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Many people are still under the impression that a real estate attorney practices their craft during real estate transactions, drafting real estate contracts and documents, and are usually found at closings. That is still true in many states in the country and up until a few years ago, was even a common practice in the State of Florida. Today, many of the processes involved in real estate transactions are performed by the real estate agents themselves and the support network of title companies, mortgage underwriters, and brokerage firms. There are still many commercial and business law attorneys practicing real estate law, but what is it they actually do, and at what stage of the real estate transactions are they needed? Since it is no longer necessary for them to be involved in the selling and closing portion of the proceedings, their role has been effectively limited to issues that arise after the ink is dry on the contracts.
At Heekin Law, P.A. we have a tremendous amount of experience in the practice of real estate law, before and after our roles were limited due to changes in the laws governing real estate transactions and closings. Issues that surface on the sale of a property between buyers and sellers are usually items that are negotiated during the actual real estate transaction. Sellers have a responsibility to disclose seen and unseen issues that are known and can arise that could alter the price of a property for sale or require additional maintenance or repairs. Certification entities such as a septic tank inspection certification service or a residential or commercial inspection service also have a responsibility to conduct a review of elements of a property that are requested.
So where are real estate attorneys needed? As always when something goes wrong in either the construction of, the specific performance of a quality issue or even the disclosure of a specific element of the transaction that was not disclosed but now causes the buyer additional costs. With the limited inventory of homes available today in the Jacksonville marketplace and the frenzy of buyers trying to acquire them, the conditions are ripe for real estate or construction law attorneys getting involved after the fact as certain elements come to light. If you have a real estate issue and are seeking the advice and counsel of a real estate law attorney in Jacksonville fl or any of the surrounding communities give Heekin Law, P.A. a call. We offer free, no-obligation consultations and would love to hear about your issues or complaints involving any commercial or residential real estate transaction. We handle all aspects of real estate law including landlord and tenant disputes, boundary disputes, easements, and eminent domain issues, issues involving construction law, homeowner associations (HOA), and condominium associations (COA) collections, enforcement, and disputes.
At Heekin Law, P.A. our attorneys will handle any real estate law matter and take whatever action is necessary to achieve your desired outcome. As skilled negotiators we believe that a mutually agreed-upon settlement is the best course of action, resolving disputes amicably but are prepared to go to trial if an agreement is unobtainable. Give us a call at 904-355-7000 to discuss the facts in your case. We have many different types of appointments available including in-person, internet, and appointment conducted by phone. With over 40 years of shared legal experience let us put our legal knowledge and expertise to work for you.
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to