,
people who are passengers, if they don't make adjustments, their phone will record
them as the driver. In fact, all movement records them as the driver,
if they're in a lift or an uber. The smartphone app doesn't know
the difference. So what you have to do is go in every few days
or every week, and you know how negligent people are when it comes and
you have to exclude the places where you were not driving. Did you know
that? That's idea? Now that's the imperfect part. Now you would think
that there would be an easier way to figure this out. My god,
the technology like talking to your car made you know, like I would say,
like talking to your car maybe a Bluetooth connection or something. So I
don't know, but in any case, that's the new smartphone app, and
a lot of people are being told that they're In some cases, their policies
have doubled and they went back and realized that many of the data points they
were collecting were not theirs. And that's interesting. I've not run into that
before, but I could definitely see how, you know, how that data
could be used against you. I mean that's the risk that we run with
all of this stuff. The data is imperfect, and if it's being used
to make decisions about your you know, credit worthiness as a potential insured it,
it's gonna get abused in some cases, and that's that's not good.
We've also had issues, if you think about it, the people that get
DUIs and have to blow in the machine to start their cars. I mean,
for years and years people figured out how to how to thwart those systems,
and they've gotten better, and they've gotten to where you really can't cheat
those systems. And I suspect all of this stuff is going to continue to
get better into until there's just no question who's driving and who did what and
everything else. I'm not sure that's great news, but I think that's definitely
where the world is going. Okay, and we have more coming up.
I'm troubleshooter Tom Martine. We have time for a few more calls or discussions.
Three oh three seven one three talks seven one three, eight two five
five Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel roofing dot com. You
don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free
no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at
dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven to seven to one
help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real
estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine
two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three o three
seven to one three Talk John. I got a text here. It's interesting.
Is it possible would waivers hold up if you had people or kids or
adults or anyone who drives with your kid sign a waiver or drives with you
in your car not to come after you. Is is that even possible?
Someone wants to know that. You know, I've seen this come up a
time or two over the years. Okay, you know, and some genius
decides are going to have everybody sign a waiver before they come over for the
kid's birthday party and jump on the trampoline and get in the car and everything
else. Yeah, I don't think you'll have too many people attending your party
if you choose to do that. But you know, waivers are traditionally viewed
with the very you know, jaundice eye. They don't like to enforce waivers.
If the more that the waiver is for a necessary service or you know,
event that you're you're waving, the more they're likely to enforce it.
The more it is towards something that is just gratuitous to the owner and not
really a necessary deal, the less likely they would be to enforce that.
Okay, So it's up in the air basically, I mean. Well,
and then the other issue, Tom is that you know, are we talking
about negligents are gross negligents? You know that that's a different entity altogether.
Negligents generally wave will be enforced that just wave simple negligents, but but almost
never will they agree to enforce waivers that wave gross negligents or you know,
or reckless conduct if you will, okay, kind of kind of depends on
the circumstances in the language of the waiver. That's John Fuller, Fuller Law,
my accident lawyer dot CO. Thank you for being here, John,
We certainly certainly appreciate it, and of course you can reach them at three
oh three five nine seven forty five hundred. Don't forget three oh three Martino
for help, information and referrals three oh three six two seven, eight,
four sixty six call twenty four seven leave your name. We will get back
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