All Forum Posts by: Carlos Lez

So, I have a 4 bedroom house and have a student tenant in each of the rooms. This evening I received the following email where the tenant is alleging me for racial discrimination and threatening to lodge a complaint against me. I am seeking the help of fellow members to respond to this email (if you deem it necessary). If you can suggest what to write that would be great.

For context, these are student renters. It appears one person is an ultra clean freak and he retained the services of some cleaners and this other person hasn't paid his share. How am I involved in this? He is playing the racism card to tried and rope me in and I want to be sure I steer clear of this by responding appropriately.

For the sake of neutrality I will just substitute terms "person origin A" and "person origin B" in his message below:

"Your new tenant is harassing me.

I have been in contact with your office that I am going through economic hardship, which already feels invasive.

Your new tenant purchased services and I told him I will notify him when the balance can be paid and he is making my living here an unbearable nuisance.

Him feeling privileged to consistently harass me feels like it is due to me being the only person of non-A origin/heritage resident in this residence. This does not feel like equal treatment if I was the same as him.

He said you told them I was moving out and it feels like I am being pushed to moved out and am experiencing housing discrimination.

This is a notice that I’ll be submitting a complain about my living experience in your residence."

I often run into this situation where a handyman job exceeds $600 and therefore necessitates giving them a 1099. However, these people are not too excited to receive a 1099. Complicating matters further, if you hire an unlicensed professional for some odd jobs and they don't have an ITIN or SSN how do you all deduct these expenses on your schedule E taxes for investment properties?

All great comments and thanks Jim K for a very detailed exposition on the mechanics of running a C class rental. These are discussions on the maintenance and upkeep side of the business. It is even more challenging dealing with different personality types and  managing their interactions in a co-living housing situation aka several students renting rooms in a house. One has to end up donning the hat of a hostel warden!

While I agree some of this can be reduced but still there are daily items like refrigerator is leaking. Who goes and resolves that? Do you all have people lined up to attend to these kinds of items? 

Do you have pointers to any websites that indicate the exclusion?

I have been doing student rentals for a long time. I have single family homes with students renting by the room. With students there is bound to be maintenance issues perpetually. I have been handling these myself as it will cost an arm and leg to hire someone to come out and fix trivial things. But I am getting older and find that this is getting impractical. 

I am opening this discussion to seek your feedback on how you address small issues. Like just this evening a student tenant wrote to me that the fridge is leaking water all over the floor. Obviously this need immediate addressing to save from bigger issues down the line but who to call if one cannot go out there themselves. Next will be a clogged toilet, followed by the modem needing a reset and the list continues.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I have been receiving Pandemic Unemployment assistance (PUA) due to reduced rental income and high number of vacancies. Rental income is my only source of income hence my tax returns generate only the Schedule E (passive income). I don't claim a home office or other business expenses and no payroll so no Schedule C. 

The problem is that EDD is now requesting filed tax returns with schedule C etc with would be typical of 1099 workers etc. I am concerned that is they don't accept schedule E as my income then I may have to payback all that has been received as PUA. This is kind of absurd because the PUA is to help out those whole otherwise don't qualify for UI.

Any tax experts out there that can advise/clarify. If you want to take this offline please PM me.

Does anyone have student rentals on this forum?

That helps a lot. Mine on the contrary are mostly students or frontline workers like cashiers, store managers etc. Nearly every college in the country has gone online so in addition, everyone wants out the lease. Who knows if universities will even open for in person classes in the Fall. The government stimulus is not helping landlords in anyway. On the contrary there are bills all over the table for rent forgiveness. There is no mortgage forgiveness, and even it that happens, who covers the rest of the expenses?