About Real Estate: Renters right to vote a hot issue

The president of the controversial Tea Party Nation has created a tempest by apparently suggesting that people who don't own their homes should not be allowed to go to the ballot box.

Q. Has the leader of the tea party really suggested that renters should not be allowed to vote? If so, how do you feel about it?

A. The controversial political party hasn't formally proposed a measure to strip renters of their right to vote, but the president of Tea Party Nation ignited a firestorm of criticism when he appeared to suggest that it might be a good idea.

“The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote,” said Judson Phillips on Tea Party Nation Radio. “One of those was [that] you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner, you actually have a vested stake in the community.

“If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.”

It's extremely doubtful that tea party officials will seriously try to disenfranchise any of the people who live in the nation's 40 million rental units. And while I like where the party stands on many other issues — particularly the need to cut federal spending — I think that it's on the wrong side of this one.

Many renters are more involved in their communities than their neighboring homeowners. Like most homeowners, tenants also have jobs and families, and pay their taxes.

Let's also remember our Founding Fathers didn't let women and blacks vote, either. If tenants were stripped of the right to go to the polls, how soon might the ban be extended to females and minorities?

Q. My teenage daughter's laptop computer and some other personal possessions were stolen from her college dormitory. She filed a report with both the university's security force and the local police department, but the university says it is not responsible for a student's lost or stolen property. Could we file a claim for the loss under our own homeowner's insurance policy?

A. Yes. Most standard homeowner's insurance policies cover a dependent's personal possessions while living away in a college dormitory, provided the student is enrolled full time and is younger than 24.

If your daughter moves to an off-campus apartment, however, she'll probably need to purchase a renter's insurance policy of her own to remain protected in case her property is lost to fire or theft.

Q. Is it true the “Great Gatsby” estate is going to be torn down and turned into a suburban housing tract?

A. The 13-acre oceanside estate on New York's Long Island Sound is indeed slated to be razed, but it will be replaced with five custom homes rather than tract housing.

A party at the estate, which is actually called Land's End, is believed to have inspired the legendary F. Scott Fitzgerald to write “The Great Gatsby” in the 1920s. In its heyday, the 25-room, 20,000-square-foot Colonial Revival mansion was the site of soirees attended by guests ranging from Winston Churchill to the Marx Brothers.

The estate has since fallen into disrepair, and the owner has decided to knock it down and subdivide the property rather than continue to pay for its reported $5,000-per-day upkeep.

Q. A few months ago, you wrote that some guy bought a 453-square-mile ranch in New Mexico. Does this make him the largest landowner in America?

A. By sheer geographic size, cable TV and sports mogul John Malone's $83 million purchase of the Bell Ranch (www.thebellranch.com) in northeastern New Mexico was the largest purchase of privately owned land in nearly 100 years — but he's far from being the largest landowner in the nation. That honor goes to the federal government, which owns about 1.41 million square miles (730 million acres) from the mountains of Alaska to the Everglades in southern Florida.

Q. Do real estate investors need to have a license to buy a rental property?

A. Usually not, but there are a few exceptions.

Let's say that you want to purchase an apartment building and that you will own the entire property yourself. You would not need a license to buy it, maintain it, collect the monthly rent checks and eventually sell it.

Now let's assume you want to buy another building with a few other investors — even if they're friends or relatives — and the group chooses you to pick up the payments from the tenants each month and handle other matters. In most states, you would need to have either a real estate or attorney's license, because you would be acting on behalf of others.

Ÿ For the booklet “Straight Talk About Living Trusts,” send $4 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to David Myers/Trust, P.O. Box 2960, Culver City, CA 90231-2960.

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