All Forum Posts by: Kay March

Eviction is expensive, and if she's doing a bad job with the paint, maybe her security deposit will cover most of the cost of repainting the house if you let her complete the lease? As for keeping the year's rent, that's unlikely. You would probably be obligated to mitigate your damages after evicting her, which would mean finding a replacement tenant, giving the evicted tenant grounds to demand a refund of her prepaid rent.

I'm selling a rental house as a FSBO. An agent brought me a buyer. The buyer's agent says that in order for the transaction to proceed, he will transition from being a buyer's agent to being the transaction agent with a 4% commission. I'm assuming that this means the buyer will no longer owe him a commission and I will owe him a 4% seller's commission. Am I correct about that? I've sold as FSBO before, but I always paid 3% while the buyer also paid 3%. I haven't done it the way this agent is proposing to do it, so I'm wondering what others might think about it.

I'm a small landlord -- four houses, nice neighborhood, nice tenants. All my houses are set up so that when the tenant leaves the house he can only lock it from the outside with a key (reduces lock-out calls). When they move out I tell them to leave certain keys and other items on the counter and to take one key with them so that they can lock the house from the outside. At midnight on their last day there I change the locks and re-program the garage door remotes. I do not do a walk-through before they leave, since there's a lot of damage that only becomes apparent later.

My two sisters and I have to sell our interest in three apartments in another country. We and eight other relatives have inherited the apartments, and we three sisters together have a 1/4 ownership interest. There is an attorney who has been hired to liquidate and distribute the part of the estate that does not include real property, and the eight other heirs have also hired that attorney to sell their 3/4 interest in the apartments at any price of the attorney's choosing. My sisters and I, however, have declined to hire the attorney to sell our , preferring instead to make our own decision about an appropriate selling price for the apartments. The decision to sell must be unanimous, so even though we hold only a 1/4 interest, we have veto power over a sale, and we want it this way because we think that the attorney will be too willing to sell the apartments cheap, particularly if the attorney has "friends" who want to buy it. Does anyone see any pitfalls in our making this decision? If so, please let me know!

Barbara, thank you for your questions. The other eight heirs have signed a power of attorney giving the lawyer the responsibility of negotiating the sale on their behalf. The lawyer has full power to accept or reject any offer. The other eight heirs are motivated to sell, and if someone brings the lawyer an offer that is acceptable to the lawyer, the lawyer will have to present the offer to all eleven heirs, it would seem, since the decision to accept an offer has to be unanimous. My sisters and I would then have the final say on whether the price is acceptable, since -- unlike the other eight heirs -- we have not signed a power of attorney giving the lawyer the right to accept or reject an offer on our behalf. The situation looks good to my sisters and me, but we're wondering whether someone else can spot any pitfalls that we haven't thought of. We're talking strictly about legal and practical issues, by the way, not sentimental issues. We hardly know the relatives. And we're pretty sure we know how to determine a good price for the apartments.

My two sisters and I have to sell our interest in three apartments in another country. We and eight other relatives have inherited the apartments, and we three sisters together have a 1/4 ownership interest. There is an attorney who has been hired to liquidate and distribute the part of the estate that does not include real property, and the eight other heirs have also hired that attorney to sell their 3/4 interest in the apartments at any price of the attorney's choosing. My sisters and I, however, have declined to hire the attorney to sell our interest in the apartments, preferring instead to make our own decision about an appropriate selling price. The decision to sell must be unanimous, so even though we hold only a 1/4 interest, we have veto power over a sale, and we want it this way because we think that the attorney will be too willing to sell the apartments cheap, particularly if the attorney has "friends" who want to buy it. Does anyone see any pitfalls in our making this decision? If so, please let me know!

Thanks Bill and Allison. Well, the asking price is only $32,000, and that's from Wells Fargo, whose listing prices are usually high. Just kidding! I've heard enough and won't go near it!

Thank you, Scott. The word "DIOXIN" is clearly visible when you "walk" to the left, as you suggest. Official findings about dioxin dust levels in the area appear to be controversial.

Thank you! Your suggestion that XIN is part of "TOXIN" really helps. It turns out the house is pretty close to dead center in an area known as the Koppers Superfund Site, an area of serious soil contamination. Here's the link to the Google map of that area:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?oe=UTF8&ie=UTF8&msa=0&mid=zmQOMxq1oc50.kTT4_5wpF8Io

A house at 514 NW 31st Lane in Gainesville Florida is for sale. If I go to Google Maps and look at the street view, I see a handwritten sign on the house in large red letters that appears to be some kind of warning. It seems to say something like "WARNING. XIN LEVEL 1.150 INSIDE HOUSE." Does anyone know what that's about? The house appears to be occupied, judging by the clutter in the garage.