All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

Do you have a rule in your lease to allow/disallow certain things to be hung outside your rental properties?

I know this is a vague question, so here are some specific examples:

(1) After washing clothes, tenant hangs clothes out to dry, so you have towels, panties, colored bras flapping in the wind.  Would you allow this in the front yard where people walking by or driving by can see?  If not would you allow it to in a fenced back yard?

(2) What about meat?  Yes I have a friend who rented to someone who has a rack outside on a sunny day hanging meat, apparently to make jerky.  He said it smell "funky", and had flies buzzing around the meat.  I have heard of folks doing the same to make preserved fish.

(3) How about a string light?  You know the ones with a cord  and a bulb every 12" or so.  If tenants were to hang one in the yard from one side of the house to a fence, and during a storm or hurricane can easily get shattered glass when these bulbs are slammed against the structures.

Does this depend on property's class?  That this is more common in a class D than a class A?

Do you have any language in your lease agreement or tenant rule book to address this?  If so please do share.

I am probably going against the grain by posting in this forum but I am losing my patience in getting cold calls and texts "are you interested in selling your property at this address?"

I have always gotten post cards and yellow letters, no big deal, I removed them from the mail box and put them into the recycle cart directly.  Sometimes I'll get half a dozen cards a day, from the same person, but one for each address.  Then it comes around in two weeks.

But recently I started to get cold calls and texts.  Today alone, I received five calls and three texts asking if I am interested in selling or "free evaluation".  I can't just ignore unknown callers because sometimes I work with rental applicants and contractors that are not in my address book.

I also have no idea how they got my phone number because it's not listed.  I do not even list phone numbers on my rental ads all I provide is email and messaging services and my number is hidden on rental listings, so I am still trying to figure out how my number was harvested.  I asked one of the callers how she got my number, she said it is in the public records...I asked another, he told me he is calling everyone who owns more than one property.

I don't mind the yellow letters and post cards much, but 8 cold calls and texts a day is really over the top, in my opinion.  I understand this is how some find deals, but there has to be a happy medium.  I remember back in the days when people still fax I used to get fax ads, and before you know it the paper or ink is out because it's been busy printing ads.

Originally posted by @Mark Abdelmessih:

Hey Guys,

While many of you may know that, if theres a seller's agent and they find a buyer for a property and the deal closes, ultimately the commission will come out of the sales price and the seller receives less money in the end. I wanted to ask if the seller can negotiate if the buyer can pay the agents fee and the seller retains the majority of the Money. Is this possible as long as both parties agree. 

I guess I am not getting the picture here.  The seller does not typically have contact with the buyer unless through their agent, so this will be like the seller's agent, with the blessing of the seller, goes to the buyer and say hey can you pay more to cover my fees?  Why would the buyer agree to that if there is already an executed contract?

Or are we saying there is a contract signed by the buyer but the seller has not agreed due to a price gap, and that price gap happens to be the amount of the commission, and in order to save the deal, the seller's agent is trying to get the buyer to cover his/her fees instead?  But if that's the case what is the difference between getting the buyer to pay his fees instead of getting the buyer to increase his bid?

In my experiences, dogs caused much more damages to cats.  So for my rentals I allow cats but not dogs.

The issues with cats I have personally experienced are door seals ripped up, window blinds torn up.  I don't really have urine issues as all the flooring are hard porcelain or ceramic tiles, not carpet or wood.

The issues with dogs that I have personally experienced are ripped up sprinkler wires and valves in the yard, craters in the yard, ripped down window blinds and draperies, kitchen cabinet doors with hinges pulled off, interior doors or cabinet doors with corners chewed off, claw marks on baseboards and door trims, neighbors complaining about excessive barking, property maintenance or appliance repair or others trying to service the property hesitate to enter property due to hissing and barking aggressively, property insurance carrier's unannounced inspection requiring dog breed/vaccination/wellness records etc etc etc...

So all things considered I have disallowed dogs but not cats.  As eliminating both really restrict my tenant pool.

One side effect that I noticed when I restricted my apartments to cats only but not dogs, my tenants have been exclusively female.  I guess not too many male with cats as pets?

When I have tenants who have cats, the exterior door weather seals get ripped to shreds.

Like this:

or like this:

and being in Florida, this increases the electric bill because the air conditioning has to run more, and the tenants complain about the electric bill.

I can replace the weather seal, and three days later we are back to the same place.

Is there something I can do to cat proof this?

Originally posted by @Brady Richard:

Sam, I'm sorry to hear you're not getting an appropriate response. If the original roofer is that unresponsive it is unlikely that you would have better luck getting them to honor the 10 year warranty. I know the complexity you detailed in trying to make the repair, it's like what came first, the chicken or the egg? I recently helped a friend replace some rotten soffit and facia. The roof being only a few years old is in good condition so we liquid nailed the felt paper/shingles from the underside since there is no way to secure them with nails. We will say an extra prayer if a hurricane comes. Good luck with the repair, perhaps an experienced contractor will have a work around and know what to do in a situation like this. Most importantly is finding the source of the termites. If they have made their way to the facia, you may have a bigger problem than just the facia. Have you found the pathway for the termites and eliminated them?

It's very difficult to find the point of entry for termites.  What we have determined is it's subterranean termites, and we have already done a full liquid barrier treatment which should keep the building sub term free for a few years.  Now we are trying to make the fascia repair.

I have a rental property with a new roof installed by company A in late 2017.

Fast forward to 2021 and I have a section of the fascia that has been severely damaged by termites, the damage is such that I could pull off pieces of the 1X6 fascia by hand. There is also some damages to the 2X sub-fascia, but I don't think it's as bad, but I haven't investigated thoroughly.  I need to have this repaired.  I am quite handy but I do not like working on a ladder or get up on the roof.  My knees turn to rubber.

The first person I call was the original roofer to come out for an estimate of the fascia (possibly sub-fascia) repair. "We'll pass your info to the estimator and call you back". This was the standard reply I got for the two calls I made over the last two months and no one ever called me back.

I then looked up the original contract and it says we have a 10 year warranty on the roof, but one of the exceptions - if you hire someone else to work on the roof, you void the roof warranty.  So I guess I am stuck with this roofer?

If we hire someone else to replace the fascia, I know the roof deck is nailed to the 2X-subfascia from the top, then the 1X fascia nailed to the sub-fascia. Then a strip of 1x2 is nailed to the top of the fascia to give the drip edge a 3/4" of standoff. Then the drip edge is nailed to the deck. For this reason it is very difficult to remove the fascia completely. I have used a sawzall in the past to cut between the 1X fascia and sub-fascia to slice through the nails to extract it, but I have seen "pros" make a mess of it by hacking the 1X into pieces and used a pry bar to brute force it, which usually end up disturbing the drip edge or even the waterproofing membrane above it. For this reason I think this repair may involve some roofing, and I don't want to warranty to be

voided because of this relatively minor repair.

Yet I cannot get the original roofer out for an estimate. I called again last week and spoke to someone and explained the situation, she was very understanding and said "completely understand and we'll make sure we have someone get back to you ASAP" and a week goes by no one calls.

Seeing that they do not want my business, is there a way to hire someone else to do this work and not void the 10 year roof warranty?

Perhaps the warranty is meaningless anyway if it ever comes to any claims?  Let me make this clear, I am not asking them to come out to do this work for free, I am asking them to come out to make a repair which I will gladly pay for.

Originally posted by @JD Martin:

1. Use a private detective service. You'll pay for it but you won't have 5,000 John Smiths to sort through.

2. You're probably going to get an address or a phone number with a detective service so that's how you'll have to contact them. Maybe write a letter.

I think you're putting too much assumption in the fact that a previous owner is going to be helpful. He may not remember any of the information you want to know, or he may not care to tell you. Certainly he's probably not going to want to spend his time going back to where he was forced out of a home he owned for 25 years during the housing crash. If you're fixing this to flip, I'm not sure why you care about all of that information anyway - all old houses have a history; sometimes there's good reasons for why things were done - I have found this out in virtually every interior soffit I thought I would tear out - and sometimes it was just the cheapest/easiest thing to do at the time. If you're fixing this to keep as a rental, I would only care about the things that were stopping me from making it a rental now, or could be so tremendously expensive or dangerous later that I would want to take steps to mitigate it now. In that case, I would probably just sell the property and move on to something simpler. 

There are reasons I think he will know the answers to many of my questions.

Many of the permits were pulled by him, as the owner/builder.  So I believe he was very close to the renovations and he should remember.

No he may not want to share because he was forced out of his home, true.  But he may be proud of the work he did, and have stories to tell.  Plus if I offer to pay (I have no idea how much) you never know.

Its more than just curiosity, it's affecting my work planning.  I was digging for a fence post hole when I hit a layer of mortared Chicago bricks 8" down with a post hole digger.  Where does it extends to?  Do I keep digging along this line?  There are sections of the crawlspace I cannot access for subterranean termite treatment, as well as running new electrical for an AC system, I kept thinking there may be a hidden opening covered by flooring, but if I can't find it then I need to crawl down to the 16" headroom crawlspace with a corded rotary hammer strapped to my ankle, crawl ony belly for over 40 feet to enlarge the congested opening so I can pass through it.  I need to put down some plants and 8" down I hit a cement wall, may be an old septic tank.  Trying to confirm and find it's perimeter, neighbor said it may be a cistern or abandoned well.  I have plenty to do but it would really save time if I can get some answers.

Not sure there is a perfect sub-forum for this question, I am trying to find emails and phone numbers of a previous owner of a property I am in the middle of renovating.

I know the name of the owner who owned the property from 1986-2011.  There have been two owners since, they don't know much.  He was responsible for most of the past renovations (some good some not so good).  Most of the "not so good" ones I had to find out the hard way, having spent extra time, effort and $ to be unpleasantly surprised.

I have already went through all the permits and old records looking at microfilms for hours at the city's archive office.

But I still have a lot of questions that I believe this person can answer.  Such as where is the location of the old septic tank before it was abandoned in 1986?  Where is the location of the newer septic tank when it was abandoned in 2005 to hook up to the city sewer?  What happened to this section of foundation wall on the old plans that doesn't see to exist today? Why do I dig down 8" from the ground and find a layer of old chicago bricks, is there a patio under there?  Where does this plugged up deck drain exits or daylights?  Is there a hidden opening to this section of crawlspace or is this completely sealed off after someone ran a 4" drain, EMT conduits and HVAC ducts through this 15"X15" access opening?  I can go on and on and on, but you get my point, he could really save me a lot of time.

So my questions for the members:

(1) Have you ever had to look up past owners contact information?  If so how.  Yes I know you can Google their names, and most of the time I get back some services that are "searching fifty billion records for John Smith 0..1..2..3%" and it's in a loop then search criminal then search social media then search this and that and after 5 minutes they ask for your credit card number.  Now I don't mind paying for info but I don't want to get on some databases that hijack my information.  I am not looking for the person's life history, I am only interested in emails and phone numbers.  If I google the name, it shows current address being the property that I am working on, and he's been gone since 2011 LOL.  Anyone know of a reputable online service to use?

(2) Would you call or email? I prefer to email because I don't want to surprised someone with a call. I had a bad experience once, I bought a property a few years back and it had a safe in it, I didn't have the combinations, I bought it from a bank via a REO, I did find the phone number of the owner, called and his wife answered. I told her who I was and just looking for information, and the wife said she is in the hospital and they just rolled him into the OR for an open heart surgery. Bad timing. She said she would call me back, but never did.

(3) If I do get in touch with the previous owner, and if he seems open to sharing information, do you think I should pay for his time?  In other words, ask him to come by the property and spend 30 minutes to get all the answers I need, and in exchange pay him something for his time.  Bear in mind he sold it via a short sale in 2011 so it wasn't a happy ending.

In a 4 plex (one 2BR unit and the other 3 units are 1BRs), where in the lease agreement I have explicitly stated parking allocation is one parking space allocation per bedroom.  Total there are only seven parking spaces.  Five spaces for the tenants' own vehicle and two for occasional guests.

I have not assigned parking spaces, never had the need to, the tenants were responsible and friendly to each other, until recently when I have a new tenant who seems to be taking advantage, by having a work vehicle in additional to a boy friend who parks his truck when he stays overnight which seems to be quite often.  Other tenants began to complain that when they had friends over there is never any guest space. 

In my lease I do have a definition of "occasional guest" as someone who stays less than 7 days in a calendar month.  But I am not sure I want to use that because first, I really can't be there to monitor if a BF is there more than 7 days in a month, and second, I really don't care how often the BF stays, it is the parking space congestion issue I need to resolve.

A casual conversation with the tenant resulting in her playing dumb..."who? me? no that's not my car, I don't know who's car it was, my BF? He's not even in town..."  I am not sure why someone would lie on very trivial stuff, I have her personal car's tag number on the lease agreement, and her application has her employer who's logo is on the work vehicle LOL.

I also have a clause in the lease which says I can assign parking if necessary even though right now the spaces are not assigned.  I am not sure assigning specific spaces for specific units will solve this issue.

I do have the tag numbers of all the "registered" vehicles, when they applied they are required to fill out a form which they say how many vehicles and their tags.  The form is then binded with the lease agreement.  Now I have seven spaces, I have the five registered tags, how do I find out which vehicle(s) do not belong so I have have them towed?  Of course without mistakenly towing the true guest vehicles, is there a way?