All Forum Posts by: Jeff Willis

@Adriana Arnold

I feel for you, but you need to determine what you want to do.  Look at it as a business decision, do a cost basis analysis of everything. Take emotion out of it, it is a business. The tenants want your house because they can live for free. Your job is to get them out, even if they have to live on the street or in a park. That is not your worry. If that concerns you, then just stop now and let them have the place. Keep in mind, you will spend far more than 10K in attorney fees. 

There are people that will buy your house with problematic and non-paying tenants in possession. These folks live in the wholesale market and will pay 30-60 cents on the dollar of its current value, which is lower if the house is trashed. If you have a mortgage and the LTV is above that, then this probably won't work.

There are many ways to handle this, but is the dollars required to do it, worth it?  If it was me, I would be getting a bit creative.

I have been there and done that. I had a similar situation at an SFR I owned in Redding, CA. There are a few things that you need to assume to be fact: (FYI My wife is a bankruptcy attorney and also deals in real estate)

• It will take a year to get them out;
  
• They are not paying for the attorney. There are groups of attorneys that provide free services to tenants. They are radical and will do everything to cost you money in attorney fees in hopes of settling and paying their fees;
  
• When they leave, your house will be destroyed entirely and unlivable;
  
• You will never collect a penny from them for back rent or damages, so offering to forgive rent is meaningless. Once out, they will file bankruptcy, and your claim goes away. You can never collect anything;
  
• Landlords have no rights in California;
  
• Expect to spend a substantial amount to get them out finally;
  
• Your attorney is limited in what they can do, but they do have good advice on what you can do

What to do? Cash talks, rent forgiveness, does not because they will never pay the back rent, so basically, you forgive nothing. I had an attorney, and they agreed to my actions but had no knowledge of it (plausible deniability). The attorney can't do it because if the tenant is represented, they must go through their attorney. Those rules do not bind me; I can contact the tenant directly.

What I did, I got $10,000 in $100 bills. I met with the tenant, showed them the pile of money, and said, "this is yours if you move in 10 days and sign these forms. The forms were a 1542 waiver and dismissal of their countersuit, substitution of attorney (substituting their attorney for Pro-Per). I told them that once they are out, I will hand them the cash. I mentioned that if their attorney gets involved, the deal is off. It worked. Cash talks, and cash is king. In your case, it may be more than 10K that is required. I filed the dismissal and substitution with the court. Their attorney was pissed and threatened me, but nothing he could do; he no longer represented them. I even offered to provide U-HAUL trucks and drivers.

What they didn't know is that I transferred all utilities into my name. As the property owner, I can do that. I did have to pay their delinquent accounts, but now I have control of the utilities.

I spent about 20K total in getting them out. Make your sure liability and fire insurance is current.

@Sam C.  The link you provided applies to the CDC eviction moratorium only and is not applicable in this case. California has their own eviction moratorium which is killing landlords and which this news article is about. 

When Newsom signed SB 91, he said "Once again, California is leading the way by enacting the strongest eviction protections in the nation." California and Newsom have again shown they are 100% anti-business and anti-landlord.

What is sad about the new California law (SB 91) is it pure anti-landlord. One section says..."Tenants are still responsible for paying unpaid amounts to property owners, but those unpaid amounts cannot be the basis for an eviction, even after the moratorium ends." Basically, even if they owe you all the back rent and refuse to pay, you can not evict them on that basis and good luck collecting anything. 

Landlords will never be able to collect even a fraction of the back rent, even if they go to court. A judgment is useless unless they have assets that can be levied, which most tenants do not have. If and when the California eviction moratorium is lifted, the tenants are liable for all back rent, which they will not be able to pay, so they file bankruptcy and the landlord is out of luck; their claim is discharged.

Here is the information of the law https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/01...

Had the same issue. Fence about 9 inches onto neighbors property. Been that way forever. The new owners had a survey and told me to move the fence. I verified the survey and I advised them that under California adverse possession law it is remaining, so they went to an attorney who sent a 'bluff letter' to which i responded, sorry, not moving the fence, sue me if you want. BUT in compromise, I will give your client $1000 for an easement. The attorney knew he had a losing case and they took the $1000, I got an easement and recorded it. 

The moral of the story, verify the survey and if it is as claimed, offer them $500 for an easement. It will cost them, more to hire an attorney.

It depends on if it is symmetrical or asymmetrical. Most fiber is symmetrical. Most people think only about download speeds and pay no attention to upload speeds.

• Symmetrical is the same speed up and down.
  Asymmetrical is different speeds up and down.

Most home internet connections are asymmetrical, meaning the providers advertise high download speeds and very rarely tell you the upload speeds, which are usually 5%-10% of download speeds. 500Mbps download is great for streaming, and it is most likely asymmetrical, meaning, don't try to backup up your computer to the cloud or, if you work from home and have to send large files to clients or to your office, it can take a long time, often hours, to send the files. Your bandwidth is also shared with your neighbors. During busy hours or with all the 'zooming,' your 50 Mbps will become 200 Mbps, and your upload will drop to 2-3 Mbps. A friend is a photographer and works from home. He has cable with 500 Mbps download but his upload speed is maxed out at 20 Mbps. He is unable to send large (100-500 GB high-resolution image files) to his clients. It takes over 20+ hours. He has to go to a friend's office to upload the files. They have 500/500 symmetrical fiber.

So to answer your question, if you have 1 Gbps symmetrical fiber and advertise it as such, it will be a big selling point to anyone that wants to work from home or just backup their computer.

This is a great article. There has been lots of discussion in this forum on this issue and this is just an update. Emergency eviction moratoriums were some of the first policies enacted to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. They could end up outlasting it. Many will last well into late 2021. These moratoriums are nothing more than  a means for the government to provide free housing at landlords' expense. This pot property owners in the position of having to keep nonpaying tenants while turning away prospective renters who would pay their bills. There are even considerations to force landlords to waive all back rent.

Eviction Moratoriums Are Transforming From Emergency Stopgaps to Permanent Programs – Reason.com

First, read this: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is rolling out a new plan that would potentially allow the city government to seize buildings of landlords who force tenants out.
De Blasio pitches plan to seize private property of problem landlords, opponents cry ‘communism’ | Fox News

This is happening everywhere, and CA even has its own rules. It is utterly ridiculous. I still have mortgage payments, utilities, insurance, taxes, etc. The Government does not give a damn about you or other small businesses. I have tenants that have not paid rent in 10+ months, and I can not evict them. I have collected ZERO rents from any of the sixteen tenants. All they have to do is claim that COVID impacts them. The new CA law says I can sue them in Small Claims court for all back rent (they waive the limit) when this is all over. Well, that will not work. Even if I get a judgment, I will not be able to collect. They will trash the place and wait for eviction, which is another six months after I serve the papers.

Boils down to I am one vote the residents of the apartment are more than that. I am considering just walking away.

Well, yes, they are technically tenants. You are taking money (rent) from them for occupancy. Even if they are not on the formal agreement, you have created an agreement by your actions and performance. Since they are MTM, they have the same rights and any MTM tenant as to notice, etc. The best thing you can do is approach them with a MTM agreement and have them sign it. If they refuse, then you can take appropriate action.

No. It is asking for a law suit. Someone will feel discriminated against because of the criteria you post and once posted, it will be used as evidence against you. I accept all applications and evaluate based on my criteria.

This is a good article  What is Rental Housing Discrimination? 

I agree with @Russell Brazil. If I provide the appliances, I repair them except for obvious abuse. If the tenant has to pay, they will not bother to report them to be fixed.