All Forum Posts by: Matthew Keyes

Quote from @Nathan Gesner:

Quote from @Matthew Keyes:

Closed on a property in march- 3-unit fully occupied.  They were all midway through their leases which were transferred over, new leases were not signed.  I just gave a tenant 60-day notice that I was raising rent as her lease ends 8/30/21.  She informed me that she has been there 3 years and needed to notify her 90-days prior.  I was aware of the 90-day period but was not aware she had been there for that length of time.  Do I have any options, it is not feasible to allow her to renew the old lease as it is $400/month under market.  I would be ok extending her lease an additional month if that is a legal option.  Thanks in advance!

If the Tenant knows more than you, you're doing it wrong. You have got to educate yourself before they take advantage of your ignorance and really make life miserable.

Contact an attorney to learn what you can/cannot do. Consider joining a Landlord group, reading the law, studying government-created Landlord-Tenant guides, etc. You need to know this stuff inside and out.

$400 below market is costing you almost $5,000 per year. I would consider terminating the lease (if that's an option) and starting fresh with a new tenant that is willing to pay market rate for your rental and that doesn't feel they can walk all over you.

 I think you misunderstood, I know exactly what requires 90 day notice.  She informed me that she has been living there longer than any documentation I have states.  In fact I have documents stating she has not been there the length of time.  As I have never been accused of not giving ample notice, my question was around what legal requirement I have as I am not looking to litigate this matter.  I have found the additional context in our NY property laws that answers my question though and fortunately it looks like the misunderstanding will only cost me $400.

Haha that’s quite all right!  NYs reads “If the landlord fails to provide timely notice, the occupant's lawful
tenancy shall continue under the existing terms of the tenancy from the
date on which the landlord gave actual written notice until the notice
period has expired.”  They buried it quite deep though that the first several times I looked through I could not locate.

Quote from @Bill B.:

I ASSUME, and you will know when you talk to a lawyer, what proper notices are and what happens if the lease ends without any adjustments. Of course these are things you should have know before buying. I will add this si also why I often give people 90-120 notice. You could have given notice the week after you bought. There’s zero downside to you and only upside. The tenants probably know if they’re renewing. If they are great, now you know,they aren’t? Great, now you know. 

So that fixes future events, you learn notices and lease end options and you start giving 100-120 day notices so you’re covered. 

In this case you state may vary and your lawyer will let you know. In NV when a lease ends it becomes MTM if nothing new is signed. So I would let it become MTM and notify the tenant that October first their rent is going up $500, I might even go November first to make sure I give plenty of notice and I’ll be making it up with the increased rent anyway. I have no idea what happens in NY. Hopefully it doesn’t auto renew as another year. If so you learned a $4800 lesson about why you should study markets and their laws before buying and give notices earlier than legally required. 

I appreciate the candor and wealth of information.  I may not have been clear but I am familiar with what requires a 60 or 90 day notice,  I was not familiar with the length of her tenancy as her current lease is only a 1-year.  Going through our due diligence again it does not appear she has been there as long as she states either.  I did find my answer though and it looks like she will get an additional 30 days at her current rate.

I definitely do agree though, nobody should buy real estate until they know every single carve out of their State’s real property laws.

Closed on a property in march- 3-unit fully occupied.  They were all midway through their leases which were transferred over, new leases were not signed.  I just gave a tenant 60-day notice that I was raising rent as her lease ends 8/30/21.  She informed me that she has been there 3 years and needed to notify her 90-days prior.  I was aware of the 90-day period but was not aware she had been there for that length of time.  Do I have any options, it is not feasible to allow her to renew the old lease as it is $400/month under market.  I would be ok extending her lease an additional month if that is a legal option.  Thanks in advance!

Best,

Matt

Hi Anthony-

My wife solely controls the trust.  It’s a rather unusual situation where her aging parents liquidated some assets, placed her in “control” of the funds but would not listen to us on any recommendations to use an investment vehicle.  I believe it is placed in a short term CD through the summer of 2019, I could easily be wrong here...the financial transparency is a little alarming.  I totally understand being financially conservative but this seems to be wealth-adverse.

Hi Michael-

Thank you for the response!  Yes, that is exactly my goal... I want to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable.  Whenever involving family and money I want to make sure to spell out every possible detail!

Hi all!

Looking for pros and cons as well as any additional foresight for the following scenario:

We are looking into buying property and building a new construction.  While the bank has no issue loaning me more money than I could ever afford, there seems to be a lot of red tape around selling our current home, the builder plans being approved, 20% money down, and other bank requirements I probably have not encountered yet.   

However, our family has a trust with double if not triple the funds we would need...I believe it currently accrues less than 2% in interest.  Hypothetically, could we borrow from the trust (lets say at 3% to make it a win-win), complete the construction and promptly refinance/home equity loan to put the funds back into the trust (for their personal comfort).  I may be naive in thinking this is a rather simple solution.  What pitfalls may we encounter?  What documentation could we use to make it legal and allow them peace of mind?

And........go!

Just for to clarify my vague post... they don’t HAVE to live in the new property.  They have a primary residence that I believe they are more than happy to stay in.  I just think they feel if they have to do a 1031 exchange that it is most sensible to them that they just rent it for the 5 years their lawyer claims they would only have to rent it for, and then live in it during their retirement.  Then they could sell their primary residence at that point.  Like you said that seems insane to me since a 700k rental will bet them almost nothing.  This is why I would like to push them in the direction of purchasing a couple multi units that may net them closer to 10-12%.

Hi all!!!

So I will try to capture all the essential details while being brief as possible.  A recent situation/opportunity has presented itself to my family in the past 10 days.  That research has brought me here, to the bigger pockets podcasts, as well as several books I have now bought to learn as much as fast as possible.  So here I go...

So my wife’s parents recently received an unexpected offer (the house wasn’t even on the market) on a home that was inherited for approximate 1.7 million dollars.  That amount has to be split with a sibling and I believe will leave them with approximately 700k to which they would owe capitals gains tax (this I knew, they had no idea).

So I looked around I found out they could do a 1031 exchange fairly easily.  They mentioned it to their lawyer, who told them they could do it as long as it was a rented it for 5 years, at which point they could live in it full time.  Unfortunately,  they are very complacent and also know nothing about investment of any kind.  They would be happy to take this route and not “risk” anything.  However, I feel like this is a huge mistake and would like to convince them otherwise.  From what I can tell they could easily buy and hold property and return 10-12% while using a property management company.

Any advice from those more knowledgeable than I?  Anything that might help me convince them that they have been given an incredible investment opportunity?

Best,

Matt