All Forum Posts by: Jennifer A.

As a probate attorney, I throw all those mailers in the trash. I do not pass them along to any family as they are insensitive. While I have realtor buddies, most families have their own agents that they call about these things. 

If you think you are going to walk in my office and piss away my time, you'll learn the hard way that the only time you are eating is your own.   You aren't going to get past my receptionist. 

I have families that I work with that have received these letters and many find them insensitive and devastating. They view them as praying in them in their time of grief. 

Honestly, you probably are better off sending them to Executors directly although some will find them insensitive and in bad taste. 

I have never seen or heard of bankruptcy being filed for identity theft. Normally people file a police report and the file that report with each company claiming they are owed money with results in those charges being removed from their account. Although it doesn't guarantee removal of charges. 

The only reason I can imagine identity theft resulting in bankruptcy is if she gave some e permission to use their card and that person racked up huge bills that the person didn't expect or couldn't pay. In that case it wouldn't truly be identity theft.

One of my tenants constantly struggles to pay rent on time. They have always paid my late fee. There is ALWAYS a reason they are behind. One spouse just got laid off and received a large longevity payment as part of the lay off. When that happened, they paid me off for more than 6 months of late rent (i know I've been too lenient). I warned them that I would never again let them get behind and all rent must be paid on time. 

Well, it's the 4th and I have no rent for September. St one point they had said they were going to prepay rent through October so they didn't have to worry about rent while spouse is looking for employment. Of course, that didn't happen. 

I texted today saying that tomorrow would come their quit or pay notice. I get a snotty return text (at least that's how I read it as you can't really read a time in a text) essentially saying they hadn't received the unemployment check yet for the last two weeks of August and since I wouldn't let them make payments and wanted payment in full . . .  I guess the idea is they think their lateness is my fault for not letting them make payments. From what they told me previously there should have been $10,000 left after paying me. Wtf did they do with this that they can't make rent the first month after that large payment? 

Should I take payments or start eviction?  My only hesitation about starting eviction is making it harder for them to get another place to live. 

Okay, be hard in me. What would you do?

I think you already know that most of BP is probably going to say no. It's the quickest way to lose friends and money. I wouldn't take the risk. If they both have good jobs, why would she have had a car repossessed?  Something isn't right. 

I would say:

1. Minor repairs- a leaky faucet, a broken door knob, etc.

2.  The ONE tenant who pays late every month

Actually I do have a wealth of real estate knowledge and experience and I know this is definitely not best practice. It will definitely turn out well for us but it's a bit nerve wracking to think of losing the 10% we had to put down at the time of the auction.  I'm just so glad that it is going to work out even better than we'd hoped when we bid at the auction.  Hopefully I will never go through that lack of preparedness again when it comes to foreclosure bidding.  Just too good of a deal to let it pass us up.  We just need to make our decisions earlier.  My husband doesn't understand the complexities of real estate and foreclosure so he just assumes he can take as long as he likes to make a decision.  I should have been better prepared before I even went to him.  This is why he didn't find out about the last auction buy until AFTER I'd done it.

My husband and I bid on a foreclosure last month and it was confirmed with no problems today.  So, I have 10 days to make the payment and it is all ours!!  This is only the second foreclosure we've bought and it isn't any less scary the second time around.  This one though, we literally decided about 30 minutes before the auction that we were interested.  Fortunately we own 2 other properties on the street so I know the area well.  However, I did not research anything else and took a huge gamble.  I was fairly certain it was the first mortgage (although I wasn't 100% sure), knew the taxes were paid and that the owner hadn't been fighting the foreclosure.  But, I thought the owner was still occupying (she isn't) so I was thinking I would have to take on that fight.  I was also fairly confident there were no IRS issues either and there isn't.  Our intention is to keep it, fix it up and rent it out.  Buying at foreclosure auction seems to be the only way to get any kind of reasonable deal on real estate in our area right now that makes it cash flow to rent. 

I would take this risk.  I've had a couple tenants with short sales/foreclosures/bankruptcy.  I find that if everything else checks out, they are great tenants as you are one of a few that will give them a chance and they don't want to go through the process again.  I find that if they are upfront about everything rather than letting me discover it on my own, that is also a good sign.  There are a lot of very responsible people who will make great tenants who have foreclosures and such on their record due to an unexpected illness or injury.

I'm glad he paid you the $800. Lesson learned!

I always get an estoppel agreement during the buying process so that I have the consensus of both seller and tenant as to whether there is a written lease, what the rent amount is, whether there is a security deposit and whether the landlord or the tenant owns the appliances. 

When I've inherited tenants, immediately upon closing I provide them with a letter that gives them all my contact information.  It also alerts them as to whether I'm terminating their tenancy, keeping them and whether or not their rent increases and when.  By Wisconsin Law we have to give a certain amount of notice prior to increasing rents on a month to month tenant.  I've always given them double the time frame just so that they have some time to decide if they want to stay or go and can go prior to the rent increase.  This has worked out well for me so far.  I've given them all new lease contracts but have made them written month to month leases.