All Forum Posts by: Jeff Lehman

@Matt M.

Thanks. I called the police last weekend and they stated that while he can't take my money and not do the job, it wasn't an actual crime and therefore he can't be arrested for it. They did volunteer to call him and try to talk some sense into him but I have not heard anything. I'm guessing he didn't answer the call. He's good at ducking calls. What really irritates me is his arrogance and that he's done this to others as well. It sounds like it's pretty common with him.

@Bruce Woodruff

I normally don't pay before service are complete but he wouldn't put me on the schedule if I didn't pay a deposit and no other contractors were interested. I paid $1900.00. I'd be inclined to just let it go but he is arrogant and has done the same thing to others.

I am unfamiliar with small claims courts. There is some sort of "lien" or something that can be put on a contractor. My tax guy told me of a similar scenario where the complainant won the case but the defendant didn't pay so they had to hire a lawyer to go through the "lien" process.

The guy is licensed and is a 4th or 5th generation contractor so I never guess he'd do this to me. How do I contact a license board? Where do I even start with that? Is that different than the Pennsylvania Attorney General? I contacted them and they said his license is valid. Ultimately though they couldn't do anything but ask him to pay it back, which he promised them he would do, twice, but never did.

@Judy Coutts

Is that different than the Pennsylvania Attorney General? I contacted the PAG but they didn't do anything except contact him and ask him to pay it back. He did promise them he'd pay it back, twice, but never did. They are supposed to protect the consumer but they have no teeth.

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for a little advice in dealing with a contractor. I hired a guy to do some concrete work on a wall that I have at one of my rental properties and he initially gave me a start date of 30 days after we signed the contract. The start date is written on the contract. When the time came and went and he had not started, I contacted him and he gave me another date. Because I know it is hard to hire people and I knew he was looking for help, I was gracious and told him that would be acceptable. However that time came and went as well and I started to get a lot of excuses so I asked for my deposit money back, which I probably should not have paid him up front. To make a long story short, I have been trying for over half a year to get my money back, without taking him to court. He doesn't appear to have any money to be able to pay me back. I have exhausted every option that I can think of without going to court but my issue is that I really don't want to pay a lawyer because even though I can very likely make him "pay" my lawyer fees, if he doesn't have any money, I would be at the same place we are now. And I will have spent lawyer fees that I may never get back top of a deposit that I may never get back. Have any of you ever dealt with a contractor in court, on your own? If so, what advice would you have? Do you know what the procedures are? Especially if I have to place a lien against him. Thanks in advance!!!

@Patrick Liska

Thanks Patrick.

I called today and got the fees refunded but they told me the branch has to put a code on the account so it won't happen again for 2 years. I called the branch and that had no clue what to do. They promised they'd call back today but of course, no return call. I'm done with them. I have decided that I'm going to pull the money and just put it in a standard savings account.

Thanks again.

Hello fellow Pennsylvania landlords. I have a security deposit question for you. It is my understanding that the security deposit, by law, must be kept in a separate interest-bearing account. When I initially asked several banks about this, they all seemed clueless except for Citizens Bank which assured me that they knew what I was talking about. They proceeded to put my security deposit into an interest-bearing business checking account and then charged me $10 a month, in maintenance fees. After fighting with the branch (for a month or more) that originally set up the account, I called customer service and they immediately told me that the wrong account was selected and changed it to the "correct" account. Now today I discovered that they charged me a $10 fee for a dormant account.

My questions are, Do the security deposits, by law, need to be in an interest-bearing account? Does it matter if the account is a savings or a checking account? What banks are you using and what is the type of account? In other words, is there a special type of account that is specifically to be used for security deposits?

Any help or insight would be much appreciated.

@Mason Hickman

I used amrent. I looked at other options, some of which were cheaper, but was not sure that they offered anything better than what I was currently set up for. I decided I would make a deal with my prospective tenant. I told her if she goes through with the application and is accepted, I would reimburse her for the difference between what amrent charges and what the other sites were charging. It ended up being $15 that I will be reimbursing her for. The upside is that I got the full report done on her and her son, so it was a win-win.

@Mason Hickman

Thanks for your reply.

Amrent is actually recommended by BiggerPockets. Do you know if the company that you use allows you to pick and choose what checks you want to do?

The scenario I have is that I only need to do a credit check. My prospective tenant has a clearance to work with children which is gotten by doing a background check. She currently lives in a house with her husband but it's going through a divorce so she will not have any eviction history.

Amrent does not allow me to select just a credit check. The other website does not let me select only a credit check either but it is considerably cheaper.

I'm in the process of screening tenants for my first unit rental. I was planning to use "Amrent by Smart Move" to do credit checks, background checks, and evictions checks.

However, I stumbled across a website called tenantbackgroundsearch.com There prices are quite a bit less than Amrent.

I'm wondering if any of you landlords have used tenantbackgroundsearch.com and if you would recommend it in place of Amrent.

@Robert FerrarI used Citizens Bank however it ultimately turned out to be a nightmare until I got it all sorted out. They told me that they knew what they were doing but then set up my accounts as a business checking accounts. They set up one account for each tenant but because they used a business checking account, there were monthly fees. It was about 2 or 3 months before I noticed the fees, I guess because I wasn't expecting them and was not looking for them. It took another month to to have it changed to the proper account. The guy who originally set up the accounts, ultimately had no clue what he was doing and was not even able to change them to the correct account. However when I called Citizen's 1 800 number, everything was fixed in about 5 minutes.

Good luck

As we stated before, just keep checking around until you find someone who knows what you're talking about.