All Forum Posts by: Doris Jin Huang

Originally posted by @Natalie Kolodij:

You only need to track your time if you're trying to qualify as real estate professional for IRS status- and if you work a full time time you won't qualify. 

If you're asking about qualifying for a business to qualify for the section 199a deduction the answer is your rental likely does. 

The internal revenue code sections that determine passive/active income and define a business are different sections. So rentals can be both passive income, and a business. 

There's a blog on it on my BP profile. 

Thank you Natalie. Yes I'm trying to figure out whether we qualify for things like the pass-through income deduction, start-up expense deduction, the cost of some personal properties etc., and that we are not subject to the net investment income tax.

Love the chart in your blog - very helpful. Curious when you prepare tax for landlords, how do you tell whether they participate regularly in their rentals?

2019 is the first year we start to receive rental income. We have 2 rental units located in different parts of new york city. My husband and I both work full-time W-2 jobs. We manage the units ourselves and one of them is quite time-consuming (plenty of repairs, and with eviction involved..). 

1. Are our rentals a business or investment for tax purpose?

2. Curious if everyone actually keeps track of the time spent on landlord tasks?

@Jaysen Medhurst They want the locks changed and want us to pay for it. Hard to reason with them, therefore wanted to show them by law they are responsible for the cost...

Our tenant lost a set of the keys but asked us to pay to change all locks. They argued it's landlord's responsibility to keep them safe, although it's their fault to lose the keys in the first place. The property is located in Bronx, NY. It's obvious to us that tenant should be responsible for the cost of new locks in this case, but wanted to know if there's any laws supporting this?

Thanks very much. 

Thanks a lot Michael. Safari didn't work but Firefox did! Thanks for your help. Best, Doris

Originally posted by @Michael S.:

Originally posted by @Doris Jin Huang:

Originally posted by @Michael S.:

Originally posted by @Brian Holt:

Hello, I also purchased the Book On Rental Property Investing book on Audible.  Would you please send me the proper link to get the charts and other information? @Michael Sato ? Thank you for your time.

Brian Holt

 Hi Brian,

You can get the bonuses here like the charts https://www.biggerpockets.com/LandlordBookBonus

I purchased a hardcopy book from Amazon. But when I followed the link provided inside the book and entered my email address, it says "... the page doesn't actually exist". Could you please help me access the forms?

Thank you
Doris

 Hi Doris,

Please access the bonus here https://www.biggerpockets.com/LandlordBookBonus

Make sure there is no space after typing your email address. Try other browsers like Chrome, Safari or Firefox if the above link is not working

Originally posted by @Michael S.:

Originally posted by @Brian Holt:

Hello, I also purchased the Book On Rental Property Investing book on Audible.  Would you please send me the proper link to get the charts and other information? @Michael Sato ? Thank you for your time.

Brian Holt

 Hi Brian,

You can get the bonuses here like the charts https://www.biggerpockets.com/LandlordBookBonus

I purchased a hardcopy book from Amazon. But when I followed the link provided inside the book and entered my email address, it says "... the page doesn't actually exist". Could you please help me access the forms? Thank you Doris

I purchased a hardcopy book from Amazon. But when I followed the link provided inside the book and entered my email address, it says "... the page doesn't actually exist". Could you please help me access the forms? Thank you Doris

Originally posted by @Thomas S.:

What he is doing is using your project to keep his surplus employees working. This is a common practice when a GC has skimmed off as much money as possible from a client. Unfortunately the time to terminate him was when he delegated your project to the back shelf. When he reduced his staff on the job to part time this was th esignal that he had moved on to his next cash cow client..

Thanks Thomas. Good to know. For the future, is there any way to prevent this from happening?

Practically how can we terminate a GC when he just starts to reduce staff? Even if he moves us to the back shelf there don't seem to be an obvious breach of contract from his end?

Originally posted by @Matt K.:

for the future... come up w/ better draw system. Make sure you have enough money left on the table that they'll finish the project....  

Our agreement was 35% down payment, 35% when 40% of work completed, 20% when 80% of work completed, 10% after entire project done. What payment arrangement you normally go with?

Originally posted by @Bryan Devitt:

Contact the licensing board in NY. As long as you have a contract they will threaten to pull his license which might be enough to get him to do the work. However, you already gave him money that he spent and does not have to pay for the materials on your job. If he is an LLC or Corp he will probably just declare bankruptcy, start a new company and do this to more people. It is unfortunately very common with scammers

Good point Bryan - will explore if licensing board will help. The GC was working at a okay speed up to about 50% job done. Afterwards he only sent 1-2 people to work 2-3 days a week. It is a pretty big project (gut renovation of 3 floors with utility separation) but he refused to put more people on it despite of our constant requests. 

A few weeks ago he filed for inspection while there was still a lot of cosmetic work to be done. The inspector came and said we couldn't have a shower in the basement. After that he's been sending 1 person on and off to remove the basement shower, and refusing to do any other work before the next inspection. He told us because the previous inspector took photos of the house so he needs to stop working and keep things the same before the next inspection, which we find hard to believe. Is this a valid concern at all?

He's dragging the project big time but still seem to work towards passing the inspection. But even if the inspection is done there is still a ton of work he needs to finish before we pay him the remaining amount. Do you know what game is he playing here?