They want to pay 12 months in advance is it red flag

[Jane S.]

I was impressed with my sales ability when the candidates for renting my property volunteered to pay 12 months in advance.

Then I was scared when my broker said its a BIG red flag cuz they might want to turn the house into a marijuana grow house.

Has anyone out there had experience with this? They are 3 adults, early 60's, employed, 2 sisters and one sister's husband who looks like ZZ Top ... the house is actually too small for growing weed inside, but has a huge yard but totally exposed on a corner lot, so i dont think that would work. I should add to the lease, "no greenhouses in the yard .." etc. They said nothing about the former tenant's crappy paint repairs and light bulb theft, etc.

Because they were paying up front i thought I could skip the background report but I guess NOT!

Now I have to learn the various names are for growing weed plants in a protective structure ...

appreciate any ideas.

[Steven Hong]

@Jane S.

Happened to me recently..

Tenant paid a year in advance all cash plus first and last months. My PM said everything looked

Great on paper. Both husband and wife worked.

They made good money...

After one year, they wanted to renew. I wanted a home inspection done so we set it up...

When I walked in with my Property manager we smelled something funny. ( This is an upscale

Area btw.. rent was $4500/month 3000 sq ft home with huge pool and breathtaking view that allows

You to capture Disneyland fireworks nightly.)

I noted it and continued on. We went through the house and everything seems fine.

We eventually went to the backyard and I noticed the pool was empty. NOTED.

He mentioned that it was failing so he had it drained so He could fix the leak.( he owns a pool company so he said ) I thought it was strange and asked why he didn’t report it, he said it just happened recently and he didn’t want us to stress about it and would

Take care of it himself.

So after the inspection, I walked out to my car.

A neighbor walks over and asked me if I owned the home which I replied yes. She stated that he was growing 50-75 plants in my pool at a time and had recently had it removed. I was in disbelief.

Long story short, we didn’t renew the lease. He made it difficult and didn’t want to move out threatening us with all sorts of bs. In the end I had to do a cash for keys deal just to claim my property back. Lawyer said it would be a long process due to tenant rights ha.

After the cash for keys deal.. ($5000 fml)

I end up doing a more detailed inspection and found that the pool was rewired and drilled with holes to run his operation..

In total the repairs of the whole house is costing me 50k..

That 50k is a huge lesson I learned. To be honest I even suspect my old property manager was in on this.

Good times! Ha never again. So yeah if it’s too good to be true it normally is...