All Forum Posts by: Chris G.

I manage a property where the tenant has paid rent on time for the first few months but the last 3 months the tenant has paid late by almost 20-30 days. I usually reach out to him once to twice a week asking when rent will be paid as well as charging late fees twice a month like stated in the lease and sending out 3 day notices. Rent is due on the 1st and this morning I asked when he will be paying since I know he'll be late, I followed up by saying after this 3 day notice we will file for eviction. His response was "I am going to go downtown and file a harassment suit, I have always paid the rent, it has never been a month behind, renters have rights and this is a form of harassment. In the state of Florida you have up to 90 days of being behind to be evicted and there’s nothing in the lease stating anything about eviction if rent is not paid by a certain time period". He also sent another email stating "Evictions are normally for people who do not pay and I have always paid. I am going to go by everything that is agreed-upon in the lease, other than that I will just go file a claim in civil court. Once I pay rent this month I want an energy audit, or I will have code enforcement involved. I had our energy bill looked at by 2 people and they both said my bill is way to high and i need to get an audit done".

My question is can he actually file a lawsuit against me or is in the right to do so for "harassment" in this case and would anything happen to me? And regarding the energy audit and code enforcement is that my responsibility or just something I should ignore since utilities is his responsibility?

I manage a commercial building in a historic downtown area the bottom level is rented out to a store and there are two apartments upstairs I rent out. However the only way to get upstairs to the 2 separate apartments is by a metal stairwell that's attached to the side of the building in an alleyway. The building next door is owned by an older gentleman and we use to have a verbal agreement that he would get paid monthly and my tenants would get to use his dumpster and use the alleyway to go up the stairs. I got the opportunity to get my own dumpster from the city for a lot less then he was charging us so we took it. He now says he's going to block the alleyway so the tenants or myself can't use the metal stairs. The alleyway is technically on his property and the building I manage only gets around 10 inches off the side of my building . Can he actually block this off making it impossible for the tenants to get up to their apartments? He said he owns the stairs and I would only be able to use 10 inches of the stair width since it's on his property but it's solely connected to my building so I don't see how that is. Would he be allowed to do this or would the city side with him or is this just him trying to scare me into paying him again? Any suggestions would help or if I need to talk to the city about this. 

I just took over management for a commercial building that's split into 4 units. One of them is a franchise name and is the largest unit. Two of the units currently have a cheap salon and the other is a cheap mom & pop beauty store which are only open a few days a week so I can't image they make a lot. The last unit is vacant. The owner who I took this over from has no leases with the current tenants so they always pay late and their only paying around $.85 per sqft in rent when we value it at around $1.25 per sqft. I know telling the tenants we're taking over and increasing the rent an extra $300-400 a month won't be easy as they barely pay their rent now on time. Does anyone have experience with commercial properties and if it's worth kicking them out and waiting to find new commercial tenants or better to keep them there and slowly increase rent over time. The building in total should be getting around $5500 in rent per month and currently is only getting $3000. 

I manage around 10 shared living space apartments in a college town so they are all 4 beds 4 baths and they share the kitchen and living room. Does anyone have experience having quarterly cleanings/ inspections? Around 6/10 of the units are very good about cleaning and reporting small defects like light bulbs or fans or filters needing to be replaced. However the other 4 units seem to for whatever reason not keep the units that clean and report those small maintenance issues. I was thinking of possibly having a cleaning company I use come every 3/4 months to deep clean the living room/ kitchen areas and have me do inspections the same time to keep up with small features like light bulbs, filters, and appliances working properly. With the cleaning I figured it would help for when there are showings and the prospect doesn't see a mess as well as show the tenants how it should be kept. Only the shared living space apartments have this issue I feel like it's because many of the tenants stay in their rooms and don't feel responsible for cleaning the "shared" areas. Currently only the cleaning company comes and cleans the individual bedroom after move outs and inspections are done twice a year or if I'm randomly just in the unit. I'm also in between if this is something I'd convince the owner on paying for or if it would be split between the tenants. If anyone has experience doing anything similar or ideas please let me know. 

@Mackenzie Grate @Greg M.

Yes Mackenzie I was up there again today and tried that but they don't seem to want too. Basically I went through the HOA rules and regulations and no where in there does it prohibit signs (if it did they'd be breaking their own rules) but I spoke to the employees there today and they said they don't want any one else's signs posted up I don't believe this is a rule this is just something they want. Even though they have around 25-30 yard signs as well as a large banner facing the street. They said if I post anymore signs they'll be taken down even though according to the rule book I should be allowed too. Of course this affects my business as their interfering with my advertising and wasting my time. So I feel the only way is to take their signs until they get fed up honestly.

There's an apartment complex where all the units are individually owned however there's a company that owns and manages around 70% of the units as well as work on the property. I manage around 5 units split between 2 buildings. We've been having confusion as the listings online get mixed up with their listings so prospects see their listings first. However the units they rent are around 10% higher rent price then the ones we rent even though the insides are the similar. They have rental signs put around the property advertising so I made some rental signs advertising my units as well however the management company takes mine down. I even spoke to them and they said it's fine I put them up but I guess they don't like competition since my signs show we have cheaper prices. Is there anything anyone should suggest it really just gets annoying since they'll have 30 signs around the property and I put 1 up and it gets taken down and not returned. Makes me want to start taking theirs. 

@Nathan Gesner @Derrick E. @John Gallagher

I agree with all of that. Like Derrick mentioned the one main annoyance is the breaker box being in the tenants home. The owners have offered to basically pay a few dollars everytime they go there since the only utilities they are using is electric. The cottage being excluded from the rental was noted and written in the lease but the reason why I don't believe was necessary to be put in the lease however I did explain verbally beforehand what would happen. These owners would be using the cottage to stay in while doing work on the property but since they recently stayed there and no work got done I believe that's why the tenants were more upset. Their reasons are "we don't know these people, my kids are worried" just a few things the tenants have mentioned to me. I'm hoping this just fades away and the tenants end up getting more use to it. 

@Theresa Harris Well the lease is written where the tenants pay all utilities but the owner never made us aware that the small cottage was connected to the same utilities as the home. They owner doesn't stay for 3-4 months they go to the cottage everything 3-4 months just for a couple of days. 

@Greg M. very true but I wasn't sure if because it's technically on the same land or property if that made any difference. The tenants know because the power that's connected to the cottage needs to be turned on from a separate breaker box in the main home. 

I manage a large house that sits on around 25 acres of land with a private lake. On the other side of the lake there is a small cottage. Before renting the owner mentioned he'd be coming and using that cottage when he fixes issues on the large home which would be around everything 3-4 months. In the tenants lease it states that the small cottage does not come with the rent. I verbally mentioned this to the tenants when moving in too, since the owner would prefer to do all the small repairs and maintenance to save money. However today the owners sister didn't give me a 24 hour notice but instead gave me a 2-3 hour notice that she was going to the property to look at the small cottage. The tenants texted me complaining that they didn't feel comfortable with the owner/sister there even though it's a different house. They also stated the owner would be staying the night and would use utilities which the the tenants pay for. Not sure if anyone has any insight to this as far as if this is right or legality goes. The owners are from a different country so I don't think they think anything is wrong or weird about this but the tenants do.