All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Marcus Auerbach,  That is great advise and I am for sure am going back to wet signatures and tailgate signings after we have walked the property.  Especially with college students, some being their first home ever, we need to go over rules and regulations multiple times.  My biggest question I always get asked after I explain it to them before lease signing is the no pet policy.   I always get multiple calls if someone can have a pet at the property.  

@Spencer Gartz, Absolutely I know there is plenty of bias towards previous tenant.  

I will check with an Attorney about the clause you put at the end of your leases.  Thanks for the tip.

Actually, two of the girls at the house want to stay and I have switched to renting individual rooms from this point out, at a higher premium.  If they don't want to work together as a group they are going to have to pay a little more because I know it'll be more of a hassle on my end. 

I also found a WLB lease agreement in the back of my filing cabinet and I am using that to get the individual room leasing rolling ASAP.  

@Peter Falk, thanks for the list of provisions.  Rocketlawyer has which state the rental agreement will be part of and you would think that they would know better not to have any of these provisions in their specific state agreements. Oh well - WLB from this point out.

I was using the one from Rocketlawyer.com.  I like that they have online electronic signatures and when you have 5-6 students on one lease it makes it more convenient to just email out the lease to each person for signature.  

I have used WRA in the pass when I first started but the electronic signatures option with rocket lawyer was very convenient.  I'll check out WLB, thanks for the tip.  

Austin, thanks for the feed back. I'm taking this one on the chin and regrouping. Pretty much was one of those gong shows that's in my top 5.

I was served a certified letter by one of the six tenants at a student rental house stating my lease was void because of violating  Wis. Stat 704.44. giving them reason to pick up and leave. This in turned caused a dominion effect of other tenants wanting to leave.  

The reason they wanted to leave is due to inter tenant differences and is a tenant-tenant issue when signed onto one co-lease, with a lump sum rental amount due by the group per month.  

In turn one tenant that wanted to part from the group found an attorney to dig through the lease and find a loop hole which is frightening to me.  Wisconsin is not a landlord friendly state by no means, and after 7 years of being a landlord I am just now finding this out.  

The paragraph in my lease which voided it, which I truly believe to be absurd in my mind, is the following:

The following is an email from the attorney after I questioned his logic.  I basically started:

​This subsection does not prevent a landlord or tenant from recovering cost or attorney fees under a court order under requirements ch 799 or 814." Mr. Andrew you are not interrupting this correctly

Wis Stat. 799 and 814 dealing with cost from evictions and property damage.

His response:

Mr. Schlough:

1. Wis Stats 704.44(4m) prohibits a clause that: Requires payment by the tenant of attorney fees or costs incurred by the landlord in any legal action or dispute arising under the rental agreement. This subsection does not prevent a landlord or tenant from recovering costs or attorney fees under a court order under ch. 799 or 814
   1. You have this exact clause in your lease. It makes the entire lease void and unenforceable. The fact that the same section does not prohibit the collection of STATUTORY attorney’s fees under 799 or 814 is meaningless in this circumstance because you included the illegal clause directly in the lease. If you paid a Wisconsin attorney to draft this, they did not do a good job for you. This is not just a difference of opinion. It is literally in black and white right here in the statute. It is also in the case law I sent you. The Supreme Court was very clear on these clauses: We determine that because the lease includes a provision in violation of § ATCP 134.08(3), the landlord, Baierl, may not enforce the lease against the tenants. Holding the lease unenforceable by the landlord not only advances the intent underlying § ATCP 134.08(3), but prevents the objectives of the regulation from being wholly undermined. See Baierl v. McTaggert.
2. The current version of the ATCP you are violating is ATCP 134.08(4), which prohibits the same exact thing as 704.44(4m) prohibits…the kicker being that the ATCP (the consumer protection act) comes with the added penalty of you being charged double damages and actual attorney fees because the act itself is promogulated under Wis. Stats. 100.20(5).

There is no doubt about it…your leases are void and unenforceable in Wisconsin. This may me a hard pill to swallow considering you apparently paid an attorney to draft your leases for you. I suggest you contact each of your tenants currently renting at 721 to determine who all intends to stay and who is planning to leave. From there you can enter new, valid leases with them so everything is buttoned up moving forward.

If you chose to go another route, however and proceed with an attempt to evict or otherwise claim that my client owes you anything after she pays September rent, I am happy to take this case before a judge. I will win…of that I am supremely confident. I may be into the hundreds of landlord/tenant cases at this point in my career. I have yet to lose against a landlord and I have litigated these exact clauses over and over again.

I wish the parties the best in moving past this issue we’ve identified…as I suggested, you should contact all the tenants and proceed with a new lease with those that are interested in doing so.

My question to the forum:

Has anyone ever ran into this before?  This is basically giving the tenant the right to just walk out and not be responsible for a lease they signed.  Furthermore the attorney said I'd have to cover the tenants lawyer cost if I brought them to small claims.  This is mind blowing, I'm for sure just going back to the plain jane WI realtor association residential lease contract.  Let me know any feed back you have. -Matt

Biggest mistake....Didn't start earlier.  Started investing around 33, if that was 23, well yea.  

I Live in North Minneapolis Burbs, but invest out of town for the 1.5% deals.  Very Rare in this time of age to find anything at 1% in Minneapolis.  The more rural market I invest in 5 years ago for 1.5-2% is now going to 1% and below.  Interesting times.

I wait for the right deal and at a discount price. I'd rather have a few high return units than a bunch of average. If you have strong COC returns, a crash wouldn't really matter and you can ride on through. Also a year - year and a half of cash reserves to cover mortgages or throw at a new deal during opportune time won't keep you awake at night.

I've watched Morris invest channel over the past few years and always had the gut feeling, "is what he is doing legit?"  Buying 10k-25k homes, I don't care where you are at that is a rough neighborhood, and their is a reason they are that cheap.

Also he was showing houses that were completely dilapidated and was stating the rehab cost was around 8-15k.  I thought to myself, what is this guy smoking, better get out the check book because that's a 100k plus project lol.