Landlord's Stories.. :)

Parent Cafe
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<p>In the eviction I mentioned above, we eventually got all our money. We contacted the bf’s parents and told them we were going to take his car and garnish his paycheck, which probably would have put him out of work.</p>

<p>It wasn’t a huge amount, so they paid.</p>

<p>They also didn’t know how to work the system, so they got slaughtered at the eviction hearing.</p>

<p>We had one tenant we (semi)-affectionately referred to as “The Idiot”. His finest moment was when he decided he didn’t want to pay to have the pilot in the stove running, so he would close the gas shutoff valve when he wasn’t using the stove, and open it up when he needed. </p>

<p>Those valves aren’t engineered for constant use, and it wasn’t long before it was leaking. Then we get the call. </p>

<p>“I smell gas, I think there is a leak.”</p>

<p>“When did you start smelling gas?” I ask.</p>

<p>“A week ago.”</p>

<p>:eek:</p>

<p>One emergency call to the plumber later… everything was ok. Not sure if a pilot could ever put enough gas in a house to explode, but geez, who waits a week when they smell gas??? Idiot.</p>

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<p>We had a tenant who was being watched over by one of the social service agencies for people with mental problems. One day they called ME at work and said she hadn’t made her appointment and they couldn’t raise her at the apartment. BIL went over and had to break open the door so they could retrieve her body. She was the first tenant we had who died IN their apartment. Coupla more since then. </p>

<p>Never a good thing.</p>

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<p>Brings to mind the wisdom …if you are young and of a leaning that is to the right of the bell curve (trying to keep this apolitical, although if CC keeps the Trevon Martin thread going it’s okay to have political threads) you are mean spirited and cruel, if you are old and …um…well…to the left of the bell curve… you are delusional.</p>

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One of SIL’s nieces had 4 (count 'em 4) kids by the age of 22. At least 2 fathers, no marriages to be seen. Yet it’s sooooo politically incorrect to suggest that people are getting themselves into these situations. Fry cookies? yeah, to be polite…Don’t think for a new york minute that said niece is paying own freight for all those progeny. My tax dollars at work.</p>

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<p>Has anyone owned properties out of state? My cousin she never sell her house when she moves. over the years, her husband had jobs in NJ, PA, MA and now KY, I can’t imagine how can she manage those properties long distance. Recently, she was imagining that she wanted to retire near her parents in CA, so she bought a condo and renting out again and manage it from Kentucky?</p>

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<p>Haven’t had a tenant die in an apartment yet, although we have one tenant who tells us she’s planning on it, because she never wants to move again.</p>

<p>The sense of entitlement among people who are getting their housing (and other stuff) paid for them is a constant source of aggravation to my W, who deals with them all the time. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism because a lot of them have had a pretty crappy life. All of our units rent for higher than the maximum section 8 reimbursement rates, though, so I don’t think we’ve ever personally rented to a section 8.</p>

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We own a condo in another state. You have to have a good property manager, and the taxes can get messy.</p>

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<p>We had a tenant who decided to raise his rent $200 a month because it was really below market. We explained to him it was below market because we never advertised and only rented to people we already knew pretty well. Finally, after much negotiation, a $100 increase was agreed upon. :)</p>

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<p>With more than 25 years of landlording experience I have a few stories. I want to start with a current one though. I have to make a decision by tomorrow. </p>

<p>I have a long term tenant who was with us for more than 2 years who had fallen on hard times. Starting last July he started falling behind on his rent. He was occasionally late before once or twice but always made good. In July apparently he was hospitalized and couldn’t make rent. The property manager tracked us down (we travel quite a bit) and asked us if we want to evict. The long and short of it, we gave him till the 20th of the month and then we filed. </p>

<p>Surprisingly he made good, paid all the court costs and back rent in the subsequent months. This March he is late again and again, after a lot of back and forth between the property manager and us, gave him a drop dead deadline of 20th again. Again, he managed to scrape up the rent bit by bit. </p>

<p>The property manager called me last evening and asked what are we going to do for April - it is not likely he can afford to pay. Do we just go ahead and file on the 2nd ? Tenant doesn’t want to leave - he has two teens and an elderly mother living with him. He is in difficulties because, as an independent contractor, his clients are apparently late in paying him. </p>

<p>The property manager told me, on the last deadline, his elderly mother took the public transit to their office to pay and during the long transit, soiled herself. The trip took 5 hours apparently. In the end they felt so sorry for her so they gave the mother $200 cash out of their own pocket :(</p>

<p>My respect for my property manager actually went up. He is a bit of a shyster and a shark since my maintenance expenses are ridiculously high and we caught him padding once or twice.</p>

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<p>We not only own properties out of state, but countries. :eek:</p>

<p>It was not always by design though. When we first started out, our city was so expensive we could not afford anything. We have a formula for investing and we just could not make it work for our city. So we picked a city where we see potential and could afford and also have the connections to manage the rent. Then once we started we saw potential in another city - as a matter of fact, several people we know followed us into investing in that city. </p>

<p>The rest of the rentals, well, it appears every time we move and want to sell our house the market is either downturning or depressed so we end up not being able to sell and renting it out instead. I think so far, holding on appears to work out for us but that is luck more than anything else.</p>

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I don’t know if I would call 2 years “long term”, but at least he is a known quantity. Does he have relatives he can move in with?</p>

<p>If he has been able to come up with the rent in the past, I might cut him some slack and give him a chance. I know it’s a business, but sometimes you have to look at the human side a little bit - you’d be putting a little old lady on the street, chances are whatever else he could rent would be in a much worse area, his kids would have to change schools…</p>

<p>What kind of contractor is he? Maybe you can trade some work for rent. Is the economy getting better where this apartment is located? Maybe his business is picking up.</p>

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<p>^ I think it may be closer to 3 years, yes, we tried very hard to be accommodating but as the property manager and another friend (she is a professional landlord, lol - she attends landlord conventions ) once people fall behind, they very rarely ever catch up, they just fall deeper and deeper into the hole. Then they start resenting you, the landlord, because, well, you have the house and have more than they do according to her. She said the landlord board - apparently there is such a forum is full of stories of regret - that landlords let the situation drag on for too long. Time and again it didn’t worked out. </p>

<p>Many years ago, when we had mortgages and two young ones to feed, we had a similar situation - again, single dad, bad divorce. We lost the equivalent of 6-8 months rent because, the tenant, to relief his stress, also punched holes in the walls and did other stuff. I still have that judgement somewhere, but it will never be enforced. We just didn’t have the heart to put a single dad with 3 kids under age of 8 out around Christmas, once it was over, I can’t say I ever regretted that decision though it was not easy for us at that time. </p>

<p>We are all people first before being landlords. </p>

<p>Tenant is some kind of network engineer. He calls himself an oil services engineer (??). I did suggest to the property manager perhaps we can trade some work for rent - the property manager nixed it. We did have an agreement previously where he is going to paint some windows in exchange for some upgrades. He never did fulfil his part due to one reason or other. </p>

<p>I spoke to him personally and tried to understand the situation, he said his clients are not paying him on time therefore he can’t pay his rent. I said, (advice from my professional landlord friend) if he is late, at least he has to call and not promise to show up and then disappear for days, it wastes a lot of the property manager’s time trying to contact him, staying late, coming in on Sundays to wait for him to show up when he said he would.
If he can’t pay the whole month, he could at least pay something or provide a payment plan. I think he did took heed. </p>

<p>I probably overstepped my bounds by suggesting maybe his teenagers (15 and 17 ?) can find some part time work to help out - it is an affluent neighborhood so neighbors probably need snow removal, lawn care, baby sitting services ? He didn’t seem to pick up on that suggestion. I also suggested perhaps he should collect his fees in stages - I was in small business consulting previously so I know some clients are very tardy paying. I don’t know why he is not working at a regular job since his skills set seem to be marketable and the city should be booming. </p>

<p>I have asked the property manager regarding assisted housing - surely with his recent hospitalization and elderly mother they qualify ? My property manager said they will help the tenant with that. Property manager said tenant was not receptive before. </p>

<p>Evictions take time. Even if we act tomorrow on the 2nd, I will end up likely losing a month or two of rent.</p>

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<p>Sounds like you’ve done your part. If he was truly interested in making it work he would be trying everything, like having his kids get jobs or selling his receivables (assuming he really has any).</p>

<p>I convinced a tenant once to take a cash advance on his credit card to cover his rent.</p>

<p>When is the lease up?</p>

<p>In my state, with an elderly tenant and a little knowledge of how to work the system, it could take as much as 6 months to get them out. Good luck to you.</p>

33

<p>I think I am going to tell the pm to put tenant on notice - rent is due tomorrow. Privately our drop dead deadline - the day which we take action should either be the 5th, with Easter weekend coming up I don’t know what court schedules are like, I will have to ask him. I would like them out by the end of this month and work towards that. I am already mentally prepared to lose the association fee (they have access to a lake and there is a fee for that, tenant was supposed to pay, but neglected to, so regular fee + fines came to over $500) - so if they are out hopefully by the end of this month I will just lose a little bit. </p>

<p>The lease ends in May or June, and pm already have given them notice that we will not renew. It is hard to make a tenant leave when they don’t want to and if they are current with their rent. </p>

<p>If they do leave by the end of April I will fly out there to rehab that house in May, any involved work needs supervision, and can’t expect property manager to do it. The house can be ready for rent or sale in June, which is an active time for both traditionally.</p>

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<p>munchkin. It is very hard when you become involved in the personal stories of tenants…I know. It seems that the inability to pay on time and the full amount is becoming chronic. Also, if the tenant was truly trying to make things work they would have called in advance of the due date to let you know what the upcoming problems maybe. We had a situation where one of our managers became very very ill and because of the relationship comped them 1 months rent. However, they were on time and paid in full the rest of their tenancy. </p>

<p>One thing to keep in mind - especially if you are in an area where rights are heavily slanted toward the tenant. If you provide relief to this particular tenant and not to any and all subsequent tenants in the same situation, you may find yourself on the bad end of a discrimination lawsuit.</p>

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<p>Yes, I am a tenant and if I ever had a reason that I might not be able to pay rent on time, I would talk to my landlords, apologize, ask if it was okay (and if it really was not okay to wait two days until I got paid, I’d try to borrow the money). I’d never just assume it was okay and not show up. He’s probably embarrassed, but he’s gonna be embarrassed anyway.</p>

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<p>^^dietz199 : you are right about getting involved. When the eviction issue first came up (tenant in hospital) I thought of calling or emailing but after much thought, decided against it but gave them as much time as I could, which was the 20th. I do feel sorry for them and I figure they are good people fallen on hard times. I did talk to him one time upon request, when he called to meet the pm after hours to plead for us not to file eviction. That was the occasion when I said, if he can’t make rent, he must not disappear on us but let the pm know, instead of promising to pay tomorrow at lunch, don’t show, call to say will show up at 6 before office closing and not show, wasting everyone’s time. </p>

<p>My pm, for all his tough talk of we should file, we should file tomorrow, I figure is probably a wimp like me, he kept calling me to “report” and complain about the tenant - not showing up as promised etc. I thought, don’t I pay you to handle this ? More than once I thought to myself, we agreed we will file by xxx already, do I need to hear about all the details and the tenant’s pleas ?? I don’t want to share your aggravation ! I imagine the pm and his staff spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with this tenant. </p>

<p>The pm said he handles many evictions and is successful in all of them, both his d and dil are lawyers and he knows the laws very well. So I assume I am covered in this regard. </p>

<p>The local real estate market is starting to do well this spring, I want to go there, do an inspection and consider if I am better off selling it or continue to rent. </p>

<p>eireann - I think he is embarrassed, this must be a very difficult and novel situation for him and he is not handling it. Pm said he was avoiding their phone calls a lot, which must be part of the frustration dealing with him. My professional landlord friend said once people fall into a hole, it is very difficult to get out of it. He is supporting two teenage children and I assume his elderly mother. I don’t know if he has the coping skills to keep his expenses down and even though I want to help, I am afraid of saying the wrong things and getting into trouble. </p>

<p>I hope some kind of subsidized housing could be found quickly for them.</p>

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<p>In my state, if a landlord repeatedly accepts late payments, then the law considers it that LL considers such late payments acceptable. After accepting a number of late payments, a LL cannot suddenly “hold the line” on yet another late payment without some notice. Our state requires that if he has been accepting such late payments that he send a letter to the tenant, basically saying that he has accepted late payments in the past, but that it cannot continue and the tenant must pay rent on time in the future…
All states are different of course, but I throw this out there so every LL can check every angle in order to handle all actions properly.</p>

<p>In this particular case, I think the LL has already been more than fair. Though the tenant has made it right in the past, it seems he/she ignores the situation until it is dire, and even then it is like pulling teeth to get the money. Im puzzled why the LL is still using a management company that has tried more than once to cheat the LL; but that’s another issue. Unless this unit is particularly hard to rent, then if the next month’s rent isn’t paid properly, then I’d do one of 2 things:
either offer them a compromise for them to get out and end the lease immediately, or start court papers. Reaching a compromise is often cheaper than court action.</p>

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<p>When our tenant lost his job, he let us know. We waived his next month’s rent as long as he vacated by the end of the following month. I told him if he wanted to show gratitude, he could pay it forward. I think it helped them keep the place as nice as possible, so they could get back as much of their security deposit as they could, since they needed it to cover expenses of packing up & moving themselves back to CA to live with the wife’s family. Was mostly concerned that the tenants not damage the home they were renting & we figured one month’s rent was relatively inexpensive for getting them out of the home with little fuss and damage. Have no regrets on how we handled things & tenants were very grateful.</p>

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<p>This is pretty much the nightmare scenario for a landlord:</p>

<p>[Ohio</a> landlord found dismembered body in bathtub | US National Headlines | Comcast](<a href=“Recovering Titan with the Odysseus underwater robot was complex, dangerous, emotional | Xfinity”>Haze, heat and storms are affecting summer festivities in many parts of the U.S. | Xfinity)</p>

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<p>That is a “blood bath”…</p>

<p>Wondering how long the unit has to be held as “evidence” of a crime scene and how do the neighbors think, they may want to move out.</p>