All Forum Posts by: Bhushan Shinkre

Hello Bigger Pockets family! I'm looking for a seasoned investor realtor in Tuscaloosa, AL, looking for someone you had great experience working with or would like to hear from realtors themselves. 

@Bonnie Low - totally, I want to find the right landing spot with this issue with Baselane. As a user, I love the Baselane platform and was happy with it, until this ugliness revealed itself. I'm aware of your investing initiatives as we are part of the MTR investor group that meets every Friday, which is excellently run by you. I strongly believe that with 100% digital collections done via Baselane (including security deposit collection) and it's banking service is such a risky value proposition for investors like you and me, as at some point these type of situations will always happen ... and no one else is on the hook other that you as the owner / landlord. We do our best to run our businesses honestly and expect the same from rent collection / banking platforms such as Baselane. If they are going to refund even security deposit no questions asked and unbeknownst to you, why even offer that as a feature / service as part of digital collections to landlords? In fact, by doing so, you're breaking the lease terms by blankly refunding security deposits. The interesting part of all this is that Baselane has digital record of all payments (rent, security deposit) authorized by the tenant on their platform, and they are reverting all collections because of whatever claim a tenant makes as part of reversal?  

@Chris Seveney - I just realized that I don't have tenant's SSN since I ran background via Zillow and they don't share .... I guess 1099 is not an option anymore? Paystubs only show last 4 digits. 

@Colleen F. unfortunately, AFAIK, there is no other resource than go to small claims court and go after her, which will take me $2-3K in additional legal fees. Other one is to do collections via an agency, but AFAIK, they need judgement again. I'll be exploring these options in parallel. If anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with Baselane, the tenant or other creative options ... all ears! 

Ah! @Chris Seveney - that is definitely a clever way of doing it and I read about this in a reddit post. That is Plan B for sure. When you say judgement, you mean an eviction judgement or small claims judgement?

Hello! I recently evicted a tenant for non-payment and non-confirming the lease rules, and would like to file collections against her. She owes me 2 months of rent, stolen appliances and damage caused to the property. I do not wish to go to small claims court, but at least I can try collecting from her via 3rd party service and if unpaid, report the credit bureaus. Does anyone have recommendations to give for local or national debt collection service that is trustworthy - plenty of crappy ones out there? What to watch out for when working with them? Any insights shared is greatly appreciated. 

That is one of my moves is to report Baselane to FTC for such fradulent practices, despite covered in footnotes in terms and conditions. This is just bad banking practice and FTC should be aware of digital platforms like Baselane in many ways abusing their powers and washing their hands off. 

@Colleen F. I'm not sure how they were paid TBH, since Baselane does not disclose that. But, all payments with Baselane goes via Stripe gateway, and they apparently have no choice but to honor those requests due to their agreement with Stripe. I'm reaching out to Baselane's leadership to put some sense in them about good banking practices and honoring legally bound leases, that they ended by breaking through this action. They should take some accountability of these actions. 

I believe so, Jessica - this is where 3rd party processor based digital platforms fall flat. If you have a nasty tenant like I did, you are SOFL. I'll be taking up with Baselane leadership team and will fight it to fullest extent. Baselane charges a small fee to do direct ACH to your preferred bank, but why not just set up recurring payment directly with your brick and mortar bank? That is what I'm doing now, with just tracking in Baselane. 

Few corrections, tenant simply decided not to pay rent and took further action of asking for refund of all prior payments (legally made via Baselane), which Baselane paid out no questions asked. Since my bank account had no funds (I transfer them fully as soon as rent collections deposit), Baselane basically paid those refunds from their own pocket and now are coming after me to recoup them. This is an extremely unusual practice, never seen this in 15 years of my investing career. Hence, I'm making you and my fellow investors aware that this may happen via Baselane.