All Forum Posts by: Jeremy Benezra

Any other input anyone? 

It's a licensing issue.  If you want to offer your construction services to paying customers, you have to be a licensed contractor.  You're allowed to do whatever you want to a home you own without being licensed.  When it comes into play for flippers though is if you want to do a remodel on a home you own and then sell the home within a year.  It that case you would have to be licensed.

As you may have seen in another of my posts, my wife and I recently moved out of the city and bought a house in the ‘burbs! I already owned the house we used to live in prior to meeting my wife. I recently quitclaimed that house into my single member LLC and turned it into a rental. It's appreciated in value considerably while I've owned it.

I know there is the 250k exemption on profits from the sale of your primary residence but that has to have been your primary residence 2 of the last 5 years.

I remember reading a BP post about how to have a property transfer count as a sale without triggering all the normal excise taxes and such.  I searched BP and learned a lot about stepped up basis but couldn’t find this exact situation.

Would the quitclaim from me being personally on title to my LLC being on title count as a transfer? If the LLC could take the property at a stepped up basis then way down the road when I sell the property I'd have a lower taxable income.

Is my understanding of the situation correct?  Is there a way to bend things in my favor?

Thanks!

I feel anything along the lines of "To the tenants of ..." is too impersonal.  

I'm just going to say "Hi, (insert tenants first names)."  I don't anyone could be overly offended by being referred to by the name they wrote down on the rental application and lease.

Yes, I'm very curious as well.

Thanks for everyones' advice!

One of my rentals I self-manage has 4 working women in their late 20's on the lease.  Instead of looking up and writing out there 4 first names in every email, when they email me and when I email them do you think its appropriate for me to simply open with:

Hi Ladies, 

Email content...


I don't want there to be any potential for that greeting to appear sexist or overly friendly or anything like that.  Thanks.

I know I am to blame for not persisting on the issue.

But before closing they reassured me it works.  Then months later when I asked again they said there was some inconsistencies.  To me that means they obviously knew there was an issue.

TL;DR – I bought a house and the seller hid a defect, do I have legal standing to ask the seller for help with the repair costs?

Full story – I purchased a house in March as my new primary residence.  I am a licensed general contractor but still had a home inspector come out and it was worth it as he found a couple things my skilled eye still didn’t see.  One issue that we noticed but couldn’t delve deeper into was the basement bathroom.  At the time of the inspection this toilet was clogged.  This bathroom is on a sump pump to pump the waste up to the height it needs to gravity feed into the house’s septic system.

During negotiations we had many back and forths about the house and one thing I wish I received written but only heard over the phone was reassurance that the basement bathroom does work, the toilet was just clogged during my inspection.  We then took possession of the house.  At that time the toilet was no longer clogged but when you flushed the toilet you could still tell something was wrong either with the toilet or the sump pump.  The toilet successfully flushed only about 1/3 of the time you flushed it.  The other 2/3 of the time the water would rise almost to the rim and then stop there, only slowly draining back to a normal level over the course of several hours.

We moved in and decided we could get by on the other bathrooms until I had the time to fix the basement bathroom.  I then had a hernia surgery, an unusually busy summer of work and investing, and a great summer of outdoors adventures including summiting Mt Rainier, Adams, St Helens, Glacier Peak and many other peaks.  We then had house guests scheduled and I wanted to get that bathroom working.I tried everything I could think of (snaking drains, making adjustments) but couldn’t fix it.  I recently emailed the prior owner asking if there was a trick or something to the bathroom and they told me there were some inconsistencies in the bathroom.

I had the plumber I normally use out but he couldn’t figure out the problem.  I had a waste specialist come out and he pulled the toilet, trying many things, and after taking the whole sump pump system apart we both are in agreement that this sump basin and pump aren’t designed to be installed in this type of installation.  He charged me $400 for his several hours of time to investigate the problem.

I’ve since ordered a new sump basin and pump with grinder and in 2 weeks he’s going to tear the old one out and install the new one.  By the time he does that and I patch the concrete floor and retile everything I bet I’ll be out about $5000.

Do I have any legal ground to stand on go to the prior owner and ask for compensation for these defects that were hidden from me at the time of the sale?

The major thing going against my efforts to get recompensated is the fact that my wife and I lived there for 6 months before bringing up this issue.

What do you think I should do?  Contact a real estate attorney?

Contact Eastside. There is a good chance they will work with you. An extension might cost you an additional point but if it allows you to salvage the project and profitability it’d be worth it.

I heard Eastside has been tightening up a bit on what they will lend on. I’m sure they see some uncertainty in the market and if the bottom falls out, they don’t want to be stuck with a ton of halfway completed properties.