Landlord Issues
I am leasing a spot for my auto store and the landlord is a schmuck. He has 3 tenants and all three of us hate him. He scares away all new potential clients and lures people in with the dream of owning your own business and tell you that you dont need this or that to be able to do business. Then people give him a deposit and then start their build-outs and the city will put a stop on it saying you need all kids of things to be up to code. Then the owner will say "thats your fault" and keeps your deposit if you decide not to follow the codes and leave.
He is such a penny pincher and will have a family member clean the hallways, then creates a bill and says this is how much you owe me.
Also, he bills us ONCE a year for utilities and when he gets us the bill, he hands over a 4500.00 bill and says.."pay me."
So I pay him, and after a couple times, i got sick of it and found out that he`hasnt been paying the utilites at all and has made 1 payment since hes owned it for 3 years. he lets it roll and run and just keeps the tenants money.
Well, in our janky lease he wrote us, it says something like "breach of contract happens if the landlord doesnt keep up with the bills"
I need some advice, I have over 2 years and 150k invested into this place that I no longer wish to stay at....
You might want to post this on the commercial forum as this is residential. But it sounds like you should have an attorney look at this. When you go to meet with your attorney, have all your ducks in a row to get the most for your $. For example, have a spreadsheet of what you have paid him and when, have a copy of your lease and also any notes of any conversations you had with your landlord.
good luck
Quicken is great and I use it as well. However, it has some limitations in managing properties for clients. It was primarily designed to manage your own properties. But it is easy to use and very clean interface. There are some high-end very professional management tools on the market but I found them more difficult to use. However, they help you also manage your business for your own tax season and not just your clients.
If you use Quicken, make sure and create one file for each client. So, if you have a client that has 8 properties you manage, create one file and add 8 properties in that file. Create a new one for each client. When I send reports to my clients that have more than one property, I send them individual reports on each property with invoices attached and I also send them a summary report. Quicken allows you to do this instantaneously.
Thanks for your responses. We have two votes for Quicken and one for RealTools.
I would like to add a couple things 1) I need something that is easily understandable. I tried a "commercial grade" property software and it was WAY above my understanding and ease of use. 2) Besides tracking houses and maintenance on each house, I would really like to have a function to write notices to tenants, late payments, clean yard up, etc...
REALTOOLS, unlimited properties and good price. Many people on the board use it and like it.
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnicheswQQhtZ-1
Check out
Propertyware[dot]com
They do a real ghood job keeping this thing up to date and I have access to whether im on vacation, at work, home and so on.[ Edited by allhandl on Date 09/27/2006 ]
I had a similar experience some years back. In my story I received a notice to contact the police and was told that there was gang activity going on in my house. The source was a 17 year-old step son who was a documented member of one of the larger gangs.
I phoned the tenant and said there were two choices-- he goes or everyone goes. I asked them to get back to me with their decision and they called to tell me he had been asked to leave and had moved.
Hi,
Is the property located in AZ? Is so have you considered hiring a Property Management Company to take care of all those loose ends for you.
Buying another home is stressful enough, so relieve yourself of dealing with Tenant searches, background checks, Leases, Addendms, etc.
[ Edited by joel on Date 09/25/2006 ]
What i would recommend is joining a local investors group, just do a google search on the city you are in and investors group and you should get some hits.
They will be able to help you with what is legal for your area as far as provisions in the lease go, or even recommend a good property managment company if you want to go that route.
Good luck!
send my an email and I will send you a copy of our lease. It can be a good starting point. I wrote it and then had our attorney review and make changes.
I will not mind of copy of such a lease too, my email is **Please See My Profile**
here is my situation
What does one highlight in the lease and things to make the tenant responsible for and things like that. I need a full breakdown, because I am going to get a property to rent to a section8 tenant and need to know how to structure a lease that will be fair to the tenant and myself as well. Also guarding me against unnessary repairs and reduce property management hassles to a minimum.
Any input is needed.
Thanks
Owen
I agree with finniganps.
www.nolo.com book is excellent!