All Forum Posts by: David Dachtera

Thanks Mike. That is what I was thinking too. The company is Tri State Property Services owner is Rebecca Gabbard( or Cirisan )  she uses multiple names. She does property management in Toledo and owns Flippin Crazy club and she buys and flips homes all over Ohio and Florida. She started out great but this last year has been hell trying to get correct rental income..constantly trying to get her to communicate with me etc. every month for the last year I ask why I’m not getting paid the balance in the ledger and she always says it’s because some of the funds are advanced rent payments that I won’t get till the next month…been going on awhile. Well now everything was sold and closed escrow Sept 7th…and I’m still trying to get my money. Then in closing I find out about huge water bills and see the monies she took from me in 2022 never hit the water department as a payment and she is refusing to address this with me. I’ve sent her proof from the water department, copies of leases showing the deposits paid, a copy of the ledger from her records that shows the balances and missing deposits and water bill deductions. I’m ready to fly out there myself…and stand in front of her office until she cuts me a check…at this point with what she owes me it will be worth it. 

I have 2 rentals (they are townhouses right next to each other) for 2 years now, I have been doing air BNB out of them and the return is great and I was able to make this my full time job by doing the cleaning on my own! I love it and I’ve never been happier! 

When I first started I went to city hall, and asked if there was anything I had to do and to make sure it was allowed, they basically just told me everything fine it’s so new we really don’t have any rules in place do what you want…. Fast forward 2 years I get a letter in the mail saying I am to shut my air bnbs down immediately! 

Now I didn’t know much about zoning or any of this until this happened but I’ve did a lot of research, and I think what they are doing is illegal, they are treating me as if I am in a U-1 zone but I am a U-2 and in the picture below it says I am able to run an apartment hotel in this zone. So I’m unclear why I need to even go in front of city council and the zoning commission (and they also told me I will be denied before even giving me a chance)

Now they sent me a email the day of,  cramming both meeting with the planning and zoning back to back, today! 

If anyone is able to give me any advice or help. It would be appreciated!

I am in Brookpark OH and in a U-2 A4 zone

This is not my first time finding out that a property I had UC had too many deferred conditions. But it's the first time I'm not getting my earnest money back.

The sellers accused me of acting in bad faith. However, their MLS listing stated the house was a 4-bedroom, and the 4th bedroom was in a partially finished basement, had no door, no light switch, no closet, and egress was not compliant with code. Also the so called bedroom was adjacent to the location of the room with the gas furnace & water heater and AC, and I was told that if the furnace was drawing air from the adjacent "bedroom" it could not be used as a bedroom or "office". I think that's why the entry door was not hung. I'm not sure I could get a building permit to convert this room into a bedroom.

There was only one light switch in the basement located at the bottom of the stairs and it operated both basement ceiling fixtures. (The mechanical room had a ceiling light with a pull chain.) So I should have walked away but now I'm looking at a dead loss of $5K. The property is in a very good well-maintained older location and had a lot of curb appeal. Sellers had done a fair lipstick job on the main and part of the upper floors.

The sellers installed a $50,000 solar array of 12.8 kw, which I also found out was way too much capacity in that location for the sole purpose of lowering the electric bill. The MLS listing also stated that "there would never be an electric bill" but our utility doesn't refund any money, they deduct if from the cost of the other utilities. There is always at least a $17/month basic service fee. So more BS in the MLS listing.

The sellers borrowed the money to pay for the solar array. I was surprised that they were able to borrow the total price. If it had been a leased system I would not have made an offer.

It took the listing agent about 10 days to respond to my requests for the sellers utility bills so i would be able to see how the solar  system performed. She never asked the sellers to provide them, according to my broker.  And there was no other way to learn how the system functioned. This foot dragging made it really difficult to do any realistic cash flow projections.

As an interesting side piece of data, the (currently getting divorced) sellers borrowed the $50K for the solar system, so they owned it, and it went live this February. They separated and moved out in May this year. Prior to that they had installed a beautiful, very expensive xeriscape landscape front and back, which is a joy to look at, and which also must have sapped their finances in addition to a new furnace, new roof, new central AC, and cosmetics in the interior of the house (LVT & tile etc).

I plan to call a few attorneys to try to determine what my liability would be because the sellers have stated their plan to take me to court if I challenge them.

What's your quick opinion, should I avoid the stress of litigation? Do I have a case?  According to my broker, they can't try to get more money out of me than the earnest money. But if I got legal representation and lost I have all kinds of very expensive liability.

I definitely think they snookered me by withholding the truth and the facts of the solar deal they made. 

Thanks much for reading this far. Maybe I should stay out of the market for a while.