All Forum Posts by: Bob Ritner

The short answer that the architect must agree in writing to assigning a new architect or engineer of record and must agree to allow the new architect to take ownership of all work product and this is assuming that you can find a new architect that is willing to accept liability for plans that they did not fully prepare. You will also need to do this for any other engineering professionals that were part of the design team (structural engineer, civil engineer, geotech etc.) unless you can take over their contract from the old architect. This approach is the last resort.

Unless the property purchase agreement included an assignment of the architect's design contract that was signed by the architect, you have little leverage to compel them to perform other than throwing money at them to make it worth their while.

Option 1 (best option): I would highly recommend sitting down with them, getting a new contract in which they are contractually bound to you and throw enough additional money at them to get you to their front burner. This way you have leverage and if (when) there are issues during construction they are obligated to work towards a solution. This is the cleanest and likely the quickest solution.

Option 2: Hire a new designer, keep the original engineers (with a new contract) and have the new designer start over with enough design changes that the old architect does not sue you for copying their design. This will still be quicker than starting over, but you will still need to start from zero with architectural plans and plan check. 

Option 3: Start over with an entirely new design team (if engineers will not play ball).

Option 4: Have your broker contact the seller's broker and get the seller to push the architect since they advertised that the plans were almost ready. This may help wrap up plan check but you will still need the architect and engineers to perform certain services during construction so you will need a contract with them for this portion of the project.

Option 5 (worst option in my opinion): Change designers and get the old architect to release the plans as discussed in the first paragraph. This option is fraught with challenges and lets both the new and old architect off of the hook for design errors. There are other potential issues nuances with this solution that are beyond the scope of this short post.

This is a difficult and frustrating situation and I hope you can resolve it quickly!

Welcome to a fellow San Clemente resident! OC investing is definitely a long game but can be very rewarding. San Clemente is still probably the least expensive beach city in OC despite the significant appreciation the last several years and I believe the long term prospects are good because of this. Also, I like it better than most the other OC beach cities because its downtown is not split by PCH, giving it a much more cohesive feel and is a great walking/biking environment. Best of Luck!

I completed an ADU recently in Orange County CA. We did it by adding a second story to my duplex in San Clemente. After backing out the costs for rebuilding the garage and 1 bedroom unit below, which was necessary to support the second floor ADU we were at $250 per square foot for 1,000 new square feet, but i am an architect so i saved money on plans and managed the construction myself. I have talked to others that are around $300 for slab on grade single story so $150 psf sounds great in California, if you can do it!!!

Assuming that your lease prohibits guests staying mre than x number of days per year, I would issue them a 3 day notice to cure. APA and CAA have these legal forms available, though CAA requires a membership. This will let them know you are serious. If he does not move, then get an attorney and start the process to evict them both. I am a california landlord and in 20 years i have issued probably 5 or 6  3-day notices and only had one that did no comply. The one that did not comply moved out after she was served and knew I was serious. I have never had one go to court. Does not mean that you won't but the odds are in your favor.

I am a "lazy landlord" also (I enjoy travelling so am absent a lot), and know where you are coming from  but I take a different approach. Of my current tenants, the longest has been in 14 years and the shortest 5 years. I self manage so I like to keep the turnover low. There are four principals I follow to do this:

1. Provide a well maintained, clean place. I am responsive to issues. If the tenant sees that I care about their living environment, then they tend to care also.

2. Provide rent at about 10 to 15 percent below market. This means that the tenant has incentive to stay and to pay on time. They know it is difficult to get a better deal. I make a comfortable living from my rentals and do not need to squeeze every last dollar out. Since I self manage, I do not pay this 10 to 15 percent to a property manager and instead give this savings to the tenants.

3. I raise the rent every year to make sure I do not fall too far outside the 10 to 15 percent mentioned above.

4. I have a solid handyman with very reasonable pricing that will respond to issues if I am out of town traveling or to handle issues outside of my ability.

5. If I have a tenant that is really not a good fit, continually breaks the rules, or has payment issues I act quickly and replace them.

I am in Southern California and only have 7 units in B and C areas so this this approach works very well. If you have 30 units in might not work as well

 When it comes to multi- family properties there is a natural rebalancing between property value and rent, but with separately alienable properties such as single family or condos there is virtually no relationship. It sounds like the market did not accept the higher rent he originally asked. I would look at the after tax impact of the 2 property portfolio. The three things to look at are:

1. Total income

2. Total expenses including vacancy, maintenance and capex

3. Benefit of loan paydown and depreciation. People often overlook the benefit of depreciation but this only helps you if you are making a Lillington on the second property.

If the portfolio wide result is negative and you end up with a large tax loss carry forward that you cant use, then, as a retired person you should dump it and buy 3 to 5 year CDs yielding well north of 5 percent and lookfor a better opportunity..

I see a lot of people recommending Tecas but as a California resident myself, the double taxation kills you.  Alifornia has high income tax and low property tax. Texas has very high property tax but no income tax. So.....as a California investor in Texas you are paying both of those taxes where as someone that does not live in an income tax state only pays the property tax. The after tax numbers that you see will be a lot less than what a Texas investor sees.

I had a similar issue, but not in that jurisdiction. My duplex was built in 1952 and I was able to find a copy of the original permit in the city's permit records that showed it was originally permitted as a duplex. Regardless of the later single family zoning you would be a legal non-conforming use if you can locate the original permit in city records (if it was in city limits then) or at the county. Unfortunately, not all jurisdictions kept great records back then, but you would not need to re-zone if you can find this.

If your property is "separately alienable", such as a SFR or Condo and it is not owned by a corporation or certain other entity types AND you provided the tenant with proper notice that you are exempt from AB 1482 because of the above AND is not in Los Angeles and certain other municipalities in California with Rent Control, then you do not need to provide relocation assistance or comply with "just cause" when terminating a lease. If it is in Los Angeles and other areas with rent control, then anything but a single singe family residence on a single lot must comply with rent stabilization ordinance requiring just cause and relocation assistance. There are several publications both the the state and private entities that discuss this in detail.