His weekly column helped readers navigate condo disputes and the arcana of property law.
By Harrison Smith Harrison Smith Obituary writer Email Bio Follow April 2 at 6:36 PM Benny L. Kass, a D.C. lawyer whose syndicated Washington Post real estate column helped readers navigate the legal intricacies of foreclosures, timeshares, reverse mortgages and the “problem Ps” of condo living — parking, pianos, pets and prostitutes — died March 30 at a hospital in Washington. He was 82.
“Readers should understand that buying a house is, for most consumers, the largest investment they will ever make,” he wrote in 2013. “When we buy a car, we at least kick the tires; when you buy a house, you have to do a lot more research.” Mr. Kass wrote handbooks and checklists for home buyers and condo owners, and he held monthly seminars teaching people how to sell without a broker, offering tips that ranged from advice on arcane contracts and mortgages to the use of flowers as a way to brighten up the home.
In his writing and in news interviews, he was pragmatic and sometimes blunt, professing to have little patience for deadbeat or delinquent neighbors. “I tell every condo board of directors that you have to be a bastard about it,” he once said. “If they can’t pay when they’re one month behind, how will they pay when they’re three months behind?”
He received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1957 and, after graduating from law school at the University of Michigan in 1960, he moved to Washington, where he worked for Rep. John E. Moss while the California Democrat spearheaded the passage of the Freedom of Information Act.
The duo worked together for nearly three decades. Mr. Kass was still practicing shortly before his death, as a senior partner at Kass Legal Group in Washington. With his wife, the former Salme Lundstrom, he often struck out for the Chesapeake Bay, where he sailed a boat named Excalibur that he described as his “battery charger.” Following the Arthurian theme, he also named one of his cars Guinevere.
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