All Forum Posts by: Matthew Slaughter

Hello BP Community!  

We have a potential deal in the works that has a business on the first floor and apartment upstairs.  Plan is to add two additional units to the bottom floor and remodel the upstairs unit.  The only hitch is, there is a tenant upstairs currently,  paying way below market rent and is on SSI. 

There aren't a lot of rentals in the area and most of them range in the $1,200/mo 1bd/1ba, which is way above what this tenant can afford. 

They're elderly and have been in the place for a very long time.  We're trying to find an ethical and equitable solution that would help them and help us redevelop the building.  Has anyone had any experience with inherited tenants in a redevelopment?  We could do cash for keys but honestly, they would have a hard time affording anything.  How do I help this person and not sit with property for an extended period of time before starting construction?  

Thank you for all of the responses!  Love the BP community.  I'll be back to share.

Hi Theresa,

Thanks for the input!  A little more back story; I've sent both tenants who live in the unit the lease and have both of their names on the lease.  Not sure if that is a limiting factor.  Only one has signed.  I've been looking for some rules around this issue but it's very vague.  

Hey BP Community!  So here's the short end; Purchased a triplex a couple months ago.  Utilities have been pretty finicky so I finally have everyone moved to a flat fee, which not being on a flat fee caused some hairs to raise with the middle tenant.  That problem solved.  

However, she still has not signed her lease and I think she is doing it out of spite to provide a feeling of control, IMO.  There are two people living in the unit, one has signed, the other hasn't.  We have language in the lease that states you cannot have a guest for longer than 7 days without signing a lease.  In my eyes, they have breached the agreement.  Can I use the lease language to let the flatmate, who has signed, know that they are in breach?  What are my landlord options? 

Very helpful!  Thank you! @Ryan Fox @Kevin Sobilo

Our lease does state:

"Tenant may not infringe upon the quiet enjoyment right or safety of other tenants through disturbances including but not limited to TVs, stereos, musical instruments, other loud noises, heavy walking, or other disturbing actions."

Hey BP Community!!  I woke up to a text this morning from a tenant living below a tenant who was up all night blasting music.  The cops were called by the lower tenant.  Wondering what the next steps are for me as a landlord.  Should I get the police report and send a letter to the upstairs tenant reconfirming with them the stipulation in our lease of quiet enjoyment?  Thanks!!

Thanks for your feedback everyone.  Appreciate this community.

Hello All!  So, we've had a tenant for a couple of years in one of our duplexes.  She's paid on time, we've bumped the rent with each opportunity but have not bumped it to market rent, to respect the original lease in place by old owners.  We have been more than fair with the tenant.  A couple things have happened over the last 3 months and we're trying to get our head wrapped around our problem child. 

1) We changed to a new PM company.  Unfortunately, they were late with their walk through review and paperwork and sent the lease to the tenant to sign before we could review the walk through, which totally sucks.  So, after the tenant signed the new lease, we realized that her hoarding has become much worse and the apartment was disgusting so we didn't fully execute this lease.

2) We parted ways with that PM company and hired a new one. 

3) Due to the state of her apartment and upstairs tenants asking about a clause in our lease about pests and them not being responsible for the downstairs tenant (our problem child) if their apartment does attract pests, we sent the downstairs tenant a 30 day notice to clean the place up.

4) Downstairs tenant did not clean the place up within the 30 days so we provided her an extension and then she completed it.

5) After discussing this issue with both PM and Lawyer, we were told to just honor the 'terms' of the old lease until its expiration in October.  Terms meaning rent amount, duties and obligations and time.  But, send her a new month to month lease with those same terms and get her into a month to month then increase rent after October while keeping her in a month.  

6) Downstairs tenant has of course lambasted us and our PM on social media but has posted pictures cleaning her apartment, which proves we're working together.

7) She's had the new M to M lease for 1 full month and has not returned it with signature.

There's many more details that i'm leaving out because this would become a long winded post.  To sum it up, we made a mistake in hiring a PM who didn't execute their work correctly, and we made a mistake as landlords in not following the process correctly.  So we spoke with our lawyer and are trying to help the tenant stay in the place by keeping records of cleanliness and not evicting but also don't want to continue to be held on the line by the tenant and not signing her lease.  

How do we get her to sign her lease???

What is RVM?

Thanks!!