All Forum Posts by: James DeRoest

Flordia is very landlord friendly, but it depends on the county judge.

I believe the rule for partial payment changed in the last year, and you can now accept but it gets paid into court.

Not sure, needs to be checked up.

If it's in the apartment, it's looking for food. If it's returning, it found food.

Landlord needs to find the holes, fill the, up and put bait down. Or the friend can just nip tomwalmart and buy the bait and boxes for $20 and do it themselves. Holes will be in the kitchen behind the dishwasher or under kitchen sink. Sometimes it'll be a gap under an external door, washer dryer hookups, etc.

 Charge her for the carpets and your time for laying the new floor. Show the depreciation for carpets in your calculation, if they cost $1500 and have a lifetime of 7 years, the tenant wrecked them in 2 years, then claim for the 5/7th of the $1500. If you are showing yourself as honest and proper whats a judge likely to do?

To determine your time value, easiest thing to do is get a couple of quotes from a carpet shop for laying x'000 square feet of carpet and go from there. Carpets don't lay themselves.

Even better if you have the original receipt - which you should have for the IRS anyway.

And if the judge doesn't want to reimburse your time in a judgement, he'll just cross it off the list. He isn't going to toss the entire claim because of one bad item that you are claiming for, he'll merely say that you can't claim that because of xyz. But make sure the items your claiming are listed separately.

As for going to court - heck - enjoy it! It's always fun to go to court. Win or lose, whatever, make your case. Personally and business wise, I've been sued 3-4 times and I've never lost. Always a laugh. It's not like you're going to jail!

You are playing Russian roullete if you don't screen properly. 

I can pretty much match you line for line. 

Bad debt - pretty much nothing.

Late tenants - none apart from one we're supporting. We do have a Section 8 tenant who never pays their portion, but we're good with that as I don't need that apartment to rehab anytime soon. When I'm ready for the apartment, then she'll be moved on.

As for not running credit checks - that's just asking for trouble. You will learn, and it will be expensive.

 No, it's not! The landlords risk is that they are banned from the program.

Why are you giving advice to people, a Canadian investor and landlord, on a US program that you know nothing about?

 And if our housing authority discovers you doing that, you get on their banned landlord list. And the tenant also gets banned as well.

Pitbull - depends on the owner.

If the owner has tats on his face, probably best to move on.

If the owner is normal, dog will be fine.

I'm with Sue here, your lawyer is an idiot. And some of the advice given by others is just appalling. 

Whether you like it or not, the guy is a tenant. Doesn't matter if it's written or not, it'll be implied by state law, assuming your state is like most others, so he has rights, as do you. Changing door locks? Who the heck is giving such advice? You can't change door locks on a property that obviously has people living in it regardless of whether they are a low life.

Work through the state laws to start an eviction. Pay rent, or we evict.

Whatever deal anyone had with the previous landlord is dead and buried.

As for the windows - show me the receipt. 

You're right, it doesn't require a master plumber, and it's doubtful whether a master plumber would even lift a finger. But the apprentice is working for a master plumber, under his license, under his insurance, driving his vehicle, and so forth. You will still be charged master plumber rates.

If I call my plumber, do you think he does anything? Heck no. Some guy getting $10ph digs the hole, gets under the house, gets dirty. If my plumber needs to see a connection under the house he throws his phone at the poor sod under the house, who takes a photo and rows the phone back out.

Would he charge $200 for a toilet to be reseated. You betcha. He has vehicles, licenses, premises, insurance, workers, and everything else a company needs to pay for. He ain't doing that job for $30.

But here's the thing, if you're new to this you must find yourself a good handyman, and frankly, give him a few odd up jobs at your house to do even if you could do this yourself. Get yourself established with him.

Because the day you really do have an emergency and need someone at the property 10 minutes ago, these are the people you rely on and it what differentiates yourself from a slumlord to a real landlord who actually gives a crap.