All Forum Posts by: Seamus Harper

@David J. Unless you exclusively own data centers, industrial properties, supermarkets, etc. landlords in general are getting **** on since all this started. This changes many things in the game or REI.

@Colleen F. I don't see this getting better anytime soon, unfortunately. I think the next 4 years will be more/less a steady stoking of the fire between the "haves" and "have nots".  

This year has, thankfully, forced me to buckle down and really study history to understand what's happening and it's been a very eye-opening experience. What's happening with black vs. white, wealthy vs. poor, tenants vs. landlords, men vs. women, etc. is something that has been going on for many years and is pervasive in all segments of the economy. 2020 was a catalyst to push these narratives to a whole other level. 

I spent some time working at a university a few years back. There are programs on campus dedicated to "educating" students on how if you're anything other than a white, straight male and you find yourself at some sort of disadvantage in any way, you have every right to blame the system and others and rebel because they screwed you over and failed you.

I live near a district attorney whose policies apparently favor police unions. At the height of the protests, we had "BLM" protestors up and down the streets for many days advocating to get rid of her under the implication that she somehow supported police brutality against minorities (she's African American mind you). They left flyers in all mailboxes indicating they're a communist group looking to bring "justice" where they saw necessary. One of the leaders of the group? A college professor who teaches cultural studies at the local university. I remember having to take these "general education" courses when I was in undergrad and looking back, there was definitely a theme of victimization and blame.

I'm not saying that all BLM protestors are communists but what I am saying is that there is a lot more going on here than just a group of people being pissed off and this is happening globally. History is a great teacher as to what is transpiring as human nature hasn't changed after thousands of years, things just occur at a much faster rate now.

I hate to sound so negative but I'm taking a pessimistic perspective on all of this to help me prepare for worst-case scenarios. I think it will be a rough few years and one needs to be ready with reserves, a good support system, a quick mind, and an ability to see through all the BS. 

It's a **** show and it will only get worse. This "pandemic" has sown the seeds for future chaos much worse than what we've seen this year. Turning people/groups against each other is an effective tactic used throughout history and will exacerbate over the next 4 years. Tenants vs. landlords will continue far into the future.

@Ash Patel I'd like to avoid attorney's but this whole situation is a mess. It's been discovered that the current tenant fabricated his lease to meet certain requirements with the fuel supplier as the lease we have is drastically different than the one his attorney sent us.

At this point we can pursue this legally but the deal is compromised as the buyer is already asking for a reduction in price and who knows how long it will take and how much it will cost to get the tenant out. But back to my original post, the agent's were not informing the buyer as to what was happening despite repeated requests on our part.

I'll try to keep this short. I signed a PSA to sell a property with an month-to-month tenant who failed to exercise his option to renew well past 90 days. 

PSA stated that I will do my "highest and best use" to evict said tenant as the buyer's request the property to be vacant upon sale. I issued a statement to the tenant telling them they are month-to-month. I then issued another statement evicting them. They hired an attorney who proceeded to send us a letter basically saying the tenant has right to renew, hardship, etc. and that if we don't rescind the eviction notice by a specific deadline, they will proceed to sue us.

After telling all this to my agents, fully expecting them to tell this to the buyer, I waited and heard no response from them. I then contacted tenants attorney and rescinded the eviction notice as I do not want to get involved over a legal battle and the property either gets sold at the price I want, or the buyers can walk away and I keep collecting rent as before.

Agents proceeded to get very angry with me, told me I need to hire an attorney ASAP. They said I violated the "highest and best use" statement in the PSA by not hiring an attorney as well as by communicating with the tenant's attorney and that the buyer's now have a right to sue me.

Spoke with the buyers yesterday and it turns out they had no idea any of this was going on despite me telling the agents throughout the past two months to please inform the buyers in detail as to what is going on.

At this point I don't trust the agents as it seems they are wanting to do what's best for them and not me (this is a very well established, global firm) and I also feel as if they are pressuring the buyers and their attorney to go after me if the deal doesn't go through. 

Is what they're saying true regarding "highest and best use"? Do I not have a right to refuse going to litigation? 

@Steve Smith We were surprised about the 10 days also!

Buyer does not want the tenant. They're going to redevelop the station so they're restarting everything.

@Frank Hinck The payment was deposited via check by him 2 days ago. We called him (he didn't answer), left him a message saying we do not accept his payment and will proceed to return the extra amount through certified mail. My concern is that he can say the certified mail was anything, not necessarily a check. The bank sending the money back would be the best as Steve said above but 10 days is quite a long time and I'm not sure if there is some sort of official acceptance period.

We've got a tenant who has been on month-to-month at a gas station that we own. He has been month-to-month since July of this year and never exercised his option to renew.

We're in the process of selling the station and the new buyers are requesting us to have the tenant vacate. We alerted the tenant that he has been month-to-month, and never exercised his option to renew, that we will not be renewing the lease, and provided him with a 30 day notice to vacate. Upon doing so he immediately paid the rental increase amounts for the past three months that were part of the lease renewal, as if to renew the lease indirectly. From what I understand, acceptance of the extra rent is a way for the tenant to claim that he renewed the lease. We want him to stay month-to-month.

We are in the process of returning the funds but according to the bank it can take upwards of 10 days. Are there any other ways to refund him the money where we can prove that we did not accept the rental increases that he paid?

*This tenant has been fairly lousy and we are anticipating he will give us a hard time vacating. 

Is non-payment of rent by a commercial tenant grounds for a property tax appeal? I'm seeing that appeals are usually conducted on the premise of a property losing it's value but do rent deferrals/concessions count if property taxes are due and rent is being deferred? 

Too many focused on housing. I think if real estate is to take a hit due to our current situation, it's going to be commercial. Look how many commercial spaces are completely non-functional. If this goes on for many more months, that's going to devastate the commercial market. Even when things do open up, commercial businesses have to implement social-distancing guideline which means less tables in a restaurant, less machines at the gym, etc. In short, significantly less customers for a continued period of time, following a few to several months of no customers. 

I think we can all agree there is no such thing as foolproof 100% of the time all the time.

My family and I own a large amount of real estate across California, residential and commercial. Our commercials are all net lease. All of our corporate/big box net-lease tenants stopped paying rent as soon as March 15th hit. Our non-corporate net-least tenants have continued to pay us rent, but who knows for how long. Our residential tenants have all paid rent thus far as well.

Before all of this, the prize net-lease properties were restaurants, gyms, office (we own some of these with corporate tenants). All of those are dead in the water right now and our concerns are growing by the day. 

What about medical? Surely that's a segment of real estate that should be foolproof, especially now. Nope. I have medical and dental laboratory clients who lease large medical office spaces and they've been closed since this started in March and they're not paying rent. People aren't going to see their dentists, optometrists, even primary care physicians, at least not enough to warrant demand from medical labs supplying tools, materials, supplies, etc. 

Point is, unless your tenant is Amazon, if this goes on long enough, we're all going to feel the pain, directly or indirectly, no matter how "foolproof" our portfolios are.