All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Fox

@Meredith Fox the house is in New York. Good to know about taking pics to court. Will def do that. We def have some bad pics. And funny you should mention reporting the suspected drug activity. I literally just mentioned that to my husband...that maybe we should consider reporting it to the police. That could be helpful if our suspicions are accurate. Great suggestion! Thanks! 

@Linda Weygant Thanks so much for you professional input. I really appreciate it. Great insight about the emotional aspect as well. We def want to continue forward with selling the home. Just break even and pay it off and move on. So our goal is to get these people out. Suck up our losses. Go in and repair the damages and get it cleaned up. Have our realtor drop the price and aggressively try to get it sold. I’ll let you know the verdict. 😕 Thanks for your help! 

@Dennis M. We definitely could have done a better screening process for sure. The husband worked for my husband’s company and my husband’s boss recommended him (without knowing anymore than we did) and 3 months later the boss fired him after realizing he’s not a good employee and we’re evicting him after realizing he’s not a good tenant. Hard lesson learned by all. 😕 Thanks! 

@Michael Noto thanks so much. Wise advice. We would be wise to follow at this point. Right now they are not answering the door so that the process server can serve their formal eviction notice. So we def are in for a battle ahead. But looks like we’re gonna have to bite the bullet and see it through. Thanks for the professional advice. Very helpful! 

Thanks so much everyone. All great advice. And you are all right. Valuable lesson learned. We were very naive. Never have been landlords and didn’t intend to be in this situation. So that’s our mistake and like many lessons in life, we are learning this one the hard way. Thanks for all the great advice. We will look into each recommended action suggested. And as Thomas said, unfortunately we have no choice but to continue forward with the necessary legal steps and be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. Thanks guys! 

We recently took a job in CA and had to list our 1905 Historcal home that we renovated for sale in a market that is not ideal for selling a home in rural Upstate New York. Knowing our options were limited we agreed to allow an interested buyer to rent the home while they worked through some credit repairs and could be approved by a lender. They told us a sob story, we bought it and what we have now learned the hard way is that they are total con artists. They owe us thousands of dollars in rent and security deposits. We have mailed and emailed the contract to them multiple times (since we are on the other side of the country) and they make up every excuse imaginable not to sign it and return it to us. They moved in an uncle who is an alcoholic and total bum without our permission. We have asked them multiple times not to smoke in the home (after becoming aware of the fact that they were when our daughter went to the home to pick up some personal items left behind) and they continue with utter disregard of the household rules. The home is still listed for sale. Our realtor called last week to schedule a showing. Which it is part of the contract that we can do. They threw an absolute fit about it. Which created suspicion for us and our realtor that perhaps the home is not in show worthy condition. So we scheduled a family member to do a home inspection and gave the tenants over 24 hours notice. And it is every bit as bad as we expected. Our home is trashed. There is trash everywhere. Wreaks of cigarette and marijuana smoke. Cigarette butts on the basement floors. Garage door broke. Bedroom doors broke. Holes in walls. Spray painted the glass of a bathroom door as well as a random wall in a bedroom. Carpets stained. Just an absolute mess. Probably a dozen large trash bags of empty beer cans. Kids running amuck. Funky lights in the basement that would indicate they are likely growing marijuana in the basement which they likely hid for the inspection although it could be smelled but not visible in plain view. We have started the eviction process. Had a process server serve them with a 3 day demand for payment or notice to quit. They are now telling us that if we contact them again they are charging us with harassment and threatening to sue us. We never intended to be “landlords.” Simply wanted to sell our home and move on with our lives. We are having eviction papers served this week. Any way to get them out sooner than 30 days? If they have done as much damage as they have in 3 months, we fear there will be nothing left but ruins in another 30 days if they don’t burn the place down before we’re done with this nightmare. Desperately open to advice. Thanks so much.