All Forum Posts by: Hooch ®

Hi Guys,

I just purchased a house that has a couple of small billboards on it. Two owners ago and about 6 years ago the billboard company leased the land next to the house for $600 per year. The following owner a couple of years ago renegotiated the terms and signed a contract till 2018 for $1,000 per year.

In the contract the national billboard company tried to write terms that required me, the new owner to honor their lease but my lawyer told me that they should have recorded it and not doing so means I did NOT buy the property subject to their lease agreement. So I am now writing them a letter stating that and that new terms must be made immediately and not doing so in a timely manor will mean $500 a month in lease charges.

I did a little homework and found billboard advertising on main roads in Roanoke, VA, not including the highway cost $650 per board plus an additional $150 for printing your ad. I assume they are not making too much on the printing and most of their revenue is from the advertising costs. I have 2 billboards on my property which are making $1,300 per month for the billboard company.

My question is to any landlords out there that have billboards on their property. What percentage of the total monthly income earned by the billboard company have you found they will accept for a lease agreement? In my new negotiations I want to push them to the maximum they will accept but don't really want to be too far off base because they would just remove the boards.

But,,,, I don't think $1K per year or $83 per month is anywhere near their breaking point considering the fact that they are making $1,300 off the billboards per month.

I've got a question for those here who have a good handle on real estate law and a second part question on insurance ramifications.

I'm a landlord with a number of properties that I have historically bought by paying off negotiated judgments and liens to clear up the title. Most often I am essentially doing a short sale on the property negotiating with the primary lien holder and telling all of the juniors that the owner is getting ready to be in foreclosure and they can either take pennies on the dollar from me or get nothing on the foreclosure date due to the fact that the property is already worth less than the 1st mortgage.

From time to time I run into ones that have boatloads of liens on the property but it is completely paid off so no mortgage. I have no negotiating ground here because of this. So the lienholders want all of their money and they would be more than happy to see the guy go to bankruptcy so the house is forced to be sold and they get their share.

I have been considering buying these houses and not paying the liens and just leaving them clouded on the title. My interest is not to sell the house as I am a landlord. And the judgments will fall off when they are 20 years old (IRS 10yrs) unless they renew for another 20 which is highly unlikely.

The particular scenario I am talking about is a house I will buy for $1,000 and will rehab it for $6,000 and will have unpaid taxes that will have to be paid which will be about $800, closing costs of about $800 and will have it rented in a few months for $500/mo

My questions are:

I understand the junior lien holders can foreclose on the house for payment of their lien which would cost them I guess around $2,500 to do. Most of his liens are well under $2,500 but he has one that is the oldest in the early 90's to a hospital for $3,000 and one in 02 for $6,000. Most of his liens are criminal judgments, many are Virginia vs Him and it doesn't tell specifically what they are for, one eviction and a couple child support that are in the 3K range. Is there any reason you guys see that one of these juniors would want to foreclose once I bought it or am I pretty safe as I have heard in buying it and not paying the liens? What are some factors you see that would motivate a junior lien holder to foreclose considering the cost of doing so?

Also, I don't think the insurance company is going to insure it without title insurance on it, which I won't be able to get due to the fact that it will remain loaded with liens. Am I wrong about this? And if not, in what ways should I protect myself from lawsuits, etc. Should I put it in it's own llc and get a personal umbrella or something like that? If it burned to the ground I would be out about 8K, if it happened prior to the first couple of years of getting rent. I'm not too worried about that.

Sorry that it is a pretty loaded question but I would like to ensure that I am taking a good risk prior to doing so. Watcha think about this deal?

Thank you for your advice on this. It has been very helpful!!!

Ok Guys,

I've possibly got a brain twister for ya and need some ideas on what I can do to help myself and my brother out.

Most of my property is owned by me alone. My brother is presently in a divorce. We own a house together, equil shares, between him, my mom and I. He did not pre-plan a potential divorce in any way. During his marriage, my mom's company gave a loan of about 45 to me and him to buy the house, rehab it and set it up in an LLC.

Now, in his divorce, the soon to be X is going after our rental property. About a week ago we got a business line of credit on the house for 50K of which only a couple thousand is actually on the line which was closing costs. We never recorded anything at the courthouse for that 45K that was loaned by my mom's other corporation.

My brother is now having to give her lawyer a deed and other information so the judge can determine the equity in the property. A recent valuation of the property shows it to be worth 77K.

Anyone have any ideas on how we can protect this asset? Technically it has a loan against it of 45K that was unrecorded, and a business line of credit loan on it for 50K which only has a couple thousand on it spent.

And will the judge think there is some funny stuff going on if we went down and recorded another lien on it right now for that one that we never recorded. We would be able to prove that the money was transferred from her company to this houses llc.