All Forum Posts by: Julie Hartman

If it rented within 2 weeks then it was worth the cost. Sometimes people have a difficult time picturing if their furniture will fit in a particular room if a property is vacant. Vacant spaces don't always seem larger if people can't figure out if their queen size bed or dining table will fit or not. 

I would send to a collection agency. The one we use takes a 40% cut but they do all the work so it's worth it for us. We have had success with this method. We have tried the "soft" approach and it never works; tenants know you aren't serious and won't pay. 

It's lucky they are month to month because in CO, the lease supersedes a sale. It would be better to have them out and then sell after it's cleaned up and in showing condition. 

One other thought for you, in addition to excessive power, grow operations need adequate ventilation. This could be an open window, which would cause a spike in heating bills during the winter. The other is an extra ventilation system which you can't hide. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for the power spike that is outside the realm of a grow operation and I hope that is the case.  With that said,  I would definitely pay a visit to the property (or have someone go on your behalf) to do a walk around of the exterior while they are are checking out the interior. 

I would definitely suspect grow lights but I manage in Colorado so we are always suspicious of that type of activity. We do quarterly furnace filter changes which gives us an excuse to enter the home (we can't search every room in this case) but we can peek at things and smell the air as we walk through. As an owner, you have every right to do an inspection of the house, you just need to follow the lease for notification to the tenants. If they are growing in there, you should be able to smell it. I would also keep an eye on the water bill because that will increase drastically if they are growing too. You could also ask your electric utility provider to do an energy audit for you. They should be able to tell you where the excess usage stems from.  

This is very strange and could be an issue with moisture coming up from the ground into the house; "rising damp".  I would contact a professional to do an inspection on the house asap. In the meantime, I would get some dehumidifiers and place them in the house to grab some of the moisture. Unfortunately, it's the wrong time of year to run the a/c which would help dry it out. 

I am not a lawyer but am a PM and I am sorry you are going through this. I would think you would have a case to circumvent the PM since it sounds like they are in breach of contract though I would not do it without the advice of an attorney. The tenant may not want to leap-frog the PM anyway since they have a lease agreement with them and it would violate the lease terms. Hiring an attorney seems like the best course of action in this situation though because who knows how long this will go on. I am sure there are landlord friendly attorneys in that area that would work on an hourly basis instead of taking a retainer. I know we have them in our metro area and our market is smaller than Ft. Worth. If you know anyone in the area, I would have them drive to the actual PM office to verify they exist. I wish you much luck!

You can write anything you like into a lease and may even get someone to sign it, but it may be voidable if issues are brought in front of a judge. I am not an attorney but some of the things you mention, you simply cannot do. It would be worth the cost for you to either hire a property manager to handle this for you or pay an attorney to draft a future lease agreement that adheres to the laws of your state. 

I know many of our property owners would be in trouble if the tenant was habitually late with rent since many of them have mortgage obligations. There was also a time during this past year where we could not charge late fees due to CDC orders for COVID. We would simply not renew that tenant even after 7 years. A good tenant is someone who pays and on time. :)

 Sorry, I am new to BP and should submit a better profile. Yes, I am a PM in the Denver area. We don't pay contractors in cash because we may need to 1099 them and we need a proper paper trail for accounting purposes. :)