All Forum Posts by: Brian Ledbetter

So the general agreement here is that $50 per day is “crazy”, but is there no recourse for having multiple pets for over a year when the lease clearly stated that pets are not allowed? What if it were $2 per day, would that be more reasonable? If the only way to recoup costs from their violation of the lease agreement is through cleaning pet damages, what’s the point of having any such fees in a lease?

@Brian Van Pelt I don't intend to try to collect the money - I know they don't have it. I just wanted to know about using a security deposit to cover at least some of the fees.

Can a security deposit be used to cover unauthorized pet fees in a rental? I have a tenant that moved out and they had two unauthorized pets, a cat and a dog. I confronted them about this since the lease clearly states that no pets are allowed, and further calls for a fee of $50 per day, per animal. They admit to having the pets and acknowledge they would owe all fees. They even specified the date they got the animals and calculated what they owed, which was well over $10,000. I know there is no way they could ever pay that, but now that they have moved out, can the security deposit reflect that they owed significant pet fees and they will therefore not be receiving a refund of their deposit? To me the easy answer is yes, but I wanted to get some other thoughts. Many thanks.

Count me in. Thanks for setting this up.

So glad I found this post!! I’ve been trolling the forums for a while and this is my first post. New to real estate and the first yellow letter campaign just hit the streets. But based on much of the feedback, it seems I may have made a poor marketing decision. Oh well, they’re out there now…

Two phone calls so far and the second caller was ONLY interested in how/where I got his name (Absentee owner). As I politely tried explain that I work with a marketing company he interrupted me, “What’s his name? Who is it?” Of course I wasn’t going to provide that information but instead proceeded to give some quick background on who we are and what we do (as best I could, since I’m new to all this). He then told me that I had information that I shouldn’t have. Still trying to be nice, I apologized and offered to take him off my lists but also advised him that property ownership is public record. He argued otherwise, and then proceeded to tell me that he doesn’t even own the property in question (which I know to be incorrect).

So, that conversation led me here, where I have found much comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in less than receptive direct mail callers!!