All Forum Posts by: Jerel Ehlert

 Be INCREDIBLY careful about security cams.  Tenants have a right to privacy, including their back yard.  Besides, it smacks of sleaziness. 

As it relates to the Tenant, you are the landlord and not a visitor of the co-tenant.  

This is all going to come down to what the lease says. Tenants have a right to quiet enjoyment, but you can document extended stays and other evidence of lease violations without entering the property.  

If you do document evidence of lease violations, send notice and opportunity to cure per lease and statute.  If the violation persists, give notice of the breach and termination per lease and statute.

This really isn't that hard.

You can hire a public adjuster to fight the denial.  Probably a bit cheaper than a lawyer at this point.  Documentation is key.

https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/p...

OK.  Most LL's don't work under that statute if they can help it.  92.055 requires notice sent to the local health authority and T, but can only take possession if there's a provision in the lease that allows.  Overall, not a well crafted section of the code.  Mostly only comes into play when there's significant damage and T won't let LL in to make repairs.  Local health authority can shut the unit down and force the T out.

lol. No legs.  

This is more about health and safety, in which both state and federal governments have broad authority supported by Supreme Court precedent. 

I've drafted for syndicators and reviewed others' for passive investors.  Let me know how I can help.

@Katerina Villamil not familiar with the section of code you are talking about.  If you can, please cite the statute.

I'm reading lots of bad and a little good info here, so here's my take: Inform the adjuster that T may or may not sue and if so, you will be making a claim.  Hopefully the carrier will pick up the defense bill.

Smoke/fire damage can take longer to fix because you have to do more to cure, so terminating the lease is probably the safe route, even without danger of suit.  Bricking over the fireplace is, quite frankly, stupid.  Lots of carriers will cover it in Texas.  If you have a fireplace, just have it cleaned/inspected once a year.  Try to use it 1x/yr just to keep it in good order.

I started out as an investor before law school.  I moved to Georgetown from Houston about 3 years ago and still have a large part of my practice comes from there.  Getting names and referrals now is good, but we don't become useful until there's a transaction or litigation in play, or by paying for a consult to discuss before it starts.  

A half-hour profilactic before the party gets going can save you hours of hangover.

You can't claim "loss of rent" on insurance AND charge tenant full rent.  That's insurance fraud.  Assume someone will blab to the tenant or the carrier.

You already have a claim on insurance, figure out what insurance will pay out for lost rent and give that as credit to the tenants.  In this case it LITERALLY costs you nothing to not be a dick.

@Tom Dittrich - not really.  Just pointing out some aspects that might not be apparent.  Most new brokerages are "trained up" in other firms and know to expect the regulatory compliance.  They eat fiduciary duty for breakfast and their bm's are all about disclosures (to clean up a phrase).  

People coming from an REI background are mentally very far away from that.