All Forum Posts by: Greg Brown

Yeah, their living conditions are certainly nothing I would be willing to live in. Which is part of my gut feeling - that people willing to live in a junky house with no running water or heat are most likely not going to take care of my investment.

Thanks for the responses!

I have already had the window fixed. They said there had been leaks when the water was on, so I got the water turned on in my name and ended up having to replace 2 toilets, 2 faucets and snake most of the drains. So they definitely have some valid complaints about how the previous landlord handled the property.

My main concern (aside from the general junkiness of the house) is that I don't see how the math is ever going to work for them to have me the rent on time every month AND keep the utilities on. They've already told me they won't have the second half of this month's rent until the 22nd, so I'm positive they won't have February's rent on time either. I have given them my expectations in terms of paying the rent and keeping the water and gas on, but I don't think financially they are in a position to do it. I suppose I can at least give them to opportunity to try however.

From talking to them, it appears that that water and gas are off because they cannot afford to pay the deposit, and I believe they have delinquent bills on the water account that they would need to clear before they could get it turned on. I did get their security deposit transferred over at closing, so I have that at least.

And that is an excellent suggestion about talking to my attorney, I will give him a call today.

It is actually in a decent neighborhood. The previous owner let the place get pretty run down though.

So I recently bought my second duplex, which came with existing tenants in both units. Both of the tenants have aspects that I'm not thrilled about (less than clean living habits), but the tenants on one side just set my alarm bells off.

When I inspected the house before purchase they were living with no water or gas service to the house (they are responsible for utilities). And they had a broken window in the front bedroom that they were living with. And they have a bunch of junk in the back yard (mostly scooter parts). And now that I have the property I just found out that their agreement with the previous landlord was that they pay 1/2 the rent every 2 weeks, meaning that per my lease they would be late every month with the full rent.

They are on a month to month lease, so I can give them 30 days notice to be out whenever I want. I have been going back and forth in my head on how much of a chance I give them to step up and become better tenants before I just give them their notice and end their lease. The old owner apparently had completely stopped fixing anything on the house, so I can see why they weren't taking care of the place either. But I have a strong suspicion that if I ran them through my screening they would fail for too little income. But I don't feel right making them go through screening for the place they have already been living for over a year.

Anyway, I'd like to hear thoughts/opinions. Thanks.

Thanks for all the input. I'm still taking applications on the unit, so I'm hoping to get one that can make the rent WITHOUT a co-signer.

I just bought my first rental property in November (a duplex), and am currently trying to rent one of the units in it.

I have had one nice young lady that was very interested in renting the apartment, but she did not meet the income requirement (3x rent). She has asked if she can have her mother cosign on the lease so that she can rent the apartment. Thus far she is the only prospective tenant to give me a completed application.

Assuming she meets my other criteria (no evictions, no felonies) should I allow her to rent the unit with her mother as the cosigner? And if so, should I screen the mother?

The whole code of Virginia is available online. Title 55, Chapter 13 covers Landlord and Tenants.

https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC55000000013000000000000