All Forum Posts by: Ed S.

I'm new to lease options but have an opportunity to make an offer. Owner is desperate to sell but owes about what the house is worth. Roughly $160K. Not exactly sure how I should approach it. Thinking about offering $160-170K purchase price on a 5-year option with no option fee and offering to pay his mortgage which is roughly $1200. It's not in a great area, it's a single family detached and an agent believes I can lease it between $14-1500. I would lease it with a $3-5k option fee. As you can tell my numbers are all over the place because I have no experience with options and haven't laid eyes on many structures of these deals. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't see how it is not legal but I guess a judge would ultimately decide. In my opinion it's a fair option for both parties: 1) pay the fee and you are relieved of the obligation OR 2) continue to pay rent until the place is rented. Both parties are taking a risk in either case. Tenants' risk is that the unit is rented prior to their break-even point and landlords risk is that they will not get it rented by that same break-even point possibly ending up with numerous months of vacancy when the unit would otherwise be rented. Paying the fee would also get the tenant out of paying a rent difference for the remainder of the lease if market rates are lower during winter months etc.

Big pain having a lease broken, lots of nail holes to fill and repaint and work to be done: advertising, interviewing, stress etc.in such a short amount of time. When someone makes an agreement they need to stick to it and surely life happens and options like this enable a middle ground to meet.

Thanks Elizabeth, I'll check it out.

Great info! Thank you both. 

I'm currently going through an early lease break and luckily I filled it quickly, however, it was unexpected (1 month into 12 month lease) and I'm updating my lease for the next tenant. I was hoping to get some input from the BP community as to what you put in your lease.

Some things I've seen is:

- ~2 months rent

- keep SD

If you keep these do you let them out completely or are they still on the hook until you fill the place on top of these fees? 

Thanks in advance for any help on this topic!

Thanks Jim, I'll just fix the problem myself and consider it a lesson learned. I'll fork out the $300 for a camera on future properties upon inspection.

fair enough, this is my first purchase so I'm trying to get my bearing on things. thank you for your time/responses!

I've had a drain back up and flood a room twice since moving in. There was nothing disclosed about this issue. After removing wall around drain I found mold which I then tore out all the sheetrock until there was no more. After the second snaking of the drain I had the drain guys run a camera and they diagnosed the problem to be a poorly pitched pipe which is causing waste to build up etc. 

Sounds like the drain guy has been out before for this issue and said it looks like the pipe was replaced but done incorrectly or incompletely. So far this expense has added up and has more to go. 

My question to BP is, are the sellers liable for this issue? I don't have pictures of mold but I do have the situation at hand including receipts and gutted walls. Thanks for any help or advice on this!

Originally posted by @Roy N.:

We clearly outline in our house rules that we expect Tenants to notify us of anything that breaks or is not working correctly - via e-mail if it is not urgent, or to call if it is urgent.

We also provide our tenants with a contact list (velcro'd to the inside of a kitchen cupboard door) that contains the e-mail, office, and on-call numbers for our trade/service providers {plumber, locksmith, etc.}, so we rarely get those calls directly. In our "house rules" we clearly outline when the Tenant will be responsible for the cost of the service and when the bill goes to us {our providers also know this} ... but we stress, if they are in-doubt and the matter is urgent (i.e. poses a safety or health risk to them or other Tenants in the building or if damage to the property is occurring) to err on the side of precaution and call us.

However, the biggest problem for us has not been the calls we receive, but the ones we do not. viz. A little more than a year ago we acquired a tenanted property. A couple of months later, I was in one of the units to check the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors when I noticed the laminent floor in front of the range was badly cupped and wet. "Oh, yeah", said one of the Tenants, "lately there has been a pool of water there every morning." The hot water tank, located in a closet a few feet away had been leaking for a month (or more). We ended up having to pull the floor and subfloor (to dry the cavity between this unit and the one below) as a result.

Formerly, in our student units, the most common call use to be lock-outs ... and always shortly after closing time. Now if a tenant locks themselves out in the middle of the night, they are to call our locksmith and are responsible for the cost ... we suggest they sleep on a friend's couch and call us the next day to get a new key. This spring we're installing our new monitoring/management system in one of our student houses ... the tenants will be able to unlock the door using their smartphone {which they are less likely to loose than their keys as it rarely leaves their hands these days}.

 @Roy N., would you be willing to share your house rules?

great idea(s)*