All Forum Posts by: Brittany Farrell

Hi Noah, 

Thank you! I really appreciate your feedback and encouragement. I acknowledge I made numerous mistakes, but I do think I have a lot working to my advantage here. I believe all of the remaining clients following me to my independent company shows that the bulk of the value of the company that I shared with her, was based on my contributions. I also have lots of texts to back up my case that she represented the whale client as being a shared client. 

Did you know that BiggerPockets doesn’t allow the deletion of posts? Nor did I. Luckily, I didn’t give my real last name, and I actually live and work in Southern California so there’s little chance this will be linked to me or my case. 🙃

Anyways, that’s again for your response. :)

Thank you for reading. I’ll try not to get too in the weeds here, but I could really use some advice. I know I made a lot of mistakes here, and if I could go back would certainly do things differently.

Key facts:

• no written partnership agreement 

• In business for 1 year, with 8 total combined clients

• 2024 total income $29,500

• No shared business property or initial investment. All listings and bookings belong to the homeowners. 

I live in a VERY high demand tourist area with lots of rental properties and I have been working in property management for 5 years. 2 years ago, I ventured out onto my own because I was pregnant and wanted to work from home and stay with my baby. I had a few properties when a lady that owned a cleaning company I had contracted with previously approached me about combining forces on a property management company. She was studying to get her CA Broker’s License which would fully legitimize us, and allow us to manage funds on behalf of the homeowner’s and have ownership of the listings and reservations. (As opposed to building/soliciting them on behalf of the homeowner, and having them belong to the homeowner.) This would have been highly beneficial and is the sole reason I decided to join forces with her. She was also the “boots on the ground” person which allowed me to work remotely and be with my baby. She was supposed to have her brokers license by Dec 2023. She never accomplished this, but we took over management of a few houses and slowly grew throughout the year. 

Over the summer, we got a “house manager” position at a very elite clients multi-million dollar property. This was not in line with the rest of our properties, as it wasn’t a rental property, but we decided to take it on anyways at it paid a high hourly income, and would likely bring in more than all of our other properties combined. My business partner had done work with this client through her cleaning company previously and headed all communication with this client including all invoicing. She told me there was no written contract with this client. 

We had a shared Google drive account with all other homeowners information uploaded into it. Despite multiple requests (and promises to do so in text messages) across the span of months, my partner never uploaded the relevant information on this client, including the invoices. Upon requesting this information at the end of October via email, my business partner responded that “as previously discussed” this client was more of a client of her own separate cleaning company and not our shared client. (She was supposed to have fully combined her cleaning company with our shared company by 9/1/24.) I tried to reason with her and get her to retract her statement, explaining that I continued contributing clients and work to our shared company based on the fact that she represented this elite client as being a shared client. She dug her heals in and refused to correct the issue, and disclosed that she had been invoicing this client from her own separate cleaning company the entire time. 

Since she had gone rogue, I locked her out of out email account and Google drive folder. There was client bank account information in the folder and she could have done significant further harm to our business. I still tried to reason with her to see if we could repair this, but she hired a personal injury lawyer (who happens to be a cleaning client of her) to start emailing me demanding I give her $125,000 for her 1/2 of the business, or else they are going to file a lawsuit. They even emailed me a draft version of the lawsuit they are “planning” to file. 

I filed for a business license and started my own company. I informed her lawyer I was planning to solicit all of the clients, and proposed an agreement where I agreed not to contact the elite “whale” client if she agreed not to contact the remaining clients, and if we didn’t reach an agreement, I’d assume we were both free to solicit all clients. I never heard back, but all 7 clients apart from the “whale” client re-signed with me. I have not contacted the “whale” client. 

I’ve since hired legal representation, but we are in very initial stages so haven’t gotten anywhere yet. My lawyer is saying best case scenario, it will be a walk away with her taking her one “whale” client and me keeping the rest. 

How much exposure do I have? I know there is no basis for the $125k number, but should I be bracing myself to pay her out something? Her lawyer is a bully, and has provided 0 documentation to support his #, but is holding firm to that number. I know he’s just trying to scare me, but it’s working. I have an almost 2 year old now, and just want this to be done. I’m losing hope of this settling out pre-litigation. What is the likelihood that her lawyer will proceed with this? He is super sloppy in communications, constantly calling me and our business the wrong names which seems to show a lack of care. If this does proceed to court, am I screwed? 

Any input would be greatly, greatly appreciated. So many lessons learned, and yes, I’m beating myself up over and over for trusting so much and being so loosey goosey with things.  

I am posting this on behalf of my mom, who is in pretty desperate need of some help. 

My mom owns some land on the Nebraska/Colorado border. There are windmill blades from Colorado being stored on her land in Colorado. The tenant aka “the Company” originally leased the land from my mom’s (now deceased) husband. My mom’s husband was a good-ol-boy who would give anyone a deal and the shirt off his own back. Seriously. This was a handshake type deal, and the tenant was paying just a couple thousand dollars a year for 5-6 acres of land where the tens is storing 204 old wind energy blades. Yes, 204 of those massive blades. The company never paid the $ on time, but eventually always came through. I remember asking my mom’s husband years ago what he was going to do if they didn’t remove them, and he jokingly said he didn’t care because it would be my problem someday. Those words are haunting me. 

My mom has established new lease terms with a 5 year lease agreement with the Company in an effort to protect herself against the possible liability that would come from having to remove the blades, and required a huge insurance policy to protect her against this too. The Company was supposed to pay the new rent amount by January of 2024 but my mom hasn’t seen a dollar of it. She did get a signed lease agreement, even having the managing partner sign as a personal Guarantor, but not a dollar has been paid. With late fees, per the contract, they now owe her more than $50,000 to date. My mom is in direct communication with the Managing Partner who promises every week that he’s going to send her money, but hasn’t paid a dime. 

She has extended 5 months of grace and meds to take some action. Any advice? A lawyer? Contacting the EPA or other government officials? I don’t want her to shoot herself in the foot so I’ve advised against this, but some action needs to be taken. Any idea what her recourse might be? The Company has major supporters - like Shell and Sherwin Williams, and has had articles published about them in Forbes and The NY Times. Any input would be greatly, greatly appreciated. 

If feels like this big company is taking advantage of my mom. 

I wanted to reply an update and a sincere thank you for all the feedback I was given here. I ended up offering to open an escrow account to place the remaining $6,000 I “owed” the contractor and should I have no problems after the 5 year warranty period, the $ would then be transferred to him. I took the advice I was given here, and told the contractor should he cloud my title with a lien, I would dispute it. I wrote the contractor a letter reminding him of the sequence of events and his shortcomings. I never heard a word back. I was so close to giving the guy $6,000 just to be done with it, but in hindsight I’m SO glad I didn’t. Pieces of the roof are already loose and blowing in the wind again :/ 

@Jeremy H.

This was so thorough and actually incredibly helpful. Thank you SO much. 

Thank you all for responding and your input. I really appreciate it. 

@John Underwood

Hey.. if you’re not finding these on Zillow, then where do you find them? I know Ohio prices are low, but where are you finding these deals? 

Thank you, Eric. Any specifics you suggest? This is the first I’ve heard of this. 

Hi! I am new here, but I'm in Property Management and have ventured into investing myself, and am looking for advice on how to best grow my passive income so I can stay home with my 6 month old baby for as long as possible. (I'm currently doing independent property management/consultation and work from home to fund this.) I have about $200 - $250k to put toward an investment, but I just don't know where to put it or what is best right now. The Tri-Plex I own is in Grand Junction, CO and I have a Property Management company managing it. It Nets aprox $800/month. My commercial building nets about $900/month, with a relative being the primary tenant. 

I don't think I will qualify on my own for traditional financing with my reduced income, and working for myself. I've never looked into hard money, and don't know that much about it. Should I try to save more cash, and try to buy something outright? If I do that in Grand Junction, I would probably only be netting $1,500ish/month. Or should I be trying to leverage? And if so, how and where? I need this money to grow. Right now it's in a high interest savings account with 4.3% interest so I'm making about $600/month just through that. 

I should also mention that we are currently living in California, but we do not own a home and I’m very uncertain if we will stay here. We have vaccine hesitances, and doubt we will be able to put our children in public school in the state. We’re open to Oregon, Idaho, Colorado and Montana. Buying a duplex to offset a our mortgage so we have a home base somewhere may be another possibility.

My baby needs me.. so I need this income! Any advice/input is warmly welcomed. Thank you so much :) 

When I say shotty workmanship, I assure you I mean it. :/

Thank you, Jay and Ned. 

I really appreciate having a little bit of ammunition, and encouragement here. One mistake I did make, was my building was not in an LLC yet when I hired him to do the work, so I think I may have personally liability should things take a turn that direction. I now hold the building and insurance in an LLC, but I doubt that does much for me. I don't know how any of this works, but if does decide to sue me.. is there a chance I might be paying more out of pocket than the $6,600 I have left on his invoice to pay him?