All Forum Posts by: Gene Baldwin

Thank y’all for your replies!! Very helpful. We are taking them all into consideration to make our decision. 

@Colleen F. the property managers have made them aware of the issue, and reminded them that the lease specifically prohibits all smoking.We we’re thinking about having the tenant buy it, then if it works, reimburse him for half if it does. Thanks!

Weed is not legal here.

This is a theoretical question.

We have a 4 unit and a 6 unit rental property. If a tenant were to test positive, do we as owners have a legal obligation to notify the other tenants in the building? We would want to handle it in a manner that is professional without the other tenants losing their minds. We do think that it would only be fair to notify the other tenants, but are looking for suggestions on a good way to handle the situation should it arise. Thanks ahead of time!

@John Teachout good points also. Thank you. 

@Marcus Auerbach @John Teachout @Jeff Cichocki

Thank y’all for your input and info. We are trying to figure out if we should charge for water/sewer, or raise rents. Thanks for the ideas!

@Bruce C. Thanks for your input!

Hello all!

Thank you in advance for your time, advice, and experiences!

We recently purchased a property in Wisconsin with 6 units— 2 commercial and 4 residential. One of the commercial tenants is a hair salon, and one of the residential is a 3 bedroom with a large family living there, the other 3 residential are efficiencies. 

The building was built in 1898, and has only one water meter. It is city water/sewer which costs roughly $2,250 per year. We are looking to split the bill between the tenants, but do not have an accurate way to know how much water each unit uses without sinking lots of money into re-plumbing it all. 

As the property owners, do we have the right to decide who pays how much percentage on the water bill? With the hair salon and the large family, it seems only fair that they would pay a larger percentage of the water bill based on assumed consumption versus the single person living in the efficiency... ie, have the salon pay 25% of the bill, 3BR 20%, other commercial 25%, and each efficiency 10%? Or, is the only option to split it equally among all 6 units?

Has anyone else ran into this problem? Any suggestions?

Thank you again!

Gene and Leah 

Hey everyone, we very much appreciate everyone’s thoughts and advice! It gave us a lot to think about, and we learned a lot just from this one little issue. This tenant was on a verbal month to month when we bought the property, and she is a very good tenant, but didn’t want a lease. We just had a nice in home visit with her, and dropped off the lease for her to sign. Since she is a respectful, good paying tenant, we will just do a month to month with her, but it will be a signed lease with all the parameters in it. The person she was gonna have stay with her, is not going to need a place to stay, so that issue went away. However, the lease clearly states that there are limits on how long tenants can have a person(s) stay, so that shouldn’t be an issue going forward.🤞

Again, thanks a bunch, and Happy New Year!!