All Forum Posts by: Alex N.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll try to convince them that reporting issues is cheaper for their pockets than not doing it :) Most of them (except 2) do report problems immediately, even small ones. And I'm grateful for that since it saves me money.

It is not about the damage, but rather about attitude towards reporting issues. After reading the forums I don't think I can do much in terms of the stick, I guess I'll have to think of some carrots for them.

The story is pretty typical: inherited tenant did not report leaking bathtub faucet, it caused water damage downstairs and was reported by the tenant from below. Water damage is not huge, hopefully I would only have to repaint the bathroom. However my question is: should I just repair everything myself or charge the tenant?

On this forum I see that opinions like "stop shifting blame, man up, bite the bullet" are pretty popular....

But my question is more about: how can I use this opportunity and help tenant understand that they should report issues ASAP even if they don't care about the place where they live?

Complications:

- lease language contains clause that "tenant should maintain plumbing fixtures and report issues", but it doesn't say anything about preventable damage. Even though after I took over the building I sent everyone a flyer mentioning that all preventable damage will be charged to their account, it does not their current lease in any way.

- risk of losing the tenant + related expenses + very unclear prospects of winning this case (they would argue that leaking faucet that was not overflowing the bathtub is not something urgent in their mind)

Poor alternatives (IMHO):

- Tell them to repair the bathroom themselves, but there is no way I can enforce it.

- Fix it, talk to them, give them "last Chinese warning" and hope that this will do it.

** BTW when I called tenant to tell them that there is a leak, they said: I know, in the bathroom. It's been going on for some time. But right now everyone is at work so we cannot do anything.

Thank you for your opinions.

Hello everyone,

I'm a newbie investor and one of my newly acquired tenants approached me asking if he could use Boulevard voucher to pay his rent. I already have couple HCV tenants, however I've never heard about this organization before. I spoke to their case worker and he painted the picture that is too good to be true.

So I'm trying to figure out where is the catch? Is this organization legit? Do they work with the same people as Section 8 program, or they are different? Does anyone have experience working with them? Except initial paperwork I was unable to get more info on what their inspection process looks like, how their rules are enforced etc. For how long do they sponsor people they help with?

Thank you.