All Forum Posts by: James Erickson

I did some research and the water bills for that place have always been high. The one constant is the single man because the other side has had different tenants over the 6 year period he has been living there. Close to 45,000 gallons of water were used from 5/23 to 6/22. Rents here are very low and that $353 water bill takes up 78% of his rent!

I recently started managing a duplex with a single man living in one side and 2 women living in the other side. The water bill last month was $270 and this month it is $353. I'm looking for ideas on how to handle this situation. The yard to the duplex is very large, especially the backyard and the grass is as green as can be. I don't want to make the tenants angry but those water bill are outrageous! Thanks.

I'm taking over management of a 6 unit apartment building and I'm concerned about late fees.  A couple tenants habitually pay late.  The previous manager did not collect late fees ever even though penalties are spelled out in the lease.  My question is what legal precedent was set by not enforcing the lease as regards to late fees?  My other question is when I start enforcing late fees, what do you do if the tenants do not pay them, evict?

I fortunately live no more than 5 minutes away from any of my rental properties, they are all concentrated in a section of town.  When I have a showing I always tell the person to call me when they arrive.  Some do call before they get there but I am rarely burned by this.  Before cell phones there would be many no shows but since I lived so close the lost time would be minimal.  I understand my solution does not work for many people who live farther away from their units, just wanted to give my input as it may benefit someone.

I'm trying to determine how often I should raise the rents on my rental units.  Do fellow landlords raise them yearly without fail or do you all raise them when operating expenses such as taxes and insurance increase?  Thanks for the help.

I have a large 4 bedroom home for rent near the local university and I don't want to turn it into a frat house.  How do I go about legally disqualifying a bunch of college kids pooling their money together to rent the home?

The lease states that the tenant is responsible for the full year, regardless of the reason save those allowed by Texas state law which in this case does not apply.  The tenant has no legal ground to break the lease and cannot take me to court.  I want to know if the rent owed me is due up front or at a later time when I re-rent the apt.

I have some tenants who just got a job in another city.  They signed a one year lease and are moving at the end of this month, breaking the lease nine and a half months early.  I know that they are obligated for the full lease until I re-rent the apt.  Do I collect the full amount of rent remaining on the contract up front and then return the remaining balance when I re-rent the apt., or do I re-rent the apt. and then charge them for the time it was vacant?

We require that they fill in their rental history and job history, both of those are always checked. Believe it or not it has worked out pretty well for the past 45 years! I'm just concerned about liability if perhaps a tenant was a sex offender and we did not catch that due to not performing a background check. The application does ask those questions and the tenant signs his name to it stating everything is true and correct. Perhaps that would absolve you if a tenant lied about it and signed his name to the application?

Must a landlord perform background/credit checks on prospective tenants? I use the standard Texas Apartment Association application and on there it does ask about their background but I'm sure many people lie about it. I guess I'm concerned about my liability if a background check is not done.