All Forum Posts by: Randall Brown

one more thing.. since this is a guest house on the same parcel as your primary residence, the tenant may have a bit less protection.

People who rent rooms in your primary residence only get 14 days. A detached guest house.. I am not sure.. would err on the side of caution.

Check on this too.

I am not sure why or if original poster "missed the boat" by 1 day to give notice for January 1st.

December has 31 days. Today is November 30th.. he can post a rent increase notice today on the door and also mail it.

In California, an cumulative increase of more than 10% within 1 year requires 60 days. Up to 10%.. 30 days. Check your local laws.

Block the complainer's phone number from making calls with an auto-responder to send text messages. Read the messages when and ignore or respond as required.

losses from active income can offset e.g. a spouse's W2 income.. it is advantageous to call it active vs passive..

I knew a guy with a similar property in California, and he dropped the plan when he learnt that the bridge and road would have to support a fire truck. in his case, road and bridge would have cost more than the value of a house in the area.

Yes that is true. Under 5 is minor land division (MLD). Less paperwork with the government (BRE around here)

Cannot speak for your utility but most give you some credit for the existing infrastructure. E.g. in Santa Cruz, you tear down 1 housing unit with water and build 6 new ones.. you pay for 5 new water services.

Around $7k for each.

Another water company looks at the number of bathrooms before and after to determine fees. Ususally, the teardown had only 1 bath, so this is not good news either.

Small private water companies .. charge much more.. $30k in Los Gatos Mountains for a water meter, a few years back.

You might want to check with AT&T and similar providers (phone/ data/ TV) what they require.

For a small subdivision, we had to dedicate a 10' wide stripe of land to the city and build a sidewalk for them in this stripe. OK.

The stripe had a utility pole that we agreed to move 10' inwards. No problem, cannot be so much to move a pole. However, this pole had data cables for a couple of residences.. AT&T requested $70k to swing their wires. Comcast is on that pole too. After the $70k, I did not bother to call Comcast. [The project is still moving forward.. 70k was 3 years ago.. it's more now]

The following is all based on the assumption that your tenants are NOT overloading the breaker. If they use more than 15A, then you have to educate them or upgrade the wiring.

There is at least a 50% chance that the breaker has gone faulty. I have seen this happen several times. Some last 30 years, and others 2 years.

--> replace breaker.. 1 guy for 10 minutes plus $40 for the breaker.. 

Next possibility: one of the outlets has faulty or lose wiring. Modern ARCfault breakers will trip from this but they have been around for 10 years only (not sure?).. unlikely that your building has those. 

Worst case: a rate chewed on the wiring somewhere in the wall and causes an occasional short, like when a heavy truck drives by. I currently have exactly this situation, but in a basement where the wire is exposed. If the damage is inside the wall.. good luck.. have to rewire the entire rooom.

Costs maybe 2 guys 6 hours?

By the way..

The rating of the wire is printed on the wire. You can see it by opening an outlet -or easier- at the breaker itself. It is unlikely that you have 20A wire and they put in a 15A breaker.

Reason.. thicker wire is harder to work with (does not bend easily..) and makes installation of those blue boxes for outlets more difficult. Once the installer has gone through the hassle of installing 20A wire, you bet they will put in a 20A breaker.

Unless someone replaced it years later...

Good luck.. you might get away with a $100 service call plus $40 for a new breaker!

This is a dangerous suggestion and should not be left uncommented. It is correct that overloading the circuit would cause the breaker to trip. Replacing the 15A breaker with a 20A breaker would solve the problem,

However, the breaker is sized matching the rating of the wire. Basically, if during installation, they put thin (cheap) wire in there, it would be a 10A breaker. A little thicker wire.. can carry 15A.. gets a 15A breaker.

Thicker wire.. 20A breaker

What happens when you just replace the 15A with a 20A breaker? The wires get too hot and an electrical fire.

The insurance better not read this thread then.

The diagnosis from the original post is correct.

Maybe you can use this opportunity a nd add a new circuit, so that the 2 bedrooms have separate circuits. It will not add a lot of cost (a breaker costs $40.. or if they put in an ARCfault breaker.. $60)

Good idea with giving them name and date of birth in order to allow deposits.

However, if they deposit a check into your "secret" account, and their bank allows them to see the image of the cleared check, the back of the check usually shows routing number and account number where it was deposited. They would know your account number easily.

2nd, I quoted the part about the physical address vs PO Box. In some states that may be thin ice to walk on. You may need to give them an address where papers can be served. You could use your attorney's address or an office address for that purpose.

There is also something about giving them choices how to deliver rent and who is responsible if the rent is "lost in the mail" (you give them the bank deposit option, so you are probably fine in this regard).

E.g. if you only provide a PO Box and no other means to pay rent, then a judge may hold this against you.