Cosmopolitan

You spent months finding the perfect little home, you have just moved from Los Angeles and the moving company recently finished delivering your worldly possessions and youre finally starting to settle in. Then a chainsaw hacking carving through a tree shreds your peaceful bliss. Oh, didnt you know? You made the mistake of moving next to the neighbors from hell. These folks are awful. They let their lawn fester with junk, play obnoxiously loud music at random times in the night, never close their blinds while walking around nude, rake leaves into your once-pristine yard and give you a death glare if you mention these problems. But, dont fear. Selling your new home and removing isnt necessary, just follow these tips on how to deal with these hellish people who dare call themselves your neighbors.

Dont Get Angry

If you feel like ferociously taking out your lack of sleep on the neighbor because they were blaring K-Pop all night through an open window, here is a tip: dont. Reacting hastily to any situation, especially tension filled ones, can simply make the problem worse. Do your best to approach your neighbor in a friendly manner. Maybe bring over a case of beer or bottle of wine to break the ice. Let them know in a non-confrontational manner that these issues are bothering you, and give them ideas on how to fix the issue. The second thing is to mention how their behavior negatively affects you, instead of attacking them for sloppy behavior.

If theyre not willing to talk with you, then try to find a neutral mediator to oversee the discussion.

Help Them

Maybe your neighbor isnt a bad person, but theyre super swamped with a hectic life>

Document Everything

If the neighbor simply refuses to stop the de>
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Wheres the worst place in Canada to be a home alarm salesperson? Perhaps surprisingly, if you said Toronto, youd be right. Statistics Canada reports that break-ins in Toronto dropped by 20 per cent in 2013 compared to the year before, to a rate of 227 per 100,000 population. Thats the best rate in the country and well below the national average of 445 per 100,000 population. Barrie, Ont. tied with Toronto for the best rate.

Vancouver has the worst break-in rate, at 689. However, the city improved by three per cent compared to a year ago.

There were about 156,000 break-ins recorded by police in Canada in 2013, which was about 20,000 fewer than 2012. During the past decade, Statistics Canada says the breaking and entering rate has decreased by 51 per cent.

After Toronto and Barrie, the cities with the lowest break-in rates were Ottawa, Guelph, Ont. and Saint John, N.B. The city with the biggest decrease was Moncton, N.B., which saw its rate go down by 29 per cent.

Like Vancouver, even the cities with the worst break-in numbers had some reason for optimism as their rates declined. Regina had the second-worst break-in rate but it was six per cent better than the year before. Kelowna, B.C. was third-worst but improved by 12 per cent. The worst Ontario city, Brantford, saw an 18-per-cent improvement.

The only city in the country where the break-in rate went up was Sherbrooke, Que., which saw a five-per-cent increase.

The big drop in break-ins across the country helped bring down Canadas overall crime rate, reports Statistics Canada. Its Crime Severity Index CSI measures the volume and severity of crime. Each offence is assigned a weight based on the average sentence handed down by criminal courts for the offence. Data comes from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, as reported by the police across the country. The survey does not include crimes that are not reported to police.

In 2013, the CSI declined by nine per cent compared to 2012. The index has gone down every year for the last decade. In 2013 it was 36 per cent lower than 2003.

"The decline in the CSI was specifically attributable to declines in breaking and entering and robbery," says the Statistics Canada report. "Decreases in some of the less serious but very frequent offences, such as theft of 5,000 or under and mischief, also contributed to the drop in the CSI."

However, police reported that there were more crimes of extortion, child pornography, aggravated sexual assault level 3, sexual violations against children and identity fraud than in 2012.

Canadas traditional crime rate, which is simply a total of all crimes committed regardless of severity, dropped to its lowest level since 1969. It fell by eight per cent compared to the year before.

When all crimes are taken into consideration, Toronto is still near the top of the list of safest cities. Guelph and Barrie take top spot, followed by Quebec and then Toronto.

The highest CSI rate is in Regina, followed by Saskatoon, Kelowna and Vancouver.

"For the first time since 1998, the first year for which the CSA was calculated, none of Canadas census metropolitan areas recorded an increase," says Statistics Canada. It says the CSI was unchanged in Edmonton, while it declined in all other cities. The largest decrease compared to 2012 was Victoria, which was down 17 per cent.

Canada had 505 homicides in 2013, down 38 from 2012. The homicide rate of 1.44 victims per 100,000 population was the lowest since 1966. There were also 642 attempted murders in 2013, down 23 from 2012.

Violent incidents dropped by 10 per cent in 2013.

Four out of five crimes reported in Canada are non-violent. Of the 1.4 million non-violent crimes reported, 1.1 million were property crimes, including breaking and entering, possessing stolen property, theft of a motor vehicle, theft over 5,000, fraud, identity theft, mischief and arson. The non-violent CSI decreased by eight per cent.

Theres also a Youth CSI, which measures the volume and severity of crimes where the accused is 12- to 17-years-old. This index fell by 16 per cent in 2013 -- the fourth year in a row that it has declined. The decline was mostly because fewer youths were charged with robbery, breaking and entering or theft of 5,000 or under.

Both the law and good risk management practices require that real estate brokerages maintain records of contracts, documents, inspections, reports, requests, demands, etc. that are generated during the course of a real estate transaction. While there may be a core list of items that just about every company requires, organizations will differ with respect to various particulars.

Not long ago the California Bureau of Real Estate introduced a generally unwelcome concept into the mix. As we have noted before Record Keeping In The Digital Age Is Not Just A Technological Issue, the Bureau put forward an interpretation that the law Business and Professions Code 10148 which requires retention of all documents obtained by an agent "in connection with" a real estate transaction includes all electronic documents. Not just emails; but texts, tweets, and probably even posts.

This interpretation did not sit well with members of the California Association of REALTORSCAR. If implemented, it would have required a good deal more time and effort to compile a compliant file. Hence, the CAR Board of Directors authorized a motion that CAR "sponsor legislation to prohibit short-lived communication like tweets or text messages from being considered transactional documents that must be retained in a brokers file."

That legislative effort has been successful. Assembly Bill 2136 Daly passed both houses and was signed into law by the Governor on July 9, 2014. AB 2136 amends both Business and Professions Code 10148 and also Civil Code 1624 Statute of Frauds, which controls which contracts must be in writing. It adds to 10148 that "this subdivision shall not be construed to require a licensed real estate broker to retain electronic messages of an ephemeral nature"as described in 1624.

This piece of legislation had no registered opposition. It sailed through both houses without a single no vote in either committee or on the floor. Tellingly, the authors of the legislative bill analyses found it necessary to explain that ephemeral means "short-lived", and/or they put the word in scare quotes throughout their analyses. One just has to wonder how many legislators who voted for this bill know what "ephemeral" means. But I digress.

The legislation unfortunately focuses on the form of a communication rather than its content. Moreover, the legislations sponsors, as did the analysts, seem to take for granted that text messages are unlikely ever to be the vehicles of serious conversations about serious topics.

Yes, it is unreasonable to say that all text messages should be retained. But, it is equally unreasonable to suggest that none of them should be.

For many years it has been and still is considered a good risk management practice to keep logs of telephone conversations. Nowadays, for a sizeable portion of the population, text messages have replaced phone conversations. Thus the advice of a CAR legal department recently up-dated Qamp;A is apt.

Q 4. Are there reasons a licensee might want to maintain "ephemeral" text or instant messages?

A. Yes. While not mandatory, a broker could decide that maintaining such communications could be useful to the transaction record. Similar to keeping a phone log of communications with a client, a broker may wish to keep a log of all texts to show the client was regularly communicated with regarding the transaction and to keep a record generally of the agents communications with other agents and third parties.

Be that as it may, it is nonetheless good news that there is not a requirement to keep all electronic communications. Moreover, it was a thoughtful gesture of the Real Estate Commissioner, Wayne Bell, to let it be known that, even though the law is not effective until January 1, 2015, as of now,the Bureau will not be requiring the retention of the ephemeral records referred to in the bill.

Bob Hunt is a director of the California Association of Realtors. He is the author of Real Estate the Ethical Way.