Three-fourths ownership is the only number that decides whether a company can lease a West Virginia mineral tract, not a unanimous family vote. Once owners holding that share agree to a company’s terms, state law treats every other heir as if they’d signed the same lease too. That catches a lot of heirs off guard,…
California carries more than a 99% chance of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next 30 years, according to the state’s emergency services agency. Retrofitting a house for that kind of shaking isn’t usually what catches a California seller off guard. It’s the paperwork behind it. A document a seller has never seen…
Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) stacks four separate appeal levels on top of each other, and each one opens its own 30-day window that can slam shut just as fast as the last one. Missing the 30-day deadline to appeal a denied Michigan unemployment claim doesn’t close the door for good, but it shifts the…
A single Chicago tow starts at $150. That’s before you pay the parking ticket, boot fee, and daily storage. The tow is just the opening bill. These are the Chicago parking rules that cost Illinoisans more than a ticket. Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Chicago’s parking, towing, and permit rules are subject…
Oregon’s Bottle Bill pays out more than $200 million in refunds to shoppers every year, according to the cooperative that runs it. To someone else, a bin of empty containers can look like free money left at the curb. But reaching in for them isn’t always as simple as it looks. Here’s why dumpster diving…
Nearly 3.9 million Florida homes sit inside a homeowners association (HOA). Sooner or later, homes with an HOA get a notice with a dollar figure on it. An unpaid HOA fine in Florida almost never turns into a lien on your house. Not on its own. State law caps the fine at $100 per violation…
Close to a third of Virginia households rent instead of own. Most of them budgeted for the number on the listing. Fewer of them budgeted for what a landlord can legally collect before that number ever kicks in. These are the charges a Virginia landlord can add before a renter ever gets their keys. Note:…
Institute for Justice senior attorney Samuel Gedge has a blunt theory about who small Alabama towns pull over. Out-of-state plates rarely drive back to fight a ticket, so a traveler makes an easier target than a town’s own voters. That’s the business model, allegedly. These are the Alabama speed trap towns that catch out-of-state drivers…
Sumter County, home to much of The Villages, logged 85 golf cart crashes in the first six months it tracked the number, according to the sheriff’s office. A number of those carts were breaking a rule the driver never realized applied to them. These are the golf cart rules Floridians break without ever leaving their…
More than 650 South Carolina families holding upward of 40,000 acres have turned to one Charleston nonprofit just to untangle who legally owns their own land. It’s a more common scenario than you think. These are the ways South Carolinians lose land they inherited without a will. Note: This is general information, not legal advice….
