All Forum Posts by: Nancy P.

I don't know that you need something in writing,  but it can't hurt.  Ask housing authority,  perhaps?   I'm with Amy,  I'd start the 5 day notice.  Do you really need an attorney?  Only eviction I ever did,  I did by Googling the process.  But I'm in Illinois.  At least do the 5 day notice on your own.  Given the **** she's pulled so far,  I just wouldn't trust her.  I'd even explain that to her.  "You haven't held up your end so far,  I'm not willing to wait for the rent.".  She REALLY doesn't want an eviction,  she'll find the money.  And verify the utilities are paid up.  My Section 8 tenant moved in a boyfriend,  pretended he wasn't living there,  I said "move by the end of the month or Housing Authority  hears about him".  She'd been a good tenant for 4 years at that point.  It was a shame.  What I DID do,  and you might consider doing,  is give her the entire deposit back within a very few days.  The carpet was destroyed by her dog,  but it was cheap and 4 years old so we just ate the loss.  People on assistance like this...they need that security deposit for the next place,  they rarely have extra funds.  My tenant left on a Sunday,  on Monday I verified the utilities were paid (the one I was responsible for if she didn't pay it per our town's laws),  and brought her a cashier's check.  (These people often don't have banks either.)  I did require her to sign something saying she got her deposit back in full EVEN though there was $1000 in ruined carpet.  Just as a safeguard.  I will say I like Section 8 with careful screening.  Where we are they pay market rate.  Tenants really don't want to lose that voucher and they WILL lose it for any misbehavior.   The reason we aren't doing it at the moment is Illinois is in such financial trouble,  we don't trust that we will get paid.  (And we did have occasional issues during the 4 years,  payments got missed about once a year and I had to follow up.)  The Section 8 lease literally says "You can't evict the tenant if the county doesn't pay."  Which makes sense,  as the tenant doesn't control the county,  but way too huge a risk.  Good luck.

Ditto Ray Harrell.   Section 8 is tough...always a long waiting list.  They'll be happy to boot her if she has a disallowed roommate/allowing criminal activity (roommate was high)/not paying rent/not following the lease.  If she has an IQ higher than a turnip she won't want to lose her housing voucher.  Call the Housing Authority that provides her voucher.  P.S.  LA is lease agreement.

Well done.   I checked out the actual listing,  fantastic beautiful lot.  You got a great house and did a wonderful reno.   Good that you are so handy when all the contractors are booked solid.  On to the next one!

Welcome. Currently living in Germany on a 3 year job assignment for my husband but we just bought our 9th property...this one in Lisle,  the rest in Naperville.

Well,  the month-to-month lease I'd still do the walk through.  The main difference is you can get rid of them with 30 days notice,  and they can leave with 30 days notice.  I can believe if a tenant got nowhere with an old landlord they'd ask the new one.  I would!  Whether or not they are reasonable requests is another matter.  As to getting rid of bad tenants....years before we began this my husband was reading books about it.  (took him a long time to get me on board)  The books suggesting giving bad tenants money to go away.  Now,  this REALLY made me nuts,  it felt morally wrong.  We ended up evicting our VERY FIRST tenant.  He tried to slow down the eviction by claiming we were "racy"  (by which he  meant racist).  The judge didn't buy it for one second,  but my blood pressure went up so much I passed out.  So not worth it.  Since then,  three times I've given unhappy tenants their entire deposit plus unused rent for being out in a week.  Once was so testy a sheriff had to be there as we exchanged keys for a check.  She wanted cash and the sheriff acted as a witness saying if my check bounced he'd personally make sure I was prosecuted.  (There was no way that woman was getting cash from us,  she refused to sign anything saying she'd received it.  We're not THAT stupid. )   Another one,  was a Section 8 tenant who violated by moving in her boyfriend who smoked (the worst possible offense to me is smoking!).  She left pretty quietly, she didn't want me to report her,  but she did want all of her deposit back and her dog had DESTROYED the carpet.  I gave it to her,  mostly out of kindness but partly to avoid trouble.   That's 4 out of 20 tenants we've had!   My tenant screening is way more rigorous now....hopefully far fewer of those in future..

My tenants have to sign the lease and give me the security deposit with 3 days of passing credit and background checks.  I don't understand why there is a delay in signing the lease.

Perhaps it didn't cool off until 4 a.m.,  and then they were exhausted and slept in.  Glad it worked out.

In pre Internet days,  when a buyer told their agent what they were looking for and the agent decided what houses to show the buyer,  sure.  In the Information Age where most buyers look online for a (sometime quite long) time before even looking for an agent,  no.  The BUYERS are deciding what to look at.  A decent buyer's agent isn't going to refuse to show properties that don't pay "enough".

I knew someone in Houston who did it...the house was $1.  They still paid $10K to move it out to the country about 30 miles,  and this was 20 years ago.  Plus prepare their country lot, etc with utilities and a foundation for the house.  Was another 20K.  Also about 1000 s.f.   They owned the land for a long time,  I don't know what it cost them or if they inherited or what.  I guess a lot depends on the value of the lot the house is on relative to the total price of the house.  What did the hospital give them for the lot?

 Exactly.  The HVAC will last longer if you change the filters regularly,  and tenants just don't do it even if you give them the filters.

Two of our properties are near a RR track,  but there is a fence blocking the RR track from view.  However,  those filters are always twice as filthy at least as my other properties.  Apparently there is more pollution from trains than I realized.