All Forum Posts by: Stirling Gardner

No one has mentioned giving him a warning for having a pet in his unit when it says no pets on the lease?

Sometimes addressing something small and not illegal may serve you better. However, I don't know the law as far as security cameras go and if you have to let tenants know they are being watched on tape.

You need to make sure you have an individual lease agreement for each person living in your home.

There are a number of great resources for landlord forms online.

On the lease, make sure you put the address as "123 Main St., Room A (or however you want to distinguish the different rooms) and also be sure to spell out what other house privileges the tenants will have (sharing the kitchen, parking, etc.)

Just to add to this, yes, they are enforceable in EVERY state. It is a legal contract.

You need to fire your PM company. You should have been notified the first day after the grace period that their rent wasn't paid on time. They should have been served a Notice to Pay or Quit and evicted if they didn't pay.

You do have some options here. You still need to serve them the notice to Pay or Quit and continue with the eviction even if they move out.

You will be awarded a judgment at which time you may be able to collect all of the rent due through the duration of the lease.

Get yourself the proper paperwork and get a new PM immediately.

I manage a property in Los Angeles. Would love to know the follow up on this...

MikeOH is 100% right.

Although you are entitled to do whatever you want, legally you are responsible for the rent up until the day you are asked to leave (most likely by the bank through a sheriff). Although it doesn't seem fair or right, that is the way the laws are set up now. Their foreclosure has no bearing on your rent.

You would have a tough time suing them for anything and would waste a lot of time and energy going down that path.

Although the laws are constantly changing for people in circumstances like yours, it hasn't happened yet where you don't have to pay the rent. it is doubtful you are going to be able to take over the house payments from the bank, though anything is possible. You could also ask them if you could rent if from them, but unless it is a Fannie or Freddie lender, you probably won't have much luck.

Sorry, I know it stinks, but this is how things are set up now.

And if you don't pay your rent, you could be evicted and as Mike says, you DEFINITELY don't want that on your records... as renting would be nearly impossible afterward.

Unfortunately, you can't sue a guy for being a jerk. It will only cost you time and money. No one seems to be winning in this foreclosure game and as people have said, you are lucky the banks didn't kick you out earlier.

I have heard of it being possible to rent directly from the bank... more and more banks are setting up divisions to handle this. It might be worth looking into.

In my building (Los Angeles), we collect the amount a tenant owes the day they are scheduled to move out. Primarily to avoid this situation.

However, it sounds like you are on the right track and will be able to collect your money by having them served at work.

No attorney in his right mind is going to give you a list of his clients.

And the public record is not going to be in the name of the landlord.

You are going to have to search public records for the TENANTS that have evictions on their public records, then work backwards to see the address of the property and then who owns it.

It is a long way around, but the only one I know about.

There are a lot of resources available, but the best that I have found is www.hud.gov. This is the Housing Authority website for the U.S. You can search by state and it will list the exact procedure for that state.
As for the forms, in most cases, you will need to find those online yourself.
However, generally, a Notice to Pay or Quit is what it implies: non-payment of rent. Cure or Quit usually involves some sort of lease breech (be it: noise, rule breaking, not being clean, etc.) and the tenant is given a certain amount of time to do those things (varying by state) and the last one is basically saying, "GET OUT!" with no more opportunity to rectify the situation. hope this helps.