All Forum Posts by: Johann Jells

Sadly, the best attorneys (and contractors) are the ones that return your calls.  That said, try Sandra Rizzo or Scanlon & Scanlon for closing. L-T is harder, they tend to be bottom feeders, it's not a lucrative practice. Try Roberta Tarkan or Sheldon Margolis, I've heard decent things about them both.  But the 2 times I've gone to Hudson eviction court I've done it myself and had good outcomes.  "Do you have the money here now? No?, then you'll have to vacate the apartment".

Good luck, I hope you have a strong stomach for what you're taking on!

Yet I just read about a dude in Texas who got 16 years for stealing a calculator from Walmart. No one seemed to do cost/benefit there!

 I'm well versed in the NJ Anti-eviction statute. leases must be renewed  or go MtoM if the tenant wishes, and rent increases cannot be "unconscionable",the interpretation of that up to the individual judge hearing the case. http://www.state.nj.us/dca/divisions/codes/publications/pdf_lti/t_i_r.pdf

Can anyone elaborate on how him being on the lease improves my situation over him potentially being a squatter after the lease has been terminated by the leaseholders?

 Unfortunately in NJ tenants are forever, you are required to renew leases. Are you advocating putting them all on the lease too?

Is that really worse than him staying with leaseholder rights? It doesn't seem to give me any more rights or "control". My understanding of the law is in that case he would be a squatter that I could immediately move to evict. Inquired some of these same questions last year when a longtime tenant wanted to leave her apartment to her loser son. I was told he had no rights.

Got a trio of educated young people (25-30) applying for a large $1750 2 bedroom in a gentrifying area, just the kind of tenants I want to push the neighborhood, rather than the typical working class family of 6 that used to rent these places.  Problem is one of them has a 3 year old eviction and several debt gone to collections in his report.  The other 2 are a couple, he's making $63-93k (depending on bonus) and she's a full time student at a good college working part time making perhaps $10k. He's paying $1k/m in student loans with a 750 fico.  They alone work out using 40x monthly or 3x yearly formulas, not counting his loans. 

It's a bad season to rent and this is top dollar, responses to a beautiful recently renovated place were slow.  My inclination is to put just the couple on the lease and make the deadbeat roommate their problem, and I won't be left with him alone if they leave. Thoughts?

 My last experience trying to refi was that they started with the number they thought it should be and fudged the data to arrive at it. When I pointed out to bank that the gross footage was 20% low, I was told tough crap. I held the tape for the guy, It's a rowhouse with a ground extension, 2 boxes. He needed 4 numbers to get the gross footage.  And all 3 methods came out to within 3% of each other, how likely is that? It was fraud pure and simple, some experienced appraisers confirmed it when they looked at it.

OP, take it and run!

Plain Quicken works too, a lot cheaper and easier to learn than Quickbooks. Just use keywords or categories to sort the projects.

DO NOT go to Buildings before you talk to a zoning bar lawyer! Or at least a local architect. Odd are there's a good reason it's not permitted. Likely density code, but it does need 2nd egress, windows and be 50% above ground to be legal around here. There's a lot of this in my city: "bonus apartments".  There's rules to teh cat and mouse game like pulling out the range if there's an inspection, so it's not "officially" a kitchen. As long as it's safe and up to code the biggest drawback is you can't claim the income when getting a loan. 

Where has this been my whole life!! They keep an online record of all your purchases and email you receipts with your job number on it.  No more wondering where are all those receipts if you get audited. The data can be exported to a spreadsheet. You can use any card or cards, doesn't have to be their credit. Amazing.