He lives in a starting name.
You live there, they say you're living pretty lawns with fancy landscapes.
She stares ahead with a blank gates in her lovely neighborhood.
Where the living is.
There's been a lot in the news since we were last year.
It's interesting the difference a week makes, but we're not really going to spend a lot of time in that space.
For those of you who've been watching what's going on in the Middle East and what's going on in Congress, I'm sure you've had plenty of opportunity to get your fill of those things on CNN, MSNBC and Fox.
Therefore, we're going to reverse your thinking about other things.
So I hope that makes you feel good and that you didn't want us to delve into uh, Congress or the Middle East because we're not going there.
Alright, so I want to take a moment and I wanna reverse your thinking about what to do with your house.
Specifically, what to do with your house as it concerns leaving it to your children, right?
It's it's the art of they put it another way.
Somewhere along the line, homeowners have come to believe uh what's known as a non sequitur of suits that the American dream includes not only buying a house, but also passing that same home on to their children.
Don't you believe that?
Don't you want your kids to inherit your house?
Don't you believe that that's part of the American dream?
That's part of your right.
Now that you own this House, it's important to remember that the percentage of home ownership in this country prior to World War Two was dramatically small.
Dramatically, the idea of owning a home was a luxury which became a a reality, and we're two due to the GI Bill and the ability to finance out a house for 30 years.
But somewhere along the line, as part of that, we came to believe that passing the home on to our children was also part of that dream.
But here's an unspoken truth.
Houses make for terrible wealth transfer vehicles to be queen.
The house is often to pass along financial burdens.
Red tape, home maintenance responsibilities.
Potential family conflict and housing market volatility.
If you're thinking of leaving your air as you're physical home, it's a good time to reconsider this conventional wisdom, because there are much more effective alternatives to secure your legacy and pass along assets to the next generation.
Now I I realize that this is contrary to probably almost everything that you have heard, but that's what this show is all about.
It's about reversing your thinking, and that's what we're gonna continue to do. A study that was done in money and family found out that 68% of homeowners plan to leave a home or property to airs.
And yet 56% haven't told them about this plan.
Think about that.
Think about that.
50% of the people, roughly 50% of the people that plan to leave the house to their kids, haven't told them.
Haven't even discussed it with them, but that's a problem and it will likely be a surprise to the recipients, who may or may not want or be able to service and inherited house.
I had a conversation with a A a client in Newport Beach who had a $5 million house.
Are you leaving the house to your kids?
And he said, Ohh no, I'm definitely not leaving the house with the kids.
And I was curious.
So I asked him, well, why aren't you gonna do that?
And he said, well, I've got three kids and none of them are in a position to be able to maintain a $5 million house.
Now you may not own a $5 million house.
You may own a $500,000 house or maybe a billion dollar house, but honestly, your kids in a position to be able to take care of that property, maybe they are.
Maybe they're not discussed it with them.
Who the heck knows?
We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna continue.
You're listening to reverse your thinking.
I'm your host, Mark Gertz, and we'll be right back after this.
That's reverse your thinking.
Before the break, we were talking about why home ownership inheritance is not a good idea and part of the reason for that is that even though homeowners wish to pass along their houses, 40% said they have some level of concern about leaving behind real estate, including worries that the airs won't be able to afford the upkeep and taxes and potential conflicts among airs that hurt me.
Conflicts brothers and sisters.
Seriously, now some also worry that the home will be sold quickly against their wishes.
And there's a good reason to be concerned.
If you be queued the house to an air or airs, they will have to make an immediate plan for home maintenance, mortgage payments if necessary.
Utilities, property taxes, repairs and homeowners insurance.
Zillow estimates this can amount to as much as $9400 a year, which doesn't include mortgage payments.
If the plan is for airs to sell the home, there is the listing and sale process.
Realtor fees, tax issues and the fare and equitable disbursement of proceeds among family members.
That's a recipe for disaster, as many families can attest to, given the challenges that come with passing along a home to airs, why do Americans believe this is a good idea in the 1st place?
I think that one of the reasons has to do with the sychology in people's minds of the word own.
Owners often have deep emotional attachments to their homes, so when people give their homes to children and heirs, they're not just giving an asset, they're endowing them with all the good memories that were made on that property.
In other words, it's not a logical decision.
It's an emotional one.
Emotional ties can complicate decision making when it comes to passing down a house to that official areas they they struggle and they practical choices about the inherited property due to sentimental value.
This emotional aspect can cloud judgment and hinder the effective management and allocation of assets.
There's actually a field of study that deals with this called financial psychology and the purpose of financial psychology.
The reason people study it is to understand why people make irrational decisions that have to do with money, financial burdens, family conflicts.
Let's talk further.
Inheriting a home entails a range of financial responsibilities that can quickly add up property taxes, insurance premiums, ongoing maintenance costs, unexpected repairs can significantly strain beneficiaries.
Financial resources.
Are you leaving them enough cash to take care of these things?
A lot of people aren't.
If beneficiaries already have their own homes inheriting an additional property can exacerbate financial burdens.
Make them worse and potentially and you're their own financial goals.
In other words, money they may be putting aside for retirement or for their kids education.
Now they have to put into maintenance and service on the House that you'll have to, in addition to that, the passing of a family member can sometimes lead to conflicts of Mona errors, intentionally exacerbating existing fractures in relationships.
In other words, making it worse, especially among siblings and other family members, according to a study from 2018 by estate exec, 44% of respondents experienced family strife during an estate settlement.
In other words, over 2/3 of kids fight over the estate.
That's what that means, and if there's a house, it's worse.
Disagreements can quickly escalate.
Was intention, straining relationships and even resulting in lengthy legal battles?
I've been involved in many, many situations where the kids were fighting over the home, were over the assets in, in a in, in a state and.
Instead of leaving this this wonderful repository of memories, all they do is break their kids apart.
I'm suggestion that is beginning to be made the answer to this is that.
I'm using the home equity in the property while you're still alive.
Can alleviate legacy pan planning problems.
One solution to cost, complexity and drama that can sometimes accompany the handing down of a house wants to take the house out of the equation.
Tapping into home equity through a reverse mortgage is one way to streamline your inheritance.
Homeowners can assess their housing wealth.
Put it to work today and ensure they're leaving behind cash that will truly enrich the next generation.
After all, it's much easier to divide a bank account than to manage and divide a four bedroom house in a beautiful cul-de-sac where both children and grandchildren took their first steps.
So the bottom line is, reverse mortgages can help remove emotion from the equation.
So families can keep focused on the true goal of escalon generational wealth without perplexity, without conflict.
And of course, there are many pros and cons when you have a conversation like this, we'll take a quick break.
We'll be right back.
Can't wait to introduce you to our Guest.
You listening to reverse your thinking?
We'll be right back after this.
Welcome back to reverse your thinking.
I'm your host, Mark Gertz.
It's my extreme pleasure to introduce our guest this afternoon.
Jennifer Novak is a second generation California female attorney who has practiced litigation across a broad spectrum of fields since 1996.
Part specialty is environmental law.
We never had anybody on this show yet that was a specialist in environmental law.
So I expect you to sit back and reverse your thinking on a whole bunch of stuff this afternoon.
She's handled cutting edge legal issues in matters valued in the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars based upon her experience representing clients ranging from Fortune 500 and national companies to retirees, she understands the stress and uncertainty that a threatened the lawsuit rings when she's not doing that, you're likely to find her supporting her son at high school basketball.
And baseball games trying to be brave after sending her daughter off to college, volunteering her time to work with students, cleaning up beaches and sorting food donations in her vicarious free time.
Jen, thanks so much for making the time to come on.
Ohh I so appreciate being here.
Thank you.
So let's let's get right to it.
What do we mean when we say environmental law?
It's a great question because a lot of people think it's just big issues like saving polar bears and hugging trees and saving whales, climate change.
But the reality is that environmental laws touch every aspect of our lives, from the water we drink and the air we breathe.
The kind of chemicals that can be used for our clothes, our furniture, our carpets, the kind of cars we can drive.
There is nothing that we do in our lives that is not governed in some way by a law or regulation designed to protect natural resources as well as protect people.
And so it's really important for people to understand how intertwined their lives are with environmental issues.
And as an attorney with this specialty, actually let me digress for a second.
Is there actually a section in in law called environmental law?
Yes, and we divide that.
We divide that even further into people who do water quality, soil contamination, air quality and we we have a lot of subspecialties even within our practice area.
Do you have a sub specialty or you're more of a generalist in the section I have practiced across a broad spectrum because I used to represent the state of California as a deputy attorney general, so working with agencies that governed pesticides and error and recycling and water.
But I tend to do most of my work in the area of a water quality as well as soil and groundwater contamination.
How long were you a deputy attorney general?
Just about 10 years and years.
Ohh that's that's no walk in the park.
So what did you do for us?
As as the Deputy Attorney general, what what was your main focus in that role?
Well, as an attorney general, we act as the outside law firm for the state of California agencies.
And so my clients were the agencies that we're trying to adopt the rules or the parameters permits for example, that guide people on the businesses and the communities to know what they're allowed to do in terms of their activities that then won't harm the environment.
But they got sued all the time.
And so on one hand, they'd be sued by misses or cities that felt that there was too much regulation.
And these are things were unfair.
And on the other hand, they're constantly being sued by environmental groups who feel like the state wasn't going far enough to protect us.

So it was very interesting space to be in and going into court constantly and trying to explain very complicated scientific matters to judges who probably have never even thought about environmental health before and and trying to educate them to the point where they're not just arbitrarily making decisions based on one case that will affect the state as a whole.
I so it's no joke.
When I when I say that my cases did have the impact on billions of dollars, gotcha and and also and also I'm sure the the health of millions of people as well.
Yeah.
And also with the night was not even aware of a lot of these issues from my early part of my law career and only when I started working on them on a day to day basis did I become acutely aware of all the different ways that we can impact the environment.
Gotcha.
So obviously, when you were Deputy Attorney general, you were working on behalf of the people who do you work?
Do you represent now most of our clients are businesses and just ordinary people, whether they're property owners or investors or they have a construction company or some business that just happens to me in a traditionally polluting industry.
We do some work on behalf of nonprofits, but that tends to be when I see that the system isn't working and people you should be complying with.
Environmental laws just refuse to believe that they've done something wrong to sometimes you are doing a little course correction.
But what I find is that that's actually very helpful for my business clients for me to have a good understanding of where that line is and also how an environmental group might think and how that should influence people's decision making.
I see.
So alright, so if somebody engages you are are they trying to find out whether or not they are a polluter or they're trying to figure out how to not be a polluter at a price they can afford?
I really wish it was the latter, as the bulk of our commands.
What are fortunately, either because people don't recognize how important these issues are or it feels like a luxury to be paying a lawyer to help you comply, and maybe do a self audit, we tend to see people who fall in that former category.
They've already been accused of being a polluter or a causing a problem, and they're required to take some sort of further action to prove that they're not.
And sometimes the our clients just wanna know the truth.
You know, they certainly don't want to continue causing a problem if they have caused one already and we can help guide them to decisions that make sense for them.
But at the same time, avoid governmental overreach or things that just don't make sense in terms of investing that kind of time and money.
I remember hearing a sound bite.
I I couldn't tell you where it went.
It was, but I remember hearing this sound by something about that you you don't have to pollute to be a polluter.
That is correct.
OK.
Can you explain that?
Sure.
You know in in the field of environmental law, we have rules that are what we call strict liability.
And even if you didn't cause a problem, if for example you own a piece of property where in the past somebody may have created some pollution, now you're just the owner.
The Infortunate part is by owning that property.
Most times you're going to be considered a polluter as well, and I can also provide one example of a client of ours.
They were doing a big redevelopment project and in the course of digging up the ground they discovered an underground storage tank.
That nobody had disclosed to them.
Turns out it was leaking and these are great great people.
So they went ahead and cleaned it out and took all the contaminated soil and sent it off to the right places.
They cleaned up the problem, but unfortunately the minute they touched it, they were polluters and that meant they had reporting on ligations and all sorts of fees that they were supposed to pay.
Oversight that they were required to get, and by not understanding that it ended up costing them a lot in penalties in addition to the work they had done right.
So you know they they say pedals revenge is worth a pound of cure.
You know very much in this world it is and and unfortunately we tend to leap to the cures and not to prevention.
You know, one of the interesting things about California and you work in California, right?
Correct.
There's plenty to keep me busy here.
Yeah.
No, no doubt takes largest economy in the world.
Absolutely.
Of California is is known, rightly or wrongly, as as a state with very strict in environmental laws.
I I mean, for example, the gasoline that we put in our cars in California is is hypothetically cleaner than gasoline anywhere else in the country?
Do you think that they were over regulated?
Here is it overkill what's being done in California to preserve the environment?
I'd say yes and no, and let me give you an example and again going to all the different ways that we're lives are affected by environmental laws, you know, and and we learn more and more every day as science improves and we can detect smaller and smaller amounts of chemicals or we can see the cause and effect that certain chemicals can have on our bodies.
The science really drives the conversation, and so we, as we discover new problems, the state wants to address.
And so, for example, California right now is engaging in a study to find out how much plastic is in our drinking water.
It's called leading that study and their findings will be the ones that dictate then how we all should manage it.
But I think if you right think about it, most of us already assume someone is in charge of keeping plastic.
A lot of our drinking water and yet we're gonna need a regulation for that.
As soon as we know what to do.
So on one hand, yeah, no, we we are not overregulated.
Now get into the other part.
In the second, I just wanted to ask you one question.
Yeah, this thing with plastic in the water, this goes back to an article from about three or four weeks ago, right?
That I found out that there was plastic, micro microplastics, microplastics in in in regular drinking water, but but I believe it was like all over the country.
Wasn't it's ubiquitous everywhere.
You vigorous. It's everywhere.
OK.
Do you happen to know is there any type of filtration system that will take it out?
And I don't know that you don't know that.
OK, so if instead of drinking water from the tap, we go to the water station over at Whole Foods and and and we fill up our jugs, right and it's and it's triple filtered going into that bottle.
That doesn't necessarily mean or.
You're not sure whether it means the plastics have come out.
Yeah, I probably should know that just for my own health.
But I'm not going to.
I just thought educated enough to provide an opinion about what that was way to go, because there certainly are arguments about what happens when you're putting that filtered water into another plastic jug.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's a good point, right?
That's a whole nother thing.
Exactly O, but right to think, going back to the question of are we over regulated?
Yeah, we definitely have far more in terms of regulations and the issues we're concerned about in California, especially compared to other states.
And that's a judgment call, right?
Whether it's right or wrong, because the reality is the the free market isn't gonna force correct that, at least not for a really long time.
So if you are concerned about people spilling chemicals and throwing particles as the pair, the governments, the one I was here to address, I just wish that they want forced it with a more even hand so that they could actually give their regulations a chance to work before sometimes leaping in the whole another category of regulation on the assumption that we tried that didn't work on something else.
And now we've got this huge tangle of what regulations there is.
White or ception buddy?
How being on the outside is that it isn't so much trouble than California has too many laws.
Captions, just that one hand, doesn't know what the other hand is doing and and I'll give you an example.
What I mean by that, I'm mortgage growing of course, but in the state of California, there are two different agencies that license people to broker mortgages, 2 entirely different agencies.
Umm which which doesn't exist in almost every other state correct in the country.
I would have to believe that if it's in my backyard specially that an environmental point of view, it's maybe 5-10 times worse than we go back.
So yes, and perhaps even more, I mean it there.
There are a lot of areas of environmental law and regulation that have a federal component and a state component, and perhaps a regional component, and even a local component.
And when we talk about the state, there may be numerous state agencies that all have jurisdiction and some level of authority over a given business or over a given a proposal to build something.
I mean, it is one reason why it takes forever right?
To solve what we think of as solvable problems like building affordable housing or putting in transit, or you know, things that would be seen as common sense, we instead have a lot of people working on it.
And what's interesting is I was just speaking with someone at the state this week about the states desire to start decommissioning oil wells throughout the state of California.
But there's no one government agency that has to say over that there's multiple agencies that may have a concern with where that was located and how that's gonna happen, and we prioritize it.
And where's the money going to come from?
That probably is one of the reasons why it's been as though onerous, and I didn't absolutely treat you, could be dealing with one state agency.
You think you got a problem solved and then somebody else comes right behind them.
It is huge source of frustration permitted by flights.
Google may ask you something that there's two links.
First things you just said is between Jerry Brown and we've had two governors of row who were very environmentally friend here.
It seemed to me that in addition to or instead of trying to pass new regulations, that they might be visiting all of these old things and see if there might be a way to streamline.
Do you have any insight into that as to either why it hasn't been done or how we can get them to do it so periodically the state will have studies done where people do look at whether we can streamline government agencies, whether or not one particular regulation, especially in the environmental world, will suffice.
And we just apply it in multiple areas.
Funny, because people do get territorial, but at the same time, as I mentioned before, you know you have federal laws that set a threshold for what states have to meet.
And then you have concerns at a state level that go beyond that.
Do I see them picking up traction?
No, I mean it.
In fact, I'm not gonna name names, but there is a beleaguered state agency that people repeatedly talk about, perhaps getting rid of orange, dysfunctional and oversight.
And yet they just got a huge amount of funding and the attempt to give them for the purpose and make them more useful.
So I don't know.
I think if someone had that kind of answer, number one, I don't think they'd get far or get elected #2.
I think they find themselves confronted the very entrenched system I see.
It's gonna delve into the only state agency that I have consistently heard people complaining about.
It looks like we're gonna take a quick break.
We come back.
We're gonna talk about the postal clinician.
OK.
Sounds good, right?
OK, alright.
You're listening to reverse your thinking of your host, Mark Gertz.
My host Jennifer Novak be right back after this.
And back on the road?
Sure, thinking my guest, Jennifer Novak before the break, the the we run up the subject of the postal permission from the state of California.
Jen, what what can you tell us about the coastal Commission?
Is it an effective agency?
Any insight is appreciated.
So it's funny that you mentioned the Coastal Commission because it is true.
That's not the agency I was talking about earlier, but I feel very few people who have overall positive things to say.
And I think if currently it's the fact that of all the agencies I'm familiar with, to me they may seem the most politically driven, a lot of the people who sit on the Commission are there by a special appointment.
They're trying to represent a whole variety of interests and you know, our coastline is extremely important to state of California.
So the issues that come before them are very important, but unfortunately it it affects just about anybody who's along that close.
So even the smallest of issues like can I build the stairwell?
Can I, you know, plant this particular thing here?
Can can I rebuild my home?
All of that falls within their jurisdiction.
And so yeah, they have been criticized in the past for perhaps being a little subject to influence by lobbyists, for example.
And but it's interesting, I again, that's one of those agencies where they seem to get it all sides and yet they play an extremely important and I haven't seen situations where they really were the last line of defense for a big environmental issue.
So because you're more more so than some of the other agencies I've either represented will work with a lot of people putting a lot of resources into trying to convince the coastal Commission to vote one way or the other.
But but our our environmental laws in California or even the federal for the most part, most I'm not gonna say that that's true in every situation.
But California definitely takes advantage of the fact that it can go further than federal law, though just as my little side, it is certainly easier to convince a judge that the state is not acting capriciously if we can just point at the federal government, say, oh what they told us to, yes, well, that makes that makes sense.
I second appreciate that.
So, so on.
On a practical note, with regard to your practice, so I don't OK only and going back to that example you were saying about the the tank being found.
That's if if that client has to made a different decision.
It's a decision they had made.
Was that this was too big.
It was too much and they just decided to basically hand the keys over to the state and walk away.
Do they have that option?
No, no, they don't.
And it's actually something, you know, I I have a lot of clients say that in frustration, I'm just gonna let this be the states problem or literally that comment that you just made of.
I'm just gonna hand somebody just you know, if you think about this from a big picture standpoint, the state of California, like any government that's the interest in making sure that it's not just leaving a legacy of contaminated properties, you should think pollution councils.
And so they're always trying to look to the how do we address it and the way the system is is designed is that if someone may have some responsibility, if they've touched the property in some way that gives the state authority over them, then you know, maybe it takes decades, but they have the ability to come after you, how they can.
And it puts a lot of my clients in the real pickle, because sometimes a contaminated properties.
The only asset they have so on one hand you don't have the money or the resources to address the problem.
On the other, you can't sell the property sometimes because who wants to buy a contaminated property and take on that responsibility and that risk right now would say that over the last, I don't know, four or five years, the market for industrial commercial properties is so hot we are seeing more people willing to take that risk and take on the responsibility of the cleaning up the property and they've got the wherewithal to deal with the government to do it.
And if you can get that kind of property for good enough deal, that might pencil out for you, but still otherwise, no.
If you can't just make it the states problem, that's not what they're for.
Gotcha.
I'm gonna take it out of potential dead end.
OK.
But you might know a whole bunch about this.
I know you've read about it.
It's been in the papers about these barrels off the off the coast, right, that we've done that.
Think of the 40s and 30s.
Have you been involved in that, either as a deputy Attorney general or in your private practice?
Is there any insight you can give us into that and where it's at?
I know it's a ticking time bomb, but is there anything else?
So what I can say is I know that it's being heavily studied right now from a number of aspects.
I mean, there's the scientific aspect of what's the condition of these barrels?
How many of them are there?
How widespread is the problem and that kind of study is what you need to do before you can even think about cleaning it up?
You know, if that's even possible because they're not just in one small little group that's really widespread and and I'm not even certainly no.
All of what's out there, the other element of study is to look at this.
You know who who knew about it?
Who could have prevented it?
Who?
Maybe financially responsible for it and my recollection is there were a lot of people starting to dig through a lot of old dusty filing cabinets trying to figure out how on Earth could this have gone undetected or unnoticed if that was even the case.
If somebody thought it was a good idea and just blessed it as opposed to it was done in a way that was not anticipated, I can't give you much more than that other than to say obviously this is a huge problem and it's going to continue to be looked at and reported.
Well, I'm glad I brought it up in the sense that given us some reassurance that at least there's a study going on, there are lots of people looking at this right now.
Yes.
So so alright cuz we haven't heard anything about this in the news in in quite a while.
So that that's good to know.
Yeah, the reality is just because you're not hearing about it, they're they're really are a lot of people on a day to day basis and then that's their job is to look at that, that issue and other similar issues all around the state of California.
That's what they do 24/7.
That's good.
We're gonna take a quick break when we come back.
Let's talk about thinking globally and acting globally.
You're listening to reverse your thinking.
I'm your host.
Mark Dirts and we'll be right back after this.
Yeah.
Back on reverse your thinking of our guest, Jennifer Novak, Environmental Attorney Jennifer, you're in private practice now.
Correct, correct.
OK.
Is is your firm a law firm?
That somebody calls once the trouble starts.
Or is your law firm the the type of firm that a person should call before the problem comes to light?
I love your use that word should.
Yes, my pharmacist.
One that people should call to be curious about whether or not they are compliant with environmental laws, whether or not they should be able to anticipate any issues other than they have caused or maybe even the neighboring property has caused.
We certainly do help people with compliance.
It's a really good investment if I do say so, simply because a few hours of a lawyer's time or a consultant's time, and it's far cheaper then the kind of penalties that you will pay if it turns out you've caused a problem because often those problems go undetected for a very long time.
Or just also the scientific problem in terms of banking contamination can get worse over time.
It can spread over time and then also the kinds of penalties you might have to pay are are daily so per violation per day.
And we're talking 10s of thousands of dollars potentially per violation.
And then the government comes and says they want $1,000,000 out of you when you put it.
That's pretty easily.
I ask you something about, you know, hypothetically I go out to buy a piece of commercial property.
Looks fine to me.
You know, I don't see any problems with environmental.
There's no history.
There's no paper trail.
My real estate attorney blesses it.
OK, why would I?
Why would I call you at that point everything seems OK.
Well, I guess why there are a couple of elements here.
So number one is there are different levels of investigation you might do in terms of your own due diligence, OK.
If you want to kind of protections that you can rely upon later if it turns out there's a problem, it means you need to have involved and you can't just kind of do your own thing and your real estate attorney can't just do their own thing.
There are a lot of history gets missed as far as what may have happened on that property at 100 years ago as opposed to just 50 years ago.
Yeah.
And you could be responsible for that if you didn't know about it, or at least make the right efforts to try to find out about this.
That's a little one or two is, you know, you'd think that real estate brokers potentially even real estate lawyers, should already know this.
But we are constantly seeing people who some we'll find that just because the buyer knows that they're buying a contaminated property doesn't mean the seller's office right or vice versa, just cause he it just because the seller didn't disclose it to you, doesn't mean it's not your problem.
It means you've just got a lot of legal hoops.
You're going to have to go through to sort out these responsible for what fairness standpoint or a contractual standpoint.
So again, these are things where it's far easier to try to avoid them up front, then to have to go through all the different procedural mechanisms to sort it out on the back end.
And FYI, I think everyone doesn't care, right?
The government doesn't care what circumstances it was that you bought that property under.
If you own it, you're the first store they're gonna knock on.
Gotcha.
So let's suppose somebody is looking at a property that does have a minor history of illusion.
Is that a red flag that they should give you guys a call necessarily, because a lot of times I'll call us right and and with a little bit of effort, we can let them know where that property falls and the world that we live in and we see worse and we seen better what have we seen people do in these circumstances or there might be indemnity provisions that can be negotiated and then put in, you can also make sure that we're asking the right questions about what's being disclosed and the documents that are given because obviously.
You're the seller.
You're trying to minimize those problems as much as possible and not necessarily opening up huge cans of worms.
So we're we're that's kind of a double check to keep people honest.
So you know, one of the things that I hear people say in regards to collusion and the environment in general is feels too big.
In other words, a lot of people getting to a point, both both consumers and business people, that it's almost like it doesn't matter because it's sort of a fatal totally that you know it's they get worse and you can't really do anything, child will what was going on that well.
I mean, I think we feel that way because we're talking about really big issues like climate change.
But there are so many things they're gonna have to happen to make a real change.
It's not impossible, but you you mentioned before at the very beginnings and congressional dysfunction.
I mean, Can you imagine trying to get Congress to take action on something that is designed to move the needle on an environmental issue?
Now you can't even say the words I could change to some people, right?
But on a day to day basis in terms of our own environments and of course there are things that we could be doing to either put pressure on policymakers or on companies that clean up their practices.
I'm a very big believer that good environmental practices are good business.
I think more and more people believe that now too, and so if we take steps to make sure that we are prioritizing environmental issues and doing what we can, we absolutely can make it.
The Los Angeles today is very different than the Los Angeles I grew up in, so that right?
Better now, but it's much better now in terms of things like air pollution, water. Nope.
So the New York Gideon Trickers what's on the horizon for California and the rest of the country?
Environmentally, California is gonna continue to push, right?
So there's there's people about making sure people and and agencies are big on conservation.
You're going to continue to see employment and unlimited single use plastics.
Or.
Day to day lives.
I would also be on the tabs, not just allow the government to enforce environmental laws, but to allow more concerned citizens to be enforcing those laws as well, which will end up getting pretty expensive for businesses.
If that's where we eventually go, great.
If someone needs to get ahold of you, what's the best way?
You know you can go to our website whichisjfnovaklaw.com and fill out our Inquiries page.
That's one of the easiest ways to make sure you learn about us.
Our phone number is 310-693-0775.
Yeah, for Novak.
Thank you so much for bringing us up to speed on the environment and law in California.
Even listening to reverse your thinking on your host Mark Gertz have a great weekend.
Get home safe.
I will see you again next please the little.
Is good.