All Forum Posts by: James Qiu

 So if you gave her the 60-days notice on May 17th, shouldn't you wait until July 17th to file the eviction? If you filed early on July 11th, she could legally go into Court and fight you on procedural ground, and you will lose and have to start all-over again. Am I missing something?

I think you're asking two different questions.

1. What's counted as rental income when filing taxes?

2. What's counted as income towards DTI ratio.

For 1, the income is always the net income (eg. rent - all expenses and depreciation). In your example, I'm assuming $15K is your gross rent, so your actual net income is probably much lower (reported on Sch E). Also depending on if you're real-estate professional or not, you may or may not be able to deduct rental loss against your W2 income. For 2, different lender has different treatment wrt rental income. The more strict ones only count 75% of your gross rent but 100% of your expenses (without depreciation). It's to assume that 25% of the time, your rental will be vacant. 

@Tracy Stanley obviously your landlord does not want you there anymore and is playing hard ball. Since the amount owed is more than your rent already and most likely your deposit also, you will have to move out some time before your lease ends, because it won't be renewed. So you can:

1. Find a new place and move out, but terminate your lease cleanly.

2. Live there until the lease ends and pay the rent in full (w/o the late fees), but don't be late, because he will try to evict you. In most states, the landlord cannot collect late fee in a judgement, but he can keep the deposit to cover the late fees.

When unrelated tenants share utilities, it's best that the account is owned and paid by the landlord. You can either charge higher rent or divide up the utility cost based on a rule clearly stated in the lease. If one of them doesn't pay, it's ground for lease termination and eviction. But now, I'm not sure if there's an easy way out. Because water is such a necessity, if you don't turn it back on quick, the good tenant might stop paying your rent legally. If you take over the account and turn the electricity back on, don't expect the bad tenant to pay their half, because there's no contract. But that might be your only option. If they don't pay their half, you just have to take them to small claims court for stealing your service.

 This doesn't work in CA. The response to a law suite still needs to be filed with the Court hence paid and properly served to the Plaintiff which also costs money.

Echoing what most people said here, racism and discrimination exist in every country and culture in varying degree. You can't change that but you can change how you react. If you think like a victim and act like victim, you always will be a victim. I'm yellow and Chinese in the tech sector by trade. From very early on, I knew I'd probably never be able to squeeze into some circles in a corporate environment. But that didn't stop me from finding my own niche and be successful (at least I'd like to think that I'm). I can't change the color of my skin, but I can change where I conduct my business. I believe that money knows no color. When I first came to this country with little money, BoA refused to open an account for me, but these days my bank manager knows me by name and have a designated private client banker serve my needs. I don't really care how they think of me in private, but I sure know they treat me much better than some white (or purple) guy with less zeros in his bank account. In today's world you can't demand respect, you have to earn it. It just happens that REI is the one profession that gives you more control over your own destiny than working for someone else in most corporate environments.

What does your lease say about pests? Normally you're responsible for getting rid of pests (or at least make reasonable efforts) and refund the rent for the period the tenant is forced to temporarily live elsewhere, but you're not responsible for their property lost. In CA, a pro-tenant state, I'd suggest offering the tenant some incentive (100% deposit refund and prorate the rent plus $100 moving) to terminate the lease so you can apply treatment properly. There are too many ways a tenant can make your life a living hell in CA. Never assume a judge or a city code enforcer will side with you when there's the slightest doubt.

The only reason you don't want to rent to her (assuming she is qualified) is in 6-mo you have to do this all over again. Normally short term lease demands more rent, so you can charge her 15-20% over your normal rate. This way after 6-mo, you have some extra cushion. If she agrees, there's very little down side. But make sure you still charge her security deposit, just in case she becomes a squatter after 6-mo. And in your lease, clearly itemize the monthly rent and deposit, because in some states (eg CA), you can't hold more then 2 month of rent as deposit.

In most cases, you can't get more than the security deposit even with the early termination clause in the lease, unless the tenant damaged the property and the cost exceeds the deposit. When a tenant moves out early, the landlord is supposed to make reasonable attempt to re-rent the place, and normally allowed to keep the deposit to cover the rent lapses in between tenants and cleaning/damage costs, and refund the remaining amount. If your tenant does some research on the internet, the cleanest way to break a lease if the tenant intend to forfeit the deposit anyway is to not pay rent at all and wait for the 3-day notice. At which time, she can move out free and clear, because you "asked" her to. I don't think you want to go there, because she would leave on bad terms and most likely leave your place trashed. I have had to deal with early terminations a few times, and each time I let them go and kept the deposit to cover lapses. It actually worked out better, because if they moved out at the end of the lease, I don't get paid in between tenants. In CA, the fact that rent keeps going up makes early termination almost beneficial. 

If you have Chase Business account, you can get deposit only ATM cards for free. I give one to each of tenants. In CA, there're Chase ATMs everywhere. They can make deposit 24/7. If they play tricks (eg. partial payment, bad checks), you can cancel that ATM card any time and ask for cash or money order only.