All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

OMG! What a nightmare! You seem to be having a great attitude. Insurance is such a worthwhile investment, I agree. Good luck to you! 

Hi @Quinton Slay.  First I want to wish you a ton of luck. I don't have much specific advice for you, but I do have a few observations based on my own experience as a landlord and a partner/wife.  I handle the landlording in my family. My husband helps out if I ask, and I solicit his input occasionally, but for the most part, it's my thing.  He is a smart guy, a business man, understands the math, etc.  I could give him a hundred books to read on real estate and he would never find it as interesting as I do.  Conversely, he could give me a hundred books on his business and I would be really, really sad to tell him I couldn't possibly read them because the topic is such a snooze.  I'm smart. He's smart. We are just enthusiastic about different things in this area as @Stewart Wyne  illustrates. Are there certain issues that come up where we really need to discuss and agree? Of course. Is it sometimes difficult to get our points across? Yes, but we work it out. We trust each other to do our jobs and keep our common goals in mind, without requiring the other one to be "in the weeds" with us on the day-to-day operations.   I believe someone else mentioned being clear with your fiance that you're not going to let your enthusiasm run away with you and put your financial security at risk. My experience is that when someone reacts with resistance to an idea in a partnership situation it often has to do with a concern that their needs will not be met.This is fair and it should be addressed. It may be a need for control or security — lots of things can come up that need to be discussed  with fairness and respect. We all have needs that play into our interests and decisions. 

Also, there are often trollish comments in these threads. I regret that because it can get the discussion so off-track and inject negativity into a conversation. My advice on that is to pity the troll and move on.

Again, I wish you the best of luck!  Keep us posted!

When you say he is on call, do you mean that your tenants contact him directly? How many units is he working on?  Just curious.

This is a terrible situation. I really feel for you. I haven't been in this situation before, but I have had difficult tenants the past.  Based on what I've read on Bigger Pockets, I've determined that cash for keys is a perfectly legit route to go. It can bruise the ego, but  it could save you money in the long run as @Matthew Olszak says. 

I did have an issue once before with a neighbor who had his nose in my tenant's business all the time and actually went on to my property and made some unauthorized "repairs." I told him face-to-face in no uncertain terms to stay off my property and I was prepared to involve authorities if necessary.

As @Marcia Maynard says you will need to be very diligent about monitoring the state of the property. I wonder if as you review your initial screening process you might find some holes that you want to tighten up for future screening.  I wish you the best of luck and encourage you to hang in there. Most tenants aren't like this!

Thanks, all for the replies. I appreciate the input. I just need to make a correction to my original post. I see that my wording was unclear when I said she approached the minimum income threshold, I meant to say that she approached the threshold to pay *half* the rent. Not all of it. I also want to note that she hasn't fallen behind in her rent. 

A little more backstory for clarity: I had allowed the original tenant in the unit to bring in a roommate, but my original tenant was the primary and  we agreed that it was her responsibility to be sure the rent was paid.  The original tenant is moving out and so the roommate is left. She qualified to pay half the rent a year or so ago. 

So the remaining tenant has identified a prospective new roommate, but on further investigation (since I first posted)  it's clear that the combined income of the remaining tenant and the proposed tenant does not meet my minimum requirements. Rent would be over 65% of their income. Even the child support won't make a big enough difference. There is just not a way to make it work going forward. We are on month-to-month, so I'm giving her notice. 

I appreciate all the input regarding child support. As I said, I haven't been in this situation before.

Thanks @Samantha Klein  I appreciate your input.  For me, child support just feels like an unreliable variable. For clarity, my tenant actually has two jobs, but the combined income is still low.  

Wondering if anyone has had an experience in rent being late because child support wasn't received.  I have a tenant whose circumstances have changed. I have nothing bad to say about her as a tenant, but I'm trying hard to see how she's going to afford the rent in the future unless she brings in a roommate with a much higher income. At this time, her prospective roommate's income is pretty low, but they have no debt that I am aware of. My tenant is currently negotiating child support payments she expects to receive. In our area it is not unusual for tenants to pay 40-50% of their income toward rent. She is pretty close to that threshold if she actually gets the child support, but falls short if she doesn't. 

So, at this time, obviously the child support cannot be considered verified income, but down the road, once she has a decision, it's hard for me to feel confident that she will always, without fail receive the child support payments, and hence, be able to pay rent on time.  I am all for working with good tenants, but this is making me uncomfortable. At this time I am leaning toward giving her 30 days notice with a good reference.  

Does anyone have input regarding the child support as income issue? 

As @James Qiu mentioned, you do need to give 60 days notice for an increase greater than 10% in California. I agree that 16% all at once is a steep increase unless you are ready and willing to turn the unit over with all the associated costs, and it sounds like you are.  Further, I don't negotiate rent at all. I feel it is a bad precedent to set. If you decide you want to keep these tenants and you've given appropriate notice on the rent increase, I would consider implementing a partial increase, say 8% now and 8% in 3 months if you feel comfortable with that, but let them know when that second increase will go into affect. That way you're not backing down  on the 16%, but you're giving them a bit more warning for the adjustment. 

When I have needed to get rents up closer to market, I've given 2 incremental increases—one with 30 days notice and another 3 or 4 months later, but I let them know about both increases up front so they can decide if they can afford it in the long term. 

I like the flexibility of month-to-month, but if I have a good tenant who likes a one year lease, I am happy to oblige as long as all the terms meet my needs as the landlord. A good tenant is unlikely to leave you in the lurch for rent, and most likely you'd be happy to work with them if they needed out early. Good luck!

I have to agree with @Account Closed mentioned the Nolo books are a good resource for details like this. 

Good luck!

@Cody Cook @Bart H.

We did get it resolved. It took a few steps. I have to say, though that I think the process is going to be specific to your location.  I don't have all the info in front of me, but I'll give you what I can and maybe follow up later.

Key issues in this:

1. After a few calls to the California BRE I finally reached someone who definitively told me the BRE didn't need or want to be involved because it was under 5 units. They said it should be handled at the local level. When I took that information to the city, they worked out what their process would be.

2. My surveyor, the County Assessor and the City Development Director were all very helpful in their attempt to find a path to completing the process. They all communicated with each other by email or phone a couple of times to hash out details that I was clueless about.

3. There had never been an actual "condo" situation in that I'd never set up a HOA or formed any other body related to governing or accounting.

So here are the basics of the steps I had to complete:

COUNTY: I had to file a Declaration of Revocation of Condominium Plan with the County. The justification for the revocation was based on California code as follows:

“No condominium project, as defined in Section 1351(f) of the California Civil Code, has been created because there has been no conveyance of a separate interest coupled with an interest in the Common Area or membership in the Neighborhood Association, as such terms are defined in the Neighborhood Declaration.”

CITY: In order to get the appropriate approvals and signatures, the city had me apply for a “Development Permit.” I had to get a current survey map created even though they were identical to those on file, but I understand why they needed their ducks in a row. I had to pay an application fee (about $3k) and then it went through the normal approval process without a hitch.

COUNTY AGAIN: Then I took the County Revocation of Condominium document and the City Development Permit Approval to the County Assessor and completed a form called a “Parcel Combine Request.” It took several weeks, but a new parcel map and new parcel number were generated.

We have since refinanced the property and expect to get only 1 property tax bill this year instead of the 3 (for the 3 “condos”) we had in the past.

As I said, I think this all rests on what your local laws are in regard to this process, but I wish you a lot of luck!

Jeri