Sooo... I'm a Landlord now.

I didn't think my first foray into Real Estate would begin like this, but lemons to lemonade it is. Let's get to this funny, sad, and scary little story.

Last Sunday I was at my church, discussing my new ambitions with a friend of mine when an acquaintance urged me to find my mother-in-law. To be exact, she's my brother-in-law's mother, but that's a mouthful so we'll stick to the former. When I found her she was in tears, surrounded by friends, giving her the standard lines.

"The Lord will make a way."

"God has a plan."

So on and so forth.

I asked her what was going on and she refused to speak. She said she was okay and that she would handle the situation. Well, obviously it wasn't okay. One of her friends proceeded to give me the scoop to her great displeasure. 

For five months she had been renting her second floor bedroom out to a tenant who hadn't paid rent since the beginning of November. We'll call this tenant 'That Woman' as dubbed by my mother-in-law. Feel free to insert a scornful tone whenever that name comes up. She asked That Woman to leave by the 15th of November, That Woman agreed, and proceeded to stay claiming she hadn't found a home yet. My MIL (mother-in-law) then changed the locks. When the tenant couldn't get in the house, she called the police, who told my MIL that she had to allow her to enter due to residency laws. 

This is not a sign, I said to myself.

After several verbal tussles, my MIL decided to stay with some friends until that Sunday morning, when her frustrations boiled over and she broke down in the middle of church. Listening to all of this, and recalling the education Bigger Pockets and my REI group had afforded me, I immediately had a few options. All of those options required a copy of the lease agreement, which was somewhere in my MIL's bedroom, and she wasn't going back into her home alone. She genuinely feared for her life, so my friend and I offered to retrieve it for her and she gave us the keys to her home.

This is not a sign. 

Upon arrival we checked for vehicles and signs of activity. Lights were out, That Woman's car was nowhere to be seen, so we headed to the front door with my MIL's keys... they didn't work! Mind you her key chain wasn't a key chain; it was more like a belly dancing veil with keys on it. You could literally (and I use that word literally) wrap this thing around your waist, shake your hips, and make music. I can say that... because I actually did it. Maybe we had the wrong key. For thirty minutes we went from one key to the other attempting to unlock the front door.

Just as we failed with the final key we heard a siren behind us. The police had arrived. My heart pounded as if attempting to escape my rib cage. Look at my profile picture and you'll know why. The officer approached and asked us why we were trying to enter the home, and we calmly explained the situation with our hands outstretched and away from our pockets. They told us they had gotten a call from someone inside the home. That Woman was in there!

This is not a sign!

It was then that I considered a possibility that made me laugh, but I had to confirm it first. 

The officer asked to get verification from the owner of the house that she asked us to do this or else he would have to arrest us. She was twenty minutes away. While we waited two other police vehicles arrived, boxing my friend's truck in. After an eternity my MIL pulled up and showed them her ID. They called That Woman and asked her to open the door. She didn't have to. They had no legal reason to break down the door, nor did they have a reason to arrest us now, but she didn't know that.

The door crept open to reveal a frail lady at least in her fifties. The officers asked her what was going on, and she explained her side of the story. That Woman claimed that my MIL gave her major leeway when it came to paying her rent on time, sometimes allowing twenty days to pass before rent was paid. Suddenly my MIL blindsided her with demands to vacate, and that's when the yelling matches began. After my MIL changed the locks on her, she decided to have the locks changed too.

This better not be a sign!

The officers had seen this several times, and offered to mediate in the warmth of the living room while my friend and I looked for the lease agreement in my MIL's bedroom. As we were searching we could hear every word, and as tempers began to flare, I asked my friend to step in before my MIL said something she would regret. Veiled threats are common place for her.

The room was very cluttered, and talks weren't getting anywhere. Without that agreement everything would be hearsay, and an eviction process would take time and money, none of which were at anyone's disposal. 

Wait... This IS a sign.

This was not a higher power's way of telling me to stay out of real estate investing. This was a lesson in how not to do it. My mother-in-law was trying to be the good Samaritan; she went about it the wrong way. She didn't keep track of her paperwork, she didn't do her due diligence, she didn't set boundaries, and she didn't proceed properly when those boundaries were crossed. 

I offered to take my MIL to my parents' home to stay for the night, and got a spare key from That Woman. When she got settled in I got a boiler plate lease agreement, modified it for the current circumstances, and presented them to my MIL. To proceed with an eviction now would likely result in a long and expensive legal battle, during which That Woman would have every right to stay in the home. Cash for keys was out of the question. My MIL is not an investor; pride trumps profit in this case. 

That Woman had the money to pay rent, she was just ill trained. So I made a few additions to the contract. Payment would be delayed until the 15th of January 2017. If not paid, a three day notice will follow, then the five day summons, and then the 24 hour writ of possession. The rent would be raised to cover the lost profits and it would only cover a six month period, and it would all begin with a small 're-signing' fee. That Woman would avoid an eviction, my MIL wouldn't have to enforce anything, and I would take home ten percent of the profit. Everybody... kinda wins.

Both parties reluctantly agreed, and now I'm in the real estate game. Talk about an entrance!

I'm sure a veteran would have had better strategies. Maybe this is just kicking the can down the road. Who knows. But I used the tools and knowledge afforded me by Bigger Pockets and my REI group. What I had at my disposal was much more than what I had even a month before and I have all of you to thank for that. 

Until next time.