All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

The latest from the white house briefing is the immediate suspension of forward and reverse mortage foreclosures and evictions for single family homes for the next sixty days, I assume this means for all HUD properties?

Can you actually get it to close on time?

more and more states are shutting down non essential businesses, highly questionable you can get appraisers, inspectors and surveyors for physical visits so most likely there will be a delay? 

I don't discuss tenants' private information either, but tenants do talk to each other.  My tenants come to me saying "I see that you gave unit B a brand new refrigerator with a water dispenser, I would like one of those too" so I know they are friendly with each other.  There is no reason to believe they will not share information on how they are coping with the crisis financially.

This is a hypothetical scenerio but one I can see happening so I would like to have a plan in place in case it does happen.

The question is many here suggested "I want to work something out with my good tenants" this implies something could be worked out with only good tenants and not so much for bad tenants (assuming some of us have tenants we may not want to keep)?  My point is I am thinking especially in a multi family building tenants do become friendly, and many are staying home, they are probably talking to each other about their respective situations.

Therefore, in those types of rentals, if I give one tenant a break (of some sort, whether it may be deferred payment, or rent credit or something else), I think I have to extend the same to everyone in that same building to be fair, and yes requiring proof of hardship may be necessary, and what would be a criteria one would use to evaluate hardship?  Does this criteria need to be uniformly applied to not get into trouble later on?  A termination of employment letter from the employer?  A self employed contract hair dresser what type of paperwork are you requiring to prove hardship?

In my opinion, this is more likely a 3-6 month crisis, it is not a 1 month process.  Every step taken is an unknown and no one knows if it's a forward or backward step.

You all want to keep the "good tenants", does this mean you are treating the good tenants differently from the not so good tenants?

If you work something out with one tenant who is struggling in this crisis, whether it is rent reduction, rent credit, deferred payment plan of some sort, applying last month or deposits towards rent, whatever...how do you solve the problem in a multi family setting where everyone including the ones who could afford rent stop paying "If George gets to skip rent I am not paying either!"

absent the COVID-19 crisis, I would not renew.

with the COVID-19 looming over us, I think what I might do is:

communicate my intention to not renew, as they do not qualify.  But due to the health crisis, I will let it default to M2M until the crisis is over, and crisis is over when the eviction suspension is lifted.

during the M2M extension period they still have to pay rent, and if rent is short you will start applying the double deposit to the rent until the deposit is depleted.

Hopefully by then the situation is better where they can move out and part way amicably.

I don't think I would do showings at this time, and this is a most likely a moot point as more and more states are heading to close all non-essential businesses.

While we are on the subject of water loss/usage at rental resulting in spiked bills, I have two other scenerios besides a broken pipe that this could happen,  Both of these have happened to me.

(1) You know those attachment you put on the outside hose bibs that splits it into two or four outlets?  I have a tenant who installed a 1-4 splitter.  She likes to do gardening so she has two garden hoses attached to two outlets.  One runs to the back where she waters her orchids in the patio, another runs to the side where she fills up buckets for other planting purposes.  That leaves two outlets unused.  Each outlet has a tiny lever to open or close it.  Because these tiny levers are so small and tight, she leaves the levers in the open position and the other unused outlets in the close position.  When she wants to use her hoses she just turn on the hosebib.  Well, she called me one day and said the back alley was flooded.  Water ran out of the open hose (perhaps for an entire weekend) unnoticed until a neighbor knocked on her door.  Someone had turned on the hosebib, which started water running into those hoses, then turned on the lever of one of the unused outlets, may be to rinse off something, then turned the lever back off, then left without turning off the hosebib.  That resulted in an additional $500 of water used.   She said it wasn't her (and I believe her), it could be the lawn maintenance crew, it could be someone walking by and just needed to fill up a water bottle?  No idea.  I have a clause in my lease to turn on and off hose bibs always.  No leaving the bib on and rely on the nozzle at the end of the hose do it's job.

(2) On one of my regular maintenance visits where I typically turn on faucets and showers, I test flushed the toilets.  Then I walked out of the bathroom and went to do something at the air conditioning unit.  After a few minutes I still hear the tank hissing.  Why is it still refilling?  I went back and sure enough, it's refilling.  I removed the lid and noticed the little chain from the tank lever to the flapper formed a knot, which shortened the chain, which prevented the flapper from closing.  I undid the knot and flushed ten more times, and it never happened again.  This was not a leaky flapper that's seeping water, this was a flapper held in a half open position so the refill was continuous non stop.  At that time my tenant was on a business trip and won't return for days.  I thought at the moment, if that chain caught like this on a flush right before she left for her trip, and water ran for days resulting in a $1000+ bill, who would be responsible?  She because she did the actual flush that triggered the leak, or me who provided the toilet which included the chain that did a knot that would not be repeated again?

This can be approached from a legal perspective or not.  From a legal perspective based on the contract verbage it seems your tenant could be responsible.  It would seem the reason for the high bill does not matter, whether it is a pipe burst or the tenant leaves a faucet running then go on vacation for a month.  But I am not a lawyer.  However, this then leads to what if your tenant disagree and does not pay?  The water company will then cut off his/her service, and if left unpaid, depending on the jurisdiction, down here where I am they will then impose a lien on the property. regardless who's name is on the account.

For this reason I would suggest getting with the tenant and work something out where the burden can be split.

It's not your fault because you don't live there, can't be there to notice anything unusual, like noise behind the walls with water moving when no one is using water.

It's not your tenant's fault because they are not "in tune" with home maintenance.  I have young tenants who does not know the difference between water supply pipes and drain pipes, totally clueless.  They can take, edit, resize, annotate, add smilies and post a picture on a tiny phone with ease but can't change a light bulb or swap out a battery at the back of a wall clock, let alone keeping an eye on a buried pipe or a leaky water heater relief valve.  They just expect things to work.

This is probably what I would do in your shoes.

First, I will contact the water department again. Many water bills have multiple components to the bill.  In my town they charge me water usage and sewer usage.  They assume the water being used is sent down the drain which they have to collect and treat, the sewer charge is actually more than the water charge.  Of course this is not applicable when you are filling up a 25000 gallon swimming pool, so we could call them and say we are filling up a pool and have the sewer rate waived for the time the water is used for the fill.  You should ask the water company to deduct out of the bill the sewer charge because they never made it to the drains for treatment, that should be on top of whatever consideration they gave you for the water leak.

You may also be able to work something out with the water company so the outstanding balance can be paid over a period of time.

It may be necessary for your tenant to call since the name on the account is not you.  Perhaps a visit to the water company together for a scheduled appointment with a supervisor is best, but don't know if this is feasible with the coronvirus threat these days.

Whatever balance is outstanding after all these efforts I would probably propose to the tenant to split it after pointing out the clause in your lease.

As others have stated, it's a real difficult thing to prove the real cause.

I have a clause in my lease agreement that stated that the drains are all clear and functional, what are the 500 things to not put down toilets and disposers, and if there is any blockage the tenants will be responsible for the cost of drain cleaning.  Even with that clause, I do not typically charge the tenants unless I can prove they caused the blockage.

A clear case would be they flushed a rubber duck or a tooth brush down and that lodged inside the neck of a toilet.  I would charge the tenants.

On the flip side, if it's a line with tree root penetration then it's your problem to solve.

In many cases you may not be able to tell.  The drain cleaner snakes or jets the line and rarely are they able to see the items flowing past.

Also in some cases it's a combination, it could be an old cast iron pipe with a rough inside surface full of rust, which started to act like velcro to things that flows past, or a slight settlement causing a belly, which again impedes the flow, then the tenant pours down grease, pasta and bean, well, you get the idea.

Most of the time you end up eating the cost especially if the plumber can't tell you anything.

Now, you mentioned that the clog caused water to back up to a vacant unit next door.  Well, this is a problem because it means the blockage is located at a point AFTER the drain from both units come together.  So it is possible the blockage was originally caused by someone next door, a blockage formed downstream of the wye, but since it's vacant, no one sent anything down the drain to trigger any symptoms.  Now this unit runs the dishwasher, and it backs up into this unit.  In this case more then likely you have to eat the cost.

I also have a tenant who is scheduled to move out at the end of April, end of lease, and mutually agreed not to renew (wasn't a good fit).

Now she says she hasn't had a chance to look for housing, which is understandable.  So now I am wondering what to do, of course one logical option would be to offer her a month to month, which is what I might end up doing.