All Forum Posts by: Donald Crockett

Hi Dale. I know it's been 27 days since your reply (I don't check here very often :)  ) but we received a very good purchase offer for the house in question. There's too much to explain here but everything about is just too good for all involved not to go ahead and sell. It's in process now. 

We did have our eyes on another SFH as a replacement (1031 exchange) that would have been a great acquisition but some one else beat us to it! The search continues...but we're going to wait a while and see what the market does here in the next several months.

We have on vacancy now since September. We have advertised and received many inquiries but no one is qualified. Our requirements are not so high as to be be hard to meet, in my humble opinion. So it seems like there's a lot of people looking for a place to rent, but they don't have the income to qualify for what they are seeking. They might qualify for a C apartment but not a B SFH.

It is a month to month lease, hence the 30 day notice to terminate. Not blaming pay pal at all. Just wanted to be in control of weather I accept rent or not. As I said, it is my responsibility to regain control of the property as quickly as possible and I wanted to do that with a three day notice rather than a 30 day before being able to file for eviction. I have learned since posting that I can return it. I said "No Paypal" and all that because it removes an element of control from me and places it in the hands of the tenant, or so I thought.

Thanks or all the replies!

Well now it doesn't matter because I just looked at my PayPal and the money got deposited. Somehow. And this before our 7 days notice to correct expired. So now we go ahead with the 30 day notice to terminate.

I really wanted to get process started because I have a house in the possession of unknown persons and it's my duty to get them gone as soon as possible.

A question I have for the lawyer now is, 30 days from when? From now or from when the current monthly lease expires. In other words what is the date I put on the notice for them to be gone?

So this topic is no longer relevant to this sub forum and I'll end it here. Take away...No PayPal!

A final thought; it's kind a of a shame the tenant decided to implement her own little passive-income strategy here because now she will likely have an eviction attached to her and she will be paying my lawyer's fees and costs of restoring any damage to the property and related losses. I hope she got a healthy risk premium between what she charged them and what she paid us. She's going to need it and then some!

It's my understanding that we can post a three day notice and then evict if needed when the rent is past due by even a day. And, as I understand it, once the three day is posted we can refuse rent payment and if we do accept payment the process stops.

Our problem at this time stems from the clause in the lease that gives them 7 days from the time we notify them of default to correct it before we take further action. We gave this notification 6 days ago.

I don't have to tell you that going forward, that lease template is not going to be used!

In any event any action we take is at the lawyer's direction.

Our lawyer basically says well, there's how the law is written and then there's how the law is interpreted and applied by each individual court. While the major points are interpreted and applied in accordance with the law by all courts throughout the state, some of the more ambiguous points are not always applied consistently from court to court. He knows this Magistrate's rulings quite well and while he disagrees with some minor things, he said he won't argue a ruling on an insignificant, inconsequential thing because the Magistrate consistently rules in his client's favor (of course in accordance with the law) and some of these Magistrates and judges can be kinda like little tyrants...

We originally had a one year lease agreement which turned to month-to-month.

The reason for the eviction is the rent was due on the first and has not yet been payed, 13 days over due.

Additionally it appears she has moved out and sublet the house to other party(s). There are unknown individuals occupying the house, the locks have been changed, and the tenant who leased the house and previously lived there is nowhere to be found.

Our lawyer says post a 30-day notice to terminate, unless the rent is not payed in which case post 3 day notice. I need to get them out of there ASAP.

A problem is, this is one of the first properties we rented out (10 years ago) and we just used a generic lease agreement template for our Landlords Association. We used it for the first tenant of 5 years and when they moved out we just used it again with this tenant. The lease contains a clause which give the tenant 7 days from issuance of notice to correct. We were unaware of this (though we should not have been...duh) and lawyer said have to give that notice and wait the 7 days before posting a 3 day notice.

So the 7 day period ends tomorrow and I want to move ahead with this. 

Against my better judgment honored a tenant request to make rent payments via papal. The tenant has been a model tenant for over 5 years. Never any problems. The request was made 2 months ago. Now, I am, for the first time in my real estate career of more than 10 years, evicting a tenant, this tenant.

Yes that's right. 5 years a tenant anyone would love to have and then boom, eviction.

Any way, my question is, How can I make it so this tenant can no longer attempt to pay rent via PayPal? The tenant made previous payments with my email address, which I have now removed from my account and replaced with another email address. The tenant still has my mobile phone and office phone numbers and as I understand can use those for payment.

I want to make it so this tenant can no longer make payments to me on that platform and I can find nothing on the PP platform that allows me or tells me how to do that. I suppose I could just close my account but I'd rather not do that.

Thanks in advance for any advice. For anyone who doesn't already know, never allow rent payment via PP even if you think you trust the tenant. Such a request should be viewed, I now know, as a red flag.

Applying for a job has a lot of parallels to applying for bank financing, on both sides of the table. Would you hire someone who came to an interview looking like they didn't take even a little time to prepare, like the job just wasn't important to them?

There is the opinion that the banker is in a sense subservient to you and you owe him or her nothing in terms of mutual respect. That's an extreme characterization of that opinion of course but consider that you are not necessarily looking for a one time loan but you are seeking life long business relationships and networks. Such relationships are built on shared goals and common expectations. Parties engage in and maintain such relationships because they are win-win, beneficial to both. If you present yourself in a manner that makes it look like you have no respect or consideration for the other party (and yourself for that matter)...well it's not helpful. That banker in the little corner office in your home town branch may be on a career path that parallels your growing real estate business and the relationship may turn out to be a valuable asset far into the future.

On the other hand I think if people know what you do for a living and know that you “work with your hands” as they say, and you appear in a suit and tie and it's not a wedding or a funeral, they're going to think you are overdoing it. Now of course many people are wrong when they make assumptions about your job and what it takes to do it well and the person that you are but that's just something we have to live with. As the Davy Crockett character said in the movie, people expect things.

As has been said, usually someone who does not ever wear a suit looks really “wrong” when they do. A suit must fit properly and not look excessively “cheap” of course and the tie must be of proper quality and style...all of that...but just as importantly a man must wear his suit as if he's comfortable in it, not looking like he's out of his element. It's subtle, it's hard to explain but it's obvious when you see it. You gotta be in your element. You can and must stretch and grow, but you don't want to over reach.

I feel a person should give some thought but not to too much to their appearance. They should be clean, neat, well fitted, not worn out and try to dress as is expected the majority of others will. If you don't know, ask...”How do people dress for these events?” But ask several people...don't trust any one person. Don't ask me how I learned that!

M Marie M., as an investor and landlord I can say without a doubt you will encounter fake references. Some people submitting an application will give you the phone number of a friend, family member or other person who will lie for them, posing as an employer or a past/present landlord. I learned this early on when we were using a local tenant screening service. The screener would simply call the number listed and ask does so-and-so work there or live there, and not do the simplest of diligence to determine if the number was an actual employer or landlord.

Lately I have had people show me photocopies of pay stubs, which in my opinion could easily be faked.

In reference to the original post, recently I did have a school principal call and leave a VM message, asking me to call back and verify a resident. I called her back several times. She never answered, the call always went to voice mail and her mail box was always full. That in itself makes me wonder...