All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

Here is the situation. Back in April I saw a property on MLS that I had previously driven by and had mentally made a note, that if it ever becomes available I would be interested in purchasing it and rent it out. When it came up I called my buyer agent and asked her to get me some info and set up an appt to see. Well she called back in 2 hours and said it's already pending first day on market and they are not taking any backup offers either. OK fine.

I was just randomly browsing the properties in that area and noticed it is now not on the market but it's scheduled for an auction on Sep 18, 2013.

I don't want to try to get it via auction, as I am not familiar with that process and don't want to take all the risks associated with that. So my options are to either wait for it to become REO and available...or may be someone else will buy it at auction. However, is it possible at this point, to see if a deal can be worked out as a short sale to prevent the foreclosure? Or more then likely the bank was being unreasonable and that's why it's got to this point?

Who would I contact to inquire of this possibility? The owner? The original listing agent?

Joel you may be right I probably will not be able to recover anything except for the security deposit (1 month) I am holding.

I am still trying to get a hold of the tenant to see what happened. I don't have any idea if the phone or cable are still on or under his name. Electric, water and sewer are paid by HOA. I also don't know if I get any mail for him where it should be forwarded to, heck I can't even get into the mail box now until I have a locksmith come fix it.

The rent is not structured as a "monthly" rent. It was written as a lease for 12 month for an amount of $11,450. The payment of this $11450 is done by 12 installments of $950 each month. But that's not as important as getting a hold of him and finding out what happened.

Joe:

He signed the new lease in January 2013 and paid rent on time for eight months. I doubt he would be suddenly scared now...I am really perplexed.

I have several properties being rented and have been having pretty good luck...but last few months have been nothing but headaches.

Anyways this is a NEW case.

This condo I have a tenant, single guy. He was living there when I bought the property, I inherited the existing lease, and when the lease was up I presented a new, much tighter and professional lease. That lease runs till Jan 2014.

Tenant has been responsible, cordial, not trouble maker, I hardly ever hear from him except twice with plumbing issues and I sent a plumber to addressed them.

So imagine my surprise when the guy who I mail the HOA fee to every month, who is also a realtor, emailed me today saying he was sorry to see my tenant moving out, and would love to help me rent it...MOVED OUT? Five months left on the lease? No warning, no messages, no email, absolutely nothing.

I thought this must have been a mistake, may be he was moving some furniture in or out? I called - his number no longer in service. I emailed, no reply. I went to the property and sure enough, he's out, the property is vacant, except for some trash and a refrigerator with some left overs - thanks a lot!

I can't mail him as his address is the one that's been vacated.

He didn't leave his keys either. Sucks that the mail box key he had the only copy.

He signed the standard residential lease for apartment or unit in multi-family rental housing form by Florida Realtors...and yes he also signed an Early Termination Fee / Liquidated Damages Addendum where he agree to pay $1900 (2 months rent) as liquidated damages or an early termination fee if I elect to terminate the rental agreement and the landlord waives the right to seek additional rent beyond the month in which the landlord retake possession.

I am going to keep trying to locate/contact him.

Any advice as to what to do now? Do I clean out his trash and start prep on the place to rent or I wait a few days just in case?

Who moves out without a word?

Thanks.

The original lease says renewal requires a yearly lease. So I am OK there.

Of course I can void that with a MTM addendum if I so choose, but no there is no verbage in the original lease to allow a MTM renewal.

The biggest problem is communication, or lack there of.

I would not get a rent check and sometimes it takes a few calls to get a response with a "oh, you didn't get it? I mailed it a week ago..." and it happened a few times and me being the nice guy I let it go a few times if it's a day or 2 or 3...I know, shouldn't have done that.

Some items they broke I noticed and asked them to fix and they would say sure will do it first thing tomorrow or next week, and two months later not fixed. Had to get it fixed by my own repair guy and add on to the rent. I don't like to get lip service and nothing happens.

With this lease renewal same thing, sent email to him with a new lease 60 days prior, no response. Texted, called, got voice mail. Two weeks gone by and I emailed/texted again, replied and said computer broke and will look at lease the next day, as expected, nothing. Finally sent a noticed three days ago - letter, email, text saying yesterday was the last day to renew, after that I will retain someone to market the property for rent. Yesterday 11pm I got an email saying he's super busy on work and will call today to discuss.

Today he called and asked for month to month keeping the same rent.

The dragging feet approach and make me remind, remind, remind is really ticking me off and I am sick of it.

My 1 year lease is about to end, send renter a new 1 year lease with a 5% increase and renter wants to continue at original rent rate month to month.

I am inclined to decline and just part ways. He wasn't a model renter to begin with and had issues along the way.

Thoughts?

With so much junk in the way it's going to be impossible to put in a new water heater anyways. Best you can do is either (1) shut the cold water feed from the outside, to at least stop the feed to the leak, or (2) find a plumber who would at least go in to "short circuit" the leak, this means taking the connection from the cold water supply to the HWH, and the hot line coming out the HWH, and connecting the two. It will no longer have hot water, but you still have water in the unit. This is a simple process, cut or uncouple two points and connect them with a flex line, 20 minutes.

As far as the mold problem it's going to be tough. I would first do a mold test to see if those are black mold. Then proceed from there.

Thanks.

I am drawing up a new lease right now, and have a couple of additional questions.

When the tenant initially moved in, he paid 3 month's worth of rent - first month, last month and security.

Therefore if he does not renew, he does not need to pay last month's rent, and the security deposit is returned to him after I deduct damages.

If he does renew, and I wish to raise the rent say $100, how would I handle the originally held security deposit and last month rent? Should I charge an added $200 so that the deposit and last month rent are raised to the current rent amount, or leave them be? Doesn't matter to me either way but seems that raising to the current rate is a cleaner approach?

I need to add some verbage somewhere to say the deposit and last month rent are transferred to this new lease. Anyone has any standard verbage that I can use?

Now this one is a bit confusing. The tenant started the lease term on the 19th of the month, and when we signed the lease it was the 19th of each month the rent is due. This caused some problems. Sometimes we get late rent because the tenant forgot. I would like to move it to the 1st of the month, which means I somehow need to prorate an amount from the 19th to the end of the month which would be an odd amount. How should I write that into the lease? Or is it typical to just let it slide and not collect for those 10 days?

Seems like rent has risen significantly. Properties nearby that used to rent for $1800 a month are now asking $2400. One is asking $2750. I don't know if they are actually getting that but that's what they are asking.

My current tenant pays $1700. I am up for renewal in 75 days on this property.

Trying to decide how much to raise the renewal rent.

This tenant has been relative trouble free.

Advice?