All Forum Posts by: Alexander Hish

I used craigslist and marketed directly to business professionals with month to month furnished offerings. With facebook marketplace becoming larger I would also use that platform as well. I also contacted some local businesses that hire summer interns and let them know I had short term accommodations for business professionals. 

I moved and needed temporary housing so I was looking at rentals as none of my properties were vacant. I looked at an occupied property. They both told me ahead of time I have 10 minutes in the home and said bring a mask and gloves. They also had gloves and a mask when I showed up. They mentioned the home was occupied and to please not touch anything and followed me around to ensure I did just that. They were very courteous and apologized about following me but they said it was to protect their tenants. I thought that worked perfectly and gave me a good impression on the landlords. They essentially did a bunch of showings back to back for an hour to minimize impacts to the tenants.

If your tenants give you a lot of push back it might be difficult depending on the verbiage in your lease. I can at anytime provide 48hr notice to show the home the last 30 days of their tenancy. 

Why do you say that? 

Thank you all for the replies. The tenant ended up saying she was going to report me to housing for making her pay for repairs. Long story short she turned the AC off accidentally and I called a contractor to repair it. They called me and said it was fine but charged me for a service call. I told the tenant they would be paying for that and that's what started all this. I received a call from housing and they backed me up on everything. The tenant promptly said they would pay for the service call and sewage bill.

Have a great day,

Alex

I have a tenant that is on a month to month lease. They are refusing to pay their sewage bill. These tenants owe about $900 for running into the garage door, among other smaller damages, which is more than the deposit. I am confident they will probably not be paying for the garage door in full so I want an eviction on their record to get them kicked out of the sect 8 program. Would I proceed with eviction and also specify non renewal of the lease due to unpaid utility bills or should I totally leave out the non-renewal? My lease states tenants must promptly pay utility bills so I can certainly evict based on that alone. However with covid and the tenant being low income and a single mother of two it might get dragged out. With non renewal however I obviously don't have to provide any reason. 

I'm assuming it wont come to this and the tenant is likely probing to see how much a pushover I will be about the bill. They will likely pay after I politely remind them they are in violation of their lease.

Make sure to inspect the septic and well systems. these can be very costly to fix. Also you have to be diligent if the septic is meant for 3 people and you moving in a family of 6. You might want to put in the lease that the family is responsible for pumping the system. 

Thanks for the replies. This sale went through Jan 22nd. I have in a text message from the owner stating that the original inspection (section 8) and lease signing was done with the landlords appliances but the tenant brought their own during move in, in 2015. So I have confirmation from both the tenant and previous owner that the appliances are owned by the tenant. My realtor is currently reaching out to legal on what should be done.

The previous owner owns many properties and was offloading all of them for retirement. I am leaning towards this just being something they missed as it was a one-off as they didn't have an issue on the phone telling me they might be the tenants and later confirmed their records stated as such. Regardless I am looking for compensation as a pair off appliances can push $2000.

I purchased two SFH that both had tenants. Both listings stated they came with the fridge and stove and the leases also contained a clause saying the landlord provided the appliances. When signing the new lease the tenant said they provided their own and this was later confirmed by the original owner. I just wanted to confirm my options which I believe would be 1) Asking the original seller for a credit first outside of court and 2) if they wont work with me take them to small claims court?

If the rental was not marked as your primary residence I believe you can deduce 100% of the cost of repairs but that't a bit of a gray area. If at the time of repairs it was your primary residence, I don't believe you can unless its a multi-unit. In case of multi unit you can deduce a percentage. Meaning if you own a 4-plex and made repairs to one unit while living there you can deduce 75% as that's the amount of the property that is considered a "rental"

I did something similar while I rented my basement. It was about 40% of the sq/ft of the home and I wrote off 40% of the cost of all my snow removal, grass cutting, landscaping, and some of the other updates to the home.

Also you posted in the Networking section of the forum so you might want to post in the general rental sections.

If you provide any information at all, you must have factual information to back it up. Example the tenant didn't pay on time, they cause damages ect. You can't legally say anything about your opinion of them or recommending for or against them. 

I have a contact who owned a section 8 rental where the tenants caused over 10,000 in damages. Section 8 refused to do anything to the tenant and they stayed in the voucher program. Shortly after this same tenant applied for another home. My contact said a landlord reached out to them and asked for a reference where they then factually disclosed the damages done by the tenant.

The new landlord refused the tenant based on this information. My contact ended up getting a call from section 8 stating if they say anything bad about this tenant again the federal government will pursue them legally and also kick them out of section 8.

Have you ever heard of anything like this? The law states you can provide any factual information on a previous tenant and that NOT disclosing information can make you liable. I know of no other laws that apply specifically to section 8 references. This sounds like bullying to me. My contact is seeking legal council but I wanted to hear if anyone has a similar story.