All Forum Posts by: Levi T.

@Patti Robertson It's not emotion, it's seeking innovation to a stale industry that continues to run on how it has been for the last 50 years. It's why our company is growing at a 12 million dollar clip per year. It's why for every unit we rent, we gain an additional $52.38 per month on top of rent, compared to our competitors who get nothing, or subtracting from their rent in transaction cost. That's $628,560 more per year going right to the bottom line for every 1,000 units we own and operate.

I'm not a landlord, I just own companies that own assets, one of my companies rent them out, and others process debt collection, etc....We have taken things a step further and redefined operating models, work hard to redefine the industry as we see it, yes within the laws. I ask my team daily how can we innovate ahead of the curve. This is just one of those. There are no bad ideas, only ideas that work, and those that don't.

Best,

@Matthew Olszak I'm sure your 100% right. My goal is not so much to tow the car, but to give greater incentive to late tenants to pay their rent, I don't want to work my agents any harder than we are.. we are big believers in streamlining things and following the company process. 

Having one's vehicle(s) towed is a direct punch to the gut, it hurts no matter who you are in life. 

If we compile it into our pay or quit notice, which under Virginia it's 5 days before we can file a UD summons, we stay within our company process.

Our pay or quit notice is like the all-in-one notice. We not only tell tenants they have 5 days to pay rent or get evicted, we also give notice that in the event of abandonment or eviction, we will trash out their unit within 24hrs at the tenants expense. By doing that, we don't have to send another notice and wait or put their stuff in storage for 30 days, as they already got their 30 day notice time they show up in court. 

If we can tack on a notice that any vehicles in unpaid parking spots will be towed within 5 days.. We stay in our process, and we can just issue a notice to the towing company while we are filing the UD summons. 

They can always go park somewhere else, like guest or public parking, bud if they are ignoring their account balances, I doubt they will pay much attention till they get towed.

Thinking about this thread while ripping some hills on my mountain bike gave me some time to think about it more in depth. I think it splits into two groups:

Group 1) SFH, any property with a private driveway, that can not be convert to assigned space type of parking, thuy these properties can not do this.

We can not tow based on late rent per say, that can not be the reason to "hold a car hostage". Impounding someones car sitting in a public parking space would likely get a hard scolding from a judge somewhere, so even if it worked a time or two, overtime it would be outlawed IMO. So it has to git inside of current laws and services. This is where group 2 comes into play.

Group 2) Any properties such as MFU, or Townhouses. Both these property types have parking spaces that are not a private driveway. Generally speaking, they are not part of the rental unit, unless it was included. This is the group you want to be in, because you can separate the parking space as an additional service that is not part of the rent.

By doing this, then applying some payments terms to insure the tenant has to pay his other account balances first before the parking space, you can then tow any vehicles parked in the space that is not in good standing with the parking space rental agreement.

This means if your rent is $1,000. You can add onto it by charging, lets say. $20 for two parking spaces, or you can reduce the rents by $20, and charge it. This separates the parking space from the property and rents. 

It's plenty simple to say any payments made first go to any outstanding balances, then rents, then parking spaces. When they don't pay rent, you can give a 5 day notice and let the towing company do their thing.

I think that fairly solid ground, we only operate in the MFU and TH space, so I'm going to roll that up to our legal team and let them draft an parking amendment.

Best

With a contract the police officer can not act as a judge and arrest you, no matter what state you live in. He would defer it to civil court by telling the tenants/plaintiff to file a civil suit. If the tenant did that, then a judge would decide the outcome, which would not include include criminal charges due to existence of a contract dispute... if they won, the landlord would owe them for damages, being the cost to recover the vehicle, legal fees, and maybe lost wages.

Okay, clearly you can't see the legal contradiction in your own post, if you think it's OK to tow a car for a flat tire, but not ok if they failed to pay for their monthly parking fee.

I'll wait for a more legal opinion.

@Account Closed lol -  we already tow vehicles that have missing plates, flat tires, expired tags, etc. Our lease gives us the right and the tenants know it. No one is going to jail. 

The judge will most likely ask if it's in the lease, if it is, and it's correctly done, they will let it fly.

There is nothing shady about it, it's leverage. When your running a multi million dollar rental portfolio, you want to create all the tools you can to give you leverage. This is already being done where they rent parking spaces in the city, so it's just a matter how to construct the lease terms IMO.

If you think that shady, I hope your not charging your tenants late fees or evicting them for non-payment.

From time to time you have tenants that don't care about late fees, no matter how steep they are, but if they know their car could get impounded... that's a lot of incentive.

Just because a lease gives you a right, it does not mean you have to inforce it, just wave it around so everyone knows.

I had this idea I've been malling for about 5 years now, it's related to car title loans with process collections, it's always been complicated so I never got past the legal phase... but then the other evening it hit me, we could just impound vehicles when rent is late, with correct contract wording as always... lol

With some of our MFUs or THs, we have assigned parking to vehicles, or assigned parking to the property. Even the HOA's for example will tow vehicles on any properties that are not in good standing with them... so with a contract, I don't see why we can't do the same.

I know the Landlord Tenant Act in Virginia does not cover this, but it made me think, what if we gave them a 5 day notice to pay rent, plus with that, a notice that their vehicles would be towed after the 5 days if not paid, that is of course assuming our leases have an addendum or wording to give us the right to do that.

Has anyone done this, or ran into any issues?

Setup an LLC, and she is a LP or partner, your the GP, a commercial bank gives you the loan and off you go.

Other option is the bank is in 1st position, and she is in 2nd.

Beyound defrauding someone, which I hope that's not your plan, The above are just about your only legal options. 

Your treading on SEC territory; old people, money, partners or borrowing it... a great way to get cought up in security laws and spend time in the clinker.

You made a verbal offer, your agent called the other agent and presented it, verbally, she was informed there was higher offers, so she told you there are higher offers, and you think it's unethical, event with a price tag attached?! 😂

You should buy her a coffee, and say thank you for saving your time and money vs trying to find something to fault her on.

Yup, that was my first thought as well. File complaints constantly with the code department, and HOA, file lawsuits for anything and everything. Make it a living hell for him. Eat up his time and money, he will fold.