Apartment Renovation
My business partner and I bought two fourplexs a few months ago and now we are looking at our first vacancy. Looking at the condition of the apartment, we only need to shampoo the carpeting, replace linoleum and paint the walls and ceilings. (Not bad since the tenant was in there for three years). My partner thinks we should select a paint (off white) and use it to paint the walls AND ceiling. His thought is that this will be faster than carefully masking off the space between the walls and ceilings (required if we use a bright white ceiling paint). Is this something that some of you experienced landlords do to save time and turn around apartments quickly? Any other hints? We already have a new tenant that wants to move in on June 1st. Thanks, Cataman
It would depend on if you stated in the lease that the tenant is responsible for all legal fees incurred to collect the rent and what you have speeled out for late fees.
Rather then a pay or quit letter, start the eviction. Pay or quit does nothing to resolve the matter. An eviction at least starts the process of getting them out if they do not pay.
Robert
This so-called lease that the tenant has...
1. Is it signed by your mother (and is that her signature)?
2. Does your mother have any file at all on this tenant -- ie, correspondence, old lease, anything?
3. Why did you raise the rent?
4. What prior communications have you had with this tenant?
5. Is this tenant current on the rent -- either pre-January rent or present rent?
Nancy[ Edited by NancyChadwick on Date 04/28/2005 ]
Are these two tenants, one not paying, and the other with the 10 year lease, living side by side by any chance?
The tenant with the 10 year lease presented me with the lease this past week. I never knew that he had a lease and when I asked my mother she told me that she never had a lease with him. When I asked him last January for a $100 a month increase he never told me that he had a lease! He was holding this as a trump card. In fact the lease was for $825 and I just raised him from $650 to $750! He canned my mother into granting him reductions. For example a month after he took the apartment he found out that the other tenant, who had one more bedroom than he had was also paying $825, so my mother foolishly lowered the rent by $50! Then when the other tenant left my mother told him that he could have the garage. When the new tenant signed and said that he needs the garage, my mother forgot that she told him that he could have the garage and my mother felt so bad that she promised him the garage so she lowered the rent another $50! To her the garage had no value so she did not consider that she could charge for use of the garage. My mother never gave receipts and tenants usually came over to her with cash.
The house originally was bought as a family house, my parents, my grandmother and my uncle. My father passed away, my grandmother passed away, and my aunt and uncle also passed away. She subsequently moved out but kept the house. Foy years we had wonderful tenants, but they too either passed away or moved and we were left with tenants from hell. She and I knew nothing about laws and leases. I am sick of dealing with them, constantly calling them up with "when are you going to send the rent" etc.
I want out! It will cost me plenty since the current arrangement is of a joint ownership (with my brother) and my mother retaining a life estate. So when I sell I will have to pay capital gains on the full value of the house. I don’t want to have to pay blackmail money as well!!
Marty
I personally would not negotiate with this person.
If you feel that the lease is legit I would start to watch VERY closely and find a way as small as it may be for them to trip up against the lease causing the lease to be voided (i.e. pay the rent 1 day late or not in full, do not accept and start evictions. Not parking in assigned spot, not taking garbage out etc.)
Once the lease has been violated go straight to eviction.
Robert
Get an attorney that specializes in evictions. You can get this guy out. Just stop making it personal and get with a professional and let the attorney do his job.
Nobody signs a 10 year lease. You can contend that there was only a verbal lease and that the tenant forged the lease from prior signatures of your grandmother.
If he moved the thermostat then he made modifications to the residence without written consent. This may be cause enough for eviction.
Get an attorney and get him out.
Brenda
Geez - I did not read that it is April 29 and you have not gotten the rent yet. You have nobody to blame but yourself for this guy still being in the house. Not trying to be hard, just trying to get you motivated to get it done. The 10 year lease is a mute point once he gets evicted. And how do you think that you are going to sell a house with a none paying jerk tenant? You need him out to sell the house.
GET AN ATTORNEY
Brenda
I concur...call the attorney...
John, I sure hope that this true of New York. I noticed that something was fishy when I angrilly told him "ok, you have a lease, there is no mention of basement rights or use of the garage" to which he said that there was an empty area in the lease that he can write in anything that he wants. This implies that he knew that my mother never got a copy of the supposed lease. So he either forged it or had her sign one without giving her a copy.
marty, please check your private email. ..thanks..
Also of note, you said the lease calls for more money than he is paying. If he is going to hold a legal instrument (the lease) over your head, then use it to your advantage. His monthly due would be that indicated in the lease and not a penny less. You can demand that amount and demand it during the time frame due.
Lastly, if your mom does not remember issuing or signing it, then it is probably a forgery. You may request a copy.
If shinanigans are required, tell him you need a copy of the lease so you can sell the house with him in it and that the new owners will be his landlord. You just need to be able to let them know what he is paying and for how long. If/When he turns over a copy of the document then you have a copy and can commence to making him comply with all terms such as the amount due, when due, and access only to the areas specified by the lease.
Been there and done that.
No matter what you do collecting money for utilities is extremely hard. Tenants are always going to feel they are paying for the other guys water. Splitting the units with seperate meters can be expensive - although not impossible.
My advice is to look at the last 2 years monthly average in water and raise the rents that ammount. Market it as water/sewage is included.
Look at installing low flow shower heads, cap any outside water spikets, cap any washer/dishwasher lines. State no additional appliances in the lease.
Check for leaks - also check to see if your city will credit your bill if leaks are found and corrected.
Thanks-
Point well taken.
This may be a solution that you can implement when the lease is up. I have suggested this to others and have wording in my lease that any payment first is applied to any outstanding obligations before it is applied to the rent. In your case, when the rent is paid with an outstanding water bill, apply the payment to the water bill leaving a deficit in the rent equal to the amount of the water bill. You can then give 3-day (or whatever it is in LA) notices to pay the rent or quit. This should get their attention.
Since this is a friend you might have a collateral conversation indicating your resolve to have compliance on the water bill and that his/her lack of performance is compromising the friendship and that you hope he/she will respond favorably so that your friendship is on more comfortable ground.
edmeyer-
Thank you that was stated very nicely and sounds like something I will be adding to our lease.
I have 5 buildings in Chicago and none of them even have meters. They charge the building based on who knows what, we pay all the water bills and pass it along to the tenants indirectly. We treat it like insurance, janitorial or lawn care expenses. I would pay the bill and avoid the headaches, adjust the rent accordingly.
I agree with The Breadman. Pay the utilities yourself and adjust the rents.
If you are talking about attempting to meter each apartment in, say, a 2 family house, I am very interested as well to hear more abou this!!
[addsig]
See if you qualify for grants and if the power company has discounts or preferred vendors.
The company would rather serve multiple customers because of the standard rate that is charged before the actual usage so they sometimes give discounts to turn 1 customer into 3. Plus the preferred vendors are reputable and sometimes work pretty cheap due to competition.
This is also good for new windows and other stuff. I had a preferred vendor do windows for $3500 during a slow season and because he just made it on the Puget Power referal list when other companies were requesting $10K+. He then gave me $100 off every referal. I own 3 houses in my culdesac of 12. Anyway, 7 houses got vinyl windows (counting 3 of mine). I now call him up all the time for my rehabs and for my friends rehabs.
Any reputable small guy will give you referall kickbacks as well as be pleased as heck to get recurring work. As an owner in NY as well (2 duplexes and a 3 unit) I would surely split the services when possible. I ended up paying the city. Wish I knew about these submeters, which is probably what I got anyway.
Keep us posted. See my post to an earlier topic of yours about the same subject.
Keep in mind that if you use sub-meters you will instantly have another level of administrative monitoring of your property. I deal with the issue of master meter vs. sub metering all the time in the mixed use developments we do. I generally avoid sub-metering if at all possible. They are a pain to monitor long term and then you are stuck in the middle if there are any disputes. In our area there are 3rd party companies that will monitor sub-meters for you but it is not cheap. I am not a fan of submeters unless there is a strong compelling reason to go that route.
I bought a house around 30,000 and it was currently occupied by a section 8 tenant, I never had any problems with the tenant or with section 8, in fact sec 8 was very helpful to me. I have since raised the rent and it is no longer sec 8 occupied. You are still able to screen and decline tenants in the sec 8 program, you just need to make sure you use the same pre qualifications for everyone so as not to "discrimate"
doing a good screening process makes all the difference, good luck!
huh? What about chipped paint? that sounds interesting.
huh? What about chipped paint? that sounds interesting.
Since we are very pro-Section 8, our maintenance team attended a Lead abatement class in order to "qualify" for lead paint removal. There is a special removal process in order to prevent the lead from contaminating the premises.
In NY, it is any child under the age of 6 cannot be exposed to chipped paint... and basically, since the homes are very old, all the homes have lead-based paint.
The next "lead" fear is mold ... they are now beginning mold abatement classes.
Interestingly enough, we tend not to do many repairs until after the inspection. Primarily, why fix something that one inspector lets slide? We do the first inspection and for the minor issues (moving smoke detectors) we do right then and there. For other things, i.e., painting, etc., we do and then schedule a final inspection. This has helped save us some $.
However, if the place is WAY OFF passing and we know it, we get it cleaned up enough as to not tick the inspector off.
Since we are very pro-Section 8, our maintenance team attended a Lead abatement class in order to "qualify" for lead paint removal. There is a special removal process in order to prevent the lead from contaminating the premises.
In NY, it is any child under the age of 6 cannot be exposed to chipped paint... and basically, since the homes are very old, all the homes have lead-based paint.
The next "lead" fear is mold ... they are now beginning mold abatement classes.
Interestingly enough, we tend not to do many repairs until after the inspection. Primarily, why fix something that one inspector lets slide? We do the first inspection and for the minor issues (moving smoke detectors) we do right then and there. For other things, i.e., painting, etc., we do and then schedule a final inspection. This has helped save us some $.
However, if the place is WAY OFF passing and we know it, we get it cleaned up enough as to not tick the inspector off.
I would reccomend going to an investor club in that area and asking around
[addsig]
Thanks!!