All Forum Posts by: Allende Hernandez

Good morning fellas, 

Just an update on the situation and consulting of possible routes forward. 

After sending them an email yesterday morning offering a peaceful lease termination by EOM and making clear that any unpaid bills (present and future) plus late fees will be deducted from their deposit they have not made any contacts. I gave them 24h to accept the offer, which is coming up in a couple of hours.

My plan is to issue a "3 Day Notice to Pay or Vacate" as suggested by @Tim Baldwin, send it via email and leave a hard copy on their door. I can only imagine they will pay because its almost impossible to find a place to move a 3/2 house in 3 days.

If this is the case, I could issue a "7 Day Notice to Cure" due to the breach of contract, which will give them a max of 10 days in total...or maybe I should deliver both together and give them only 7?

My concern here is that they may be cooking something.

Definitely, a number of lessons learned with these tenants that will help me tight my contracts and strategies for the future.

@JD, no, I never intended to pawn the utilities off to tenants. There is a montly credit towards the utility bills that I always knew there was the possibility of adjusting it mid-term as I build an idea of actual usage, and I was willing to. The issue is that these people started complaining about some every possible non-sense, I tried to accomodate and then decided to default in their payments to force a negotiation. Had they come to me in a different manner, yes I would have reaosnable adjust the credit event though I hadn't time yet to figure it out. Just for context, with the credit, the first month of their stay they paid about $67 for all utilities, and this month about $282. This foor a 3/2 in Miami is more than reasonable.
Unfortunatelly this situation onfolding now didn't give me enough time to build a monthly trend but I'll have to work with what I have and figure out how to do the next one.

For starters, I'll update my contract to keep utilities under my name and maybe instead of a monthly credit go off a percentage. This will probably add transparency as the credit will increase along with the bill. Any other ideas are welcome.

 Thank you @Tim Baldwin. What if at this point I just want them gone regardless. I don't want to deal with tenants that in all evidence are acting in no good faith.

If they decline a friendly termination, pay and cure, am I stuck with them?

Thank you all, your input is greatly appreciated. Below some comments and clarification requests combined from the different responses.

First, one important detail about the house I left out in my original question because I though to be irrelevant, but after reading some responses it isn't. The house has 2 attached additional units, one is the one I mentioned and another one with a 2 occupants.

Separate trash bins: I already have them. One set of them is dedicated to the unit with the couple and one for the house+lady with baby. They still complained.

Build in some costs into the rent: This would be ideal and in fact this was my original thought when I was prepping the property for rent. There are two things here that ended up changing my mind 

1- I have no history of the utilities cost, so I did not have any idea how much to buid in and I was concerned about losing money at the end of the month without a way out until the end of the contract.

2- The cost of keeping a house like this is fairly high, building it would make marketing the property a challenge as it would be a considerable higher rent than the market.

Separate water and electric meters: Unfortunately not an option in my situation

Lawn care: Lesson learned, this is not a big deal so next contract will have it built-in, as I already have the pool maintenance

Let them out of the lease: Yes, this is my preferred solution now, but they have not asked for it and I am concerned about it backfiring. Communication is in some sort of halt at the time as I told them I will not even discuss renegotiating any terms of the contract until they bring their payments to date, as I take that as bad faith. My plan here is to contact them tomorrow telling them that as they don't seem to be willing to play fair, I would prefer to terminate the lease at the end of the month and that any payments due will be deducted from their deposit. The question here is, what if they decline? At this point I really don't even want them to stay regardless, so legally what are my options?

They are in clear violation of their contract as bringing utilities under their name is a clause, but the reimbursement of the utilities isn't, as I never thought this would be an issue. 

Can I safely stand my ground and regardless of compliance make them move by EOM?

Good morning fellow investors,

I am fairly new in the landlording business and I am facing sort of a difficult situation with one of my tenants that is making me consider finding a way to terminate their contract. I need advice. I am in Florida.

For context, this is a property that has an attached unit under the same water and electric meters that is being rented separately. As part of the contract for the main property, there is a provision for a fixed credit a month to "cover" the portion of the utilities of the smaller unit. The amount was just guestimated as I don't have a long enough history of the utility bills to form a very good idea of the overall consumption. I understand that and I am perfectly willing to adjust the credit in a few months after learning more about actual usage.

The issue comes as the tenant (who has been there only for 2 months, and some of the billing cycles are 2 months) has started to make demands that, to me, are not only unreasonable but petty that are making me guess if I should find a way to cancel their contract.

Some of the demands are:

- They complained about taking the trash bins out for pickup, as the side unit (a single mom and a baby) use it too - To which I found someone else that does it now for both

- Complained about the cost of mowing the grass, as again, other people live in the property - This side unit is in the side of the house and do not share the front lawn - I will not accommodate for that

- Complained about a portion of the house being too hot due to bad placement of the central AC vents - To wich I just installed an extra mni split to help cool doen

In addition to this, our contract says they should have put the utilities under their names within 3 days of renting, which they have not (breach of contract). I even took the job of calling each utility company and detail step by step the process, documents, phone numbers...etc they shoud follow and still nothing.  I've been having to pay them myself (as I cannot just let the lights go off because of the other unit) and sending them the bills for reimbursement. This month they are witholding the reimbursement as they want to renegociate the credit (we are talking about a combined $283 for a 2/3 house with a pool in Florida after credit). Not to say that rent payments are always done a few mins after the grace period ends after several reminders.

I'm not sure if I am being too hard on them or too soft-skinned as a new landlord but this is frustrating me quite a bit. How would you handle this situation?

Thank you!

Thank you all for your input. I guess it all comes down to market and pool of tenants. I can see how an application fee per person can be a deterrent for applicants in my case whether for more upscale rentals people may see it as more normal.

I am starting off as a non-refundable fee and measure the resistance, then adjust if needed. At least plan B does not sound a complete bad idea now.

Thank you!

Hello fellow landlords,

The properties in question are in a market that although it is not cheap, it draws lots of money-cautious tenants. I am foreseeing a bit of a push back or even turned-off potentially decent tenants by the $50/pp screening fee, mostly for a family of 4 ($200 out of pocket).

I was wondering if offering a credit of either 50% or the full 100% of the screening costs from the first or second month's rent is a good idea.

Thought?

Thank you as usual!

Thank you all very much! Carrying on with BGC for all adults 18+!

Hello folks,

When running BGC and other reports on potential tenants and having applicants pay for them, do you run them for all? Let's say it's a family of 4, do you make them all pay for the aprox $40-$50 screening package? It makes sense to me but I foresee that to be a contentious point, even more if they end up not getting the rental.

Thank you in advance!

 Thank you Andrew. Splitting utilities may be an issue in this situation. Costly and logistically. I am looking for alternatives.

Thank you for the tip about gooting the utilities.