Eastern Shore Loses Another Fine Attorney

Over the past 15 years I have had the honor of knowing two very fine attorneys who have unfortunately passed away due to car accidents.

The most recent, (as many of you are aware) is Ed Hammond. I started dealing with Ed more than 15 years ago when I purchased my first condo in Ocean City. I've had the pleasure of working with Ed on several other property purchases over the years and it was always a pleasure working with him time and time again.

Nevertheless, I thought I'd share one of my dealings with Ed  on a property he enjoyed talking quite a lot about.

Several years ago I had heard about two properties that were going up for auction on Herring Creek. To make a long story sort, both properties were on the water and both had homes on them. The market had not yet started to boom in Ocean City and many were amazed that the first property had sold for $423,000.00. This scared off most of the people interested in the properties and quite frankly most of them had left, not willing to wait around for the second property set to be auctioned off an hour later.

I was actually dating Jennifer at the time. While we were waiting around I had the pleasure of meeting one of the people living in the home I was interested in. It turns out it was a brother and sister who had been caring for the couple that had passed away in the first home that had already been auctioned.

Now one would think that since the couple had passed away had no living relatives, perhaps the second home would be gifted to  the brother and sister. Somehow, that just wasn't the case. I was the winning bidder on this property and was honored to create a life estate so as this brother and sister could live in this property for the rest of their lives.

There were two reasons why Ed thought this purchase was something special. One was the life estate and the second was what he called the best real estate deal he had ever seen in Ocean City. You see, I bought a two story home, 2 acres on the water for $50,800.00, cash.

Now you might think the purchase price was the best deal, (as many do) but your sadly mistaken. The best deal to Jennifer and I was having the pleasure of meeting the brother and sister. While the brother and sister have quite a few years on Jennifer and myself, I hope they live to be 130 years old.

We don't bother them or make contact with them very often as we don't want them to feel, well, I'm sure you know where I'm going at this point. It's their home to enjoy and we were honored to work with Ed Hammond to make this deal complete.

Whenever we drive to Ocean City we like to stop by the property to see how things look. We're always amazed to see that they are able to keep it up nicer than our own property. Ed Hammond brought us all together and our world is that much better because of him.

To the Hammond Family, we're so very sorry for your loss. I'm sure my Mother was the first to greet Ed and thank him for a job well done.