All Forum Posts by: Karen F.

Be glad they're paying you anything, and don't codify your acquiescence to anything by sending them a letter.  Right now, you have NO recourse.  Accept what they pay gracefully, be really, really nice to them, and get ready for the lawsuit - meaning gather as much info on them as possible - where they work, bank account numbers, etc., so that you'll be ready to garnish their wages.  As for the lease renewal - only renew with them if you think that you want to keep them in place, getting whatever amount they are giving you.  Of course, unless the restrictions on evictions are lifted, there's not a darn thing you can do, whether or not you renew the lease.  Probably best to let it simply lapse to month to month, which means that the original rental rate continues.  You can raise it at any time thereafter, if you like and if the restrictions have been lifted.  Educate yourself about how to run an eviction for non-payment of rent where you live, or get a really good eviction lawyer (your local landlord association and the local marshal will know who's the best, and not a general attorney, specifically the guy who runs all the evictions for the local landlords).  The minute that the restrictions are lifted, the minute you are legally allowed to, file on them for non-payment of rent.  As for the back rent, if they're gone before it can be demanded, you're gonna have to get a judgement against them in small claims, and garnish their wages. 

Don't give them anything in writing that indicates that you agree to any reduction in rent.  The reality is, anyone who has reduced hours can file for unemployment, and receive an enhancement.  Plus they got the stimulus check.  I strongly doubt that they're unable to pay.  And honestly, it's not relevant.  Follow the law to the letter, don't give them anything, and get ready to pounce if they don't make good on it.

No.  You don't pay them for putting in a fence without your permission.  You charge them for restoring the property to its original condition when they move out.  Also, the only reason that someone would put up a fence at a rental is if they have a dog and are keeping it outside.  The dog will ruin your backyard.  The other possibility is if they have little kids that they want to allow to play outside unsupervised.

Find out if the fence needed to have been permitted.  Find out if it goes over the property line, or has made a mowing/maintenance problem for the narrow strip they left (which if your neighbor winds up maintaining long enough, he can claim).  If you love the tenant, love the fence, it was done right, and there is no permit issue, then I would consider a strict warning in writing not to make modifications, and now that the fence is in, it must stay in place, and give them some amount towards the cost of the fence.  Don't give it as a discounted rent - they pay full rent, you pay them something for the fence.  And if there's a dog, charge them increased rent, cause you're gonna need it to recondition the yard after they're gone. 

Of course you don't pay the agent!  If a potential buyer comes with a buyer's agent, the buyer pays their own agent.

While the above-recommended screening standards are great, they may not be appropriate for certain areas.  In my area, if I applied those criteria, I'd never rent a unit.

Call the police whenever there is crime.  Call early and often.  Tell your tenants to notify police immediately if there is crime.  Put concealed real AND visible dummy security cameras everywhere you can manage it.  Begin eviction proceedings for criminal activity as soon as you are sure that it is occurring, or the second the rent is late if you suspect the tenant of criminal activity.

Here are our screening criteria: No history of a filing in housing court, even if the tenant paid up and stayed.  No criminal history unless it is extremely remote, like over a decade ago, with a long history of stable employment and stable housing.  No history of slip and fall lawsuits (if they sued others, they'll sue the LL for sure).  No one, absolutely NO ONE coming with the assistance of an agency.  Straight Sec 8, for low income?  Sure.  But anyone who needs a caseworker to help them find housing because they've been in a homeless shelter, or have a household member with mental illness, or have DCF helping them to find housing so that they can keep their children or get their children back - all of these situations, the people have issues that made them impossible to house in the past, and will continue to make them impossible to house.  We have learned this the hard way, that we must resist our natural instinct, to help people who are coming out of shelters, or have a household member with mental illness, or have DCF involved for achieving family reunification.  They absolutely will crash and burn within a few months.  They will not pay the rent.  They will bring in criminals and engage in criminal activity.  They will menace the other tenants and the LL or his agents.

If you strictly enforce these screening criteria, and immediately involve the police the second that there is any criminal activity, while simultaneously beginning eviction proceedings for criminal activity (and in fact, for ANY lease violation that the tenant refuses to correct), you will have fewer headaches in the long run.  

Smart move to show your identical adjacent unit!  No touch, masked is certainly safe.

Is your building a legal 2 or 3 family? Does it have 2 units, or 3 units?  Is there any way to separate out the utilities, and put 2 or 3 meters on it, or 2 or 3 oil tanks?

If not, do you have any control over the thermostats?  I am sorry to tell you this, but tenants will heat the place to 80 degrees in the wintertime, and be in shorts and a t-shirt, and cool it to 68 in the summer time.  They will do this while leaving the windows wide open.  This is why all our properties have separated out utilities, and the tenants are responsible for the utility bills.

Even if you were to put "landlord" thermostats in, to limit the heat (and it's difficult to do this, because tenants will hang a bag of ice on a landlord thermostat, to fool the thermostat into calling for more heat), the tenant could simply turn on the minisplit, for electric heat, and you're paying that bill, too.  Theoretically, you could disable the minisplits during the winter, so that they cannot be used for heating, and use a "dummy" thermostat in a prominent place, and have the real thermostat, set to 68, in a hidden place that they cannot access, but that reflects the temperature of the unit.  Then you'd know that they were not wasting your oil heating the outdoors, or creating a whole-apartment sauna.  With a SMART thermostat, you could probably arrange to have control of the thermostats by your own cell phone, for both the a/c and the heat.  To prevent abuse of hot water, go to a small tank, instead of tankless "instant" hot water.  Otherwise, the tenants' teenagers will be taking hour long hot showers.

But I digress. You wanted to know how much you should charge for units that include ALL the utilities? (You certainly cannot separate out the water charges, if you cannot separate out the electricity and oil - I'm sure you don't have 2-3 water meters on the property.) Here's a place to start. If you look at the HUD rates for a 3 bedroom Sec 8 unit in your area, they also will list utility allowances. But just off the cuff, I can tell you that in the Northeast, which has high heating costs and high electrical costs, Sec 8 would add about $400/month to the going rate in your area for no utilities included ("cold flat"). Honestly, your best bet for a tenant might be a very carefully selected Sec 8 family with only 3 people in it - that might be a mother and her son and daughter. Sec 8 pays really well for all utilities included units. Since you would be living there too, I presume, you could keep a close eye on what goes on, to make sure they don't move in additional occupants.

It would drive me insane, the utility wastage on my dime that the tenants would cause.  I would fix it up, and 1031 exchange it into a property with separated out gas, oil, electric.

Our philosophy is the opposite of yours.  We buy run down multis for cash in a blue collar teetering on slum town, fix em up (but not beyond basic housing), and rent em out at market rate.  We were looking for return on investment in the form of income - but the properties have doubled in value over the past 8-9 years or so.  And we NEVER have a tenant who is behind on the rent, because if they don't pay the rent, we evict them.  I just don't get how you could have Class A SFRs in a town with great schools, choose tenants with great income, and wind up with tenants who are MONTHS behind on the rent?  Seems to me that you're letting the tenants steal from you.

The courts are closed, there's a moratorium on evictions right now.  Pay them to leave.  Offer them a month's rent if they're out by the end of May.  You may be able to negotiate getting them to leave if you just give them back their full deposit.  Of course, you don't give them a penny until they're entirely out, with all their stuff, and you've changed the locks, and they've signed a paper saying they are giving up any rights to the unit.

If you were to wait until you've evicted them, you deduct the unpaid rent, the costs of eviction, and any damages from the deposit.  They'll wind up owing you a lot more if you go to eviction.  You might not get them out until 2021.  You will never collect a penny from them.

You're in good shape!  Raise the rent to $1,000.  I am quite sure that you can refi the amount that you paid, without any interior inspection.  To do a cash-out refi, you might have to have interior inspection.  But with numbers like that, just do the refi for the 56K, and be happy!  They will stay there for years, paying 10% below market, and you won't have to do repairs because they won't want you to enter.  Just make sure you have good insurance - hoarders' homes are fire traps.

That property sounds like it was a great deal, BTW.

You wait until the courts are back open, and it will be possible to file for an eviction.  Meanwhile, you try your best to get full rent, but you graciously accept anything she will pay towards the rent, since you have absolutely NO recourse even  if she doesn't pay a penny.  You find out everything you can about her place of work, bank accounts, etc, getting ready for garnishing from wages/bank account down the road.  You teach yourself everything about the eviction process where you are - a local landlord club is a great place to learn all this for free from other landlords, or you find out who is the most experienced and effective eviction lawyer in your area.  The minute that the courts will accept it, and according to the laws where you are, you begin the process of pay or quit, and the eviction process if she doesn't.

You really don't have any other choice in the matter.  You hope that after the courts are open, she pays up.  If she doesn't, you're gonna have to evict and  sue her in small claims for the back rent, assuming that you can garnish her wages.