All Forum Posts by: Raman Bindlish

Has anyone tried appealing for Tax Assessment in Sacramento (or generally in CA)? My duplex was bought last year and I paid almost 20% below assessed value. Based on the market study, I see that it was not a steal and most of the duplexes in the area have comparable sale / listing price recently.  Also, my appraisal came out to same price as listing price. How do I go about appealing for tax assessment? Is it worth all the trouble to get 20% discount on property tax? I am cash flow positive with decent returns but it would definitely help me if I could reduce property tax further.

Also, I do not think I completely understand how property tax changes in CA based on a change in ownership. Based on sale price, does county re-assesses the property? What is the criterion for them to re-assess the property to lower value? i see that it immediately get assessed at higher price as soon as the purchase price is higher. 

@Brandon HallThanks again for a quick reply. I remember reading on IRS site that depreciation losses can not be carried forward. Is there any specific category of passive losses that i can carry forward? I am using Turbo Tax and I am hoping it will take care of identifying what can be carried forward. 

@Brandon Hall Thanks for your response. My property manager did advertise this property online. So, it seems I need to file another state's taxes in 2015. I was hoping I can avoid it. :)

One more question - I understand that I can write off losses from one of the property against gains from another rental property. What if I am in net loss for the year across all properties? Can I carry forward the rental losses (like depreciation, maintenance expense, etc.)?

I acquired my first out of state property on Dec 15, 2015. 

I rented it out starting January 2016. So, there is no rental income or expenses of any kind in 2015 other than purchase cost and some pro-rated tax and insurance cost. Now, do I need to show this as rental property in my 2015 tax return or I can add it in 2016 onwards? 

Please advise as I want to avoid filing taxes in another state for 2015 just for owning a property for last 15 days which did not generate any income.

Thanks all for your comments. I believe the conclusion is that I do not have to update the stairs as per current code unless I am making any structural changes to the property as part of renovation. I have plainly replied to the tenants that I am sorry for inconvenience and I will take care of issues which they raised like broken sprinkler, missing light

Other comments on questions on this forum

- Of course, my previous tenants had beds upstairs but I never heard anything from them while moving out (they were already in place when I bought the property last year). I do not know if they had to unassemble the beds while moving down. They did spend a good 5 days to move out though, so they were anyways vacating in bits and pieces.

- For people speculating about the type of stairs, I am attaching a picture below.

@Jim Adrian  It is 1962 construction, so definitely it does not meet recent standards. Also, in the CA code, I see the words "width may be 30 inch". I am not sure if it is a must or just a recommendation. Anyone on the forum who can tell me what is the legally right thing to do in this case if we do not meet 30 inch guideline.

In terms of renovation, no we did not do anything other than replacing carpet and putting in laminate. But I see a point in inspection report that spacing between railings is big and it may lead to accidents with kids. So, I am thinking of getting that done now that it came to my attention to avoid any serious trouble later on. 

@Jennifer L. The other demands are reasonable - there is a broken sprinkler head in front yard and missing light fixture on the way between bathroom and bedroom. But when I was a tenant, I had bedrooms with no light fixtures in any bedroom and here I have fans installed with light in each bedroom. But I hope this is just a 20 bucks thing and I can take care of that request so that they see my making an effort to take care of their needs.

My findings till now:

- The inspection report never said anything about width of the stairway. But there is an issue with spacing of railings being more than 4 inch which is an issue (kid can fall through it). The current tenant family has teenage kids, so I am not worried about that but I guess I will have to take care of the spacings. My contractor who replaced laminate for the stairs claims that he remembers it being around 36 inch (as compared to 30 inch as per building code). But I still do not have confirmed measuments. (One side note - I am 2.5 hours away from property).

- Other than that, inspection report talked about height from tread to ceiling not being good enough as per modern standards and someone can bump the head. But the next comment is "Repair or modifications to the stairway would likely not be practical."

Now, I see 2 recommendations here:

- Just repay their material and try to avoid confrontation. I am ok in terms of money. My only challenge is that I am encouraging this behavior. It is a pretty old house and one can find ways to complain about something or other. I am charging a little lower than market rent as I have definitely not put in a lot of money to rehab the place. I just replaced flooring with new laminate and got a new paint.

- Other suggestion is to tell them that I am sorry for their inconvenience but I am not responsible for this. As these are new tenants with 1 year lease, I am not sure if this will cause further confrontations everyday.

Let me respond to them without saying anything about this other than I am sorry for inconvenience. I have some other complaints in same email which I will take care of. If they insist again, I will have to really think about how to respond. Please keep your ideas flowing here so that I can make a good judgement.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I have not measured the stairway but I had a quick look at CA code and or says the width should be 30 inch. I believe it is not less than 30 based on visual memory.  I do not remember anything specific in inspection report about this. Let me check it again tonight. 

If inspection report does not say anything, can I assume it is not a legal issue and I can just politely acknowledge their problems without committing anything in return?

Hello to experienced landlords,  I just had my first turnover in the duplex and I got following complaint from the tenant. I would appreciate how best to respond to this.  Can this be trouble if I just tell them that they inspected the place before signing the lease? Is there any law for minimum width for stairway? 

"A huge issue that we had moving in was learning that the box springs for our beds will not fit up the stairway- not even the smaller size for kids beds. Had I known this, I would not have applied to rent for this house. Leo had to design custom platforms, purchase and cut the lumber, take it up to the designated bedroom and build all of us new mattress supports. This was an ordeal, to say the least. I feel that this is something we should be compensated for- at the very least, we should be reimbursed for the materials we had to purchase. (I will provide receipts to show the cost of the lumber, etc.) It took Leo two hours to put together each bed- and that is not taking into consideration the time it took him to measure, design, and make multiple trips to the hardware store. I think it's safe to say that most people would not have had the skills or backround required to make such adjustments, in order to live in this house. That staircase is definitely not up to code.  "

All,

I am planning to invest in a multifamily deal in Chicago area. Based on some friends who have invested in the south shore  Chicago, I think there are a lot of positive factors working in the favor of the area. And this deal looks like a good entry point with a lot of potential for capital appreciation due to rent increase and improving management of property.

If you are interested, I would love to hear views from the experts on the forum. Please send me a personal message and I can send you detailed document links.

Thanks,

Raman Bindlish