Suggested Readings for new Milwaukee Landlord
Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2015 · 74 posts · 13 votes
Hey BP,
I will be a new landlord in Milwaukee, Wisconsin soon and I am wondering if there are any specific readings for the state I should look into.
I have already looked into "The Wisconsin Way" and Wisconsin statutes regarding landlords/tenants. Is there anything else Wisconsin specific I should read?
Thanks!
@Adam KozuchSomething WI specific I would recommend is Tristan Petit's blog, he is a Milwaukee landlord attorney. You will definitely find on his blog information on the changes to Wisconsin landlord tenant law which occurred in 2014.
I think this was promoted on one of the podcasts:
http://www.amazon.com/Care-Feeding-Tenants-Andy-Kane/dp/0873642406
@Mark Shaffar Thanks I will definitely check that out!
Also looking for anything specific to Wisconsin as I remember reading something about laws changing in early 2014.
@Adam KozuchSomething WI specific I would recommend is Tristan Petit's blog, he is a Milwaukee landlord attorney. You will definitely find on his blog information on the changes to Wisconsin landlord tenant law which occurred in 2014.
I agree with @Dan C., Tristan Petit's Landlord Tenant blog is a great resource.
@Dan C. Thanks that is exactly the type of stuff I am looking for! Already found some good reading.
@James R. Could I found more info about that on the city website?
You may also want to check out Tim Ballering's blog, Justalandlord.com. He is a long time Milwaukee landlord.
A lot of good tips here. Good luck @Adam Kozuch and welcome to BP.
I was going to mention the "Just a Landlord" blog, but I see it already was, so I'll second that recommendation. He can get a ways on the negative side at times, but I think that's just because it can be the truth at times, landlording in MKE (in the actual CITY of Milwaukee) can become tough at times, mainly by getting on the wrong side of the city. Now, for anyone who is a reasonable landlord and who follows the rules, shouldn't have too much to worry about, but as I've warned others before, I've seen first hand not just once, but several times, what happens when a larger scale landlord gets into hot water and then ends up in a downward spiral, which for one not close friend but someone I've been friendly with for nearly 20 years, meant him losing literally EVERYTHING, except for money in an IRA or other retirement account of some sort, that couldn't be touched. Now, please don't take that as ANY sort of "sky is falling" type talk, its just the extreme example of what has actually happened to more than a few who've had things go VERY bad, but the landlord I knew was also certainly at fault himself in many ways, but wiping someone out, which was actually done by his private sector creditors, yet only due to what the city got going, seemed extreme to me and had collateral damage for anyone he employed.
I would TOTALLY, 100%, ABSOLUTELY tell you to go to the Landlord Bootcamp and I mean the Atty Tristan Petit camp, it is chock full of the info we all NEED, not just what the city wants to tell us, based on what they want us to do, this is the Atty who two other area attorneys told me was their top choice for the BEST atty to call for a landlord who needs a good one for anything important. So, instead of getting a day of info that's true but filtered through the idea of what the city of MKE wants us to do, think, etc which is not necessarily always in our best interest, you get the BEST landlord attorney in the area, who has worked full time for decades here and knows every law inside and out, BUT here's the real value of Atty Petit-you can memorize every landlord/tenent law if you'd like to, but anyone attending the bootcamp will know far more than you, without knowing a single law!
Anyone who understands what really goes on with ANY biz gets this, rarely if ever will you find a law that is 100% black and white, so you can take 2 identical cases to 2 judges (no jury involved in this) and the 2 judges can come to very different conclusions, even totally opposite, all depending on mainly the personal politics of that judge, which no matter how impartial they claim to be, of course come into play every single time. So, Atty Petit would be constantly tossing in comments like "On this one, in Waukesha County (next cty to west, far more suburban and affluent generally) they'll 99% sure side with the landlord, but in MKE Cty, well who knows, all depends on who the judge is!" As you can probably guess, in general if you get judge who's personally more to the left politically, its probably great news for the tenants and bad for the landlord and vice versa with a right leaning judge. MKE Cty as anyone who lives here knows, has a judiciary biased far to the left, Waukesha Cty is far to the right in general, so I guess that says to me that you better follow the laws to the letter and expect little to no sympathy from judges and Petit had more than a few "horror stories" that day of some of them who despite the fairly significant changes from 2011, (which fixed a bunch of small, but still important issues, I think ALL to the landlord's side as well as a victory for common sense, loss for the small % of tenants who hurt all, sleazy scheming tenants who screw landlords badly) will bend over backwards to find any reason to screw the landlord by siding with the tenants who have already been screwing the landlord for months, thus the court case! It was funny how you'd hear a large room full of moans and groans every time that happened!
Now, I'd also recommend to take the city's bootcamp, which I did years back, even though I found it kind of useless, or just all info you could find on the net in seconds, BUT the value there is that it shows the city that you're far less likely to be a slumlord simply by going .
Also, as mentioned Atty Petit has his blog and that's packed with EXCELLENT info, the guy is literally doing landlord law every day courts are open here so he knows it darn well, but main thing by far is that he's on our side or as is case with anything from the city govt, I'm not saying they're against us, but not too landlord friendly overall AND as I kind of said before, all of what they tell us in already filtered through lens of what city wants us to do, which is NOT necessarily what's best for us every time, its what THEY want or need from us! Its not all slanted hard, but sometimes biased to their wants, not our needs!
I think EVERY contact we have with anyone from the city has to be given some thought beforehand and not saying to lie to them at all or do some phony sales job on them, say if you have a plumbing inspector there for something, but just keep in mind always that he/she goes back DNS office and you DO NOT IN ANY WAY want them leaving and thinking, hmm this guy looks like bad news for the block!
I've also said to several "out of towners" looking to buy here that being 100% "up to code" on exterior here is basically a brand new or 100% perfect shape home, so nearly EVERY house is NOT totally up to code, but of course they couldn't enforce that if they wanted to. Yet, take notice of how they handled the 2000 or so bank owned REOs about 3 or 4 years ago, when city was fed up with the banks now owning all of these vacant homes and of course whenever anything pops up in a higher $$ area, someone snaps it up, higher the $$ area, the faster its gone, but these thousands of them in low $$ areas are NOT going anywhere literally 98% of the time it makes ZERO sense money wise to do anything other than to bulldoze them, yet the city started telling banks to bring them up to code, or they start daily fines! Suddenly, I knew a bunch of guys, the craigslist contractor type, or the ones on the marginal end of things, getting hired by asset mgrs like one in Dallas and one in Twin Cities and they'd be sticking usually 10 grand minimum and often 15 or 20 grand, but ONLY EXTERIOR work, insides still trashed and stripped of most or all metals, etc so there was no way in hell 98% of them was going anywhere, they'll still get bulldozed someday, since not many "investors" look to stick total of $100k into house on block where the best home will NEVER go for over $50k or $60k!
If the banks didn't comply though, city said they'd begin to fine em ASAP and I forget what it is, but even at $20/day per violation (might be $100, $200 not sure!) its easy to rack up thirty of them on some beat down old home, well that's $600 PER DAY AND THEY CAN GET A CIVIL JUDGEMENT ASAP on that if you say screw payin them! That's exact same hammer to use to CRUSH in short order several big landlords incl the one I knew, who'd literally made millions in maybe 15 years, ALL GONE!!
Well, I've succeeded in writing another mini-book but mainly I'd say just always keep in mind there's politics invovled here, BUT its not tough at all to keep the city perfectly happy simply by being a decent owner/landlord, which also includes getting the best possible tenants, but that's something I think we hear a LOT, screening and selecting tenants to get the right ones, is HUGE! If you piss them off though, they can easily make it very painful for you! Lastly, the Petit bootcamp is also put on by the AASEW, which I'd highly recommend taking a good look at, you get some decent bennies like 20% all HD paint, which is HUGE for me as I love Behr paint, that alone pays the $99/yr for membership 10 or 20x over for me!
@Robert Taylor a long read but I will definitely take your advice to heart. I was planning on signing up for the city course first and supplementing with the other landlord course. Great advice all around in this thread!
I also attended the Landlord Bootcamp and liked it.
I attended the city of Milwaukee free Landlord training too.
I sure hope you can find the 5 to 10 minutes at most it ought to take what may look long there, before you follow through on your current plans, since my experience and nearly everyone elses review of the city course was basically "Good thing I got my little gold sticker someplace in MKE city gov, since the rest of the info of any value at all in that city thing fits easily into a 2 page brochure if not 1 piece of paper!" Every single one says same thing as I thought, interesting but what a waste of my time.
The Petit course was so full of info you CAN NOT find anywhere else, other than from best landlord atty in the area, who defends landlords daily in court here! I had a true major issue pop out of nowhere that day (a sat) and me staying the whole 8+ hours was simply impossible to do, so I felt horrible abt missing so much more info, but had no choice. It was only getting to meet BP celebrity Dawn Anastasi that kept me sane, that and the MASSIVE binder chock full of priceless info!
I'm not going to rewrite my mini book, but if you have time, go to both but if you prefer city's propaganda and basic common sense (thus avail anywhere) info dumbed down 100x over that you'll nearly fall fast asleep, city course all the way but its the inside courtroom info, well read OP of mine if you want.
in 2014 there were law changes regarding abandoned property. You need to have language in the lease and renewals so that you can dispose of it however you wish as it is considered abandoned instead of having to store it, with some exclusions on motor vehicles and medical items. Another change was the language necessary for all leases regarding domestic abuse protections. I believe there was something else as well, maybe the lease holdover provision in that if a tenant stays in the property after the expiration of the lease or agreed upon move out date, the landlord can charge double the daily apportioned rental amount if greater losses have not been incurred.
Actually, I left out the #1 detail that I and the other landlords (all far bigger into rentals then me, who's been doing rehabs but still has a few units now, two of the others into the hundreds of units who of course ONLY went to city course for political brownie points!)
That #1 detail IS-It ought to be quickly and painfully obvious to any attendee that its only there to attempt to scare away new slumlords, especially those willing or gladly willing to turn a total blind eye to what is obviously a drug dealing related rental, which can take various forms. If you're sure that you aren't the new slumlord in town, then only other reason to go is for the brownie points, I suppose, since if you found BP, you can find any info you'll learn there on here in less time.
The reason why I think Petit's class is of immeasurable value is that anyone who's been in any field of biz should know that EVERY law has "wiggle room" and a judge, who can bend the laws in a major way, which was major focus of his bootcamp, such as in the post above where Kyle mentions the part about charging up to double rent for tenant past move out date, thus YOU are being royally screwed by tenant since the new one you spent all that time finding screening, etc is long gone since sleazy current one says "screw you I aint movin yet, don't call me, I'll let you know when I feel like it"
Well, up in Outagamie Cty where he is, Brown, Winnebago cty's you can likely get scheming tenant out ASAP in court, same for Waukesha Cty here. So, same here in MKE Cty then since we're all in WI, new STATEWIDE law passed, etc RIGHT??? NOPE! According to #1 landlord lawyer here and #2, 3, 4 . . . if you think so just because they changed STATE LAW, well then you need to learn more about our courts, as well as read my OP here, or just look at Petit's blog and then go to his boot camp, as I'm all done here!