Best real estate law books according to redditors

I own a condo at Bishops Landing; I have some advice.

The first thing you should do is go to CMHC and read their reports and publications. They have a lot of stuff on buying condos and the Halifax market in general. The last time I read a report was about 4 years ago when i bought my place and what I took away from it was that housing starts are up and expected to increase supply, keeping supply/demand balanced. The one exception is on the peninsula, where development is slow and there is no land for sprawl.

My take on the market is that Nova Scotia has an aging population who will move from homes to condos, but really it is a question of demand and supply as to whether developers meet that demand. In a rising interest rate environment, I expect that will slow development but it also slows the real estate market. Also, students are choosing to stay, driving some demand, but mostly for condos as rentals.

Owning a condo is not for everyone. Make sure you read minutes of previous condo association meetings. Bishops Landing has a very professional board, property management company, etc, and the meetings are attended by mature adults and very business-like. My father-in-law's former damn disaster of child-like owners doing stupid things that eroded property value. Biggest risk of owning a condo is a special assessment that could mean you suddenly have to write a cheque for a big number to cover some unexpected event. You need to be prepared for that, but Nova Scotia us great because there are laws that require reserve and contingency funds to be evaluated and supported by an engineering study, so you don't get the "Surprise! The roof needs replacing!" email.

Cost is also a concern. Some condos have horrible efficiency and that translates to high fees. Others have lots of benefits that translates to high fees. I don't mind high fees, because I get 24x7 concierge, pool, gym, car wash, guest suite, etc. Some condos have similar fees but offer nothing; they are just aging and expensive to maintain. Make sure you do an apples-to-apples comparison on fees. Buildings with higher fees have lower perceived value and therefore lower prices, so sometimes a bargain unit is actually expensive in terms of total cost. Finally, taxes for condos in Halifax need to be reformed - you pay twice what a comparable apartment building would, and nowhere else in the country does that.

Finally, there is a good book called "Never Buy a Condo and Other Things I Have Learned from the Practice of Law".

Put simply if you're working in the operational area the work you are doing is more about managing people and projects rather than the heritage itself. Heritage legislation is fairly easy to learn, all you need is a copy of Charles Mynors, and to understand how to deal with conservators and the like. In terms of site management of a historic house, you're going to be involved in organising projects in order to bring visitors and money onto the site.

I would recommend the heritage management courses - for instance the one at York - if you're looking to do interpretation and so on, but even then it's better to specialise in a particular area, so that you can better research sites in order to produce material on them. In that the building history one I linked at Cambridge below has some good career potential - for instance in Historic England's listing department.

If you haven't done so already, I strongly recommend having a look at the National Trust careers site to give yourself an indication of what kinds of qualifications they are looking for and factor that into your thinking. EH one here too.

I did it myself in MA for a whopping $250 with 2 kids in the mix.
We both agreed on everything including custody, financial support etc.
Did it all without lawyers.. just a lot of reading..

The most important thing is the separation agreement which will contain custody information. You need to get that right. The more detailed the better. (Mine was 32 pages) There are tons of examples out there and the best resource for me was this book:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1413320678/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
And for the general process:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1413317138/ref=cm_sw_su_dp


It can be done, its a lot of paperwork that will need to be on the correct paper (colors, weight, acid free archival etc)

Feel free to PM me if needed, I may not be familiar with CA.. but I can point you in the right direction if needed.