All Forum Posts by: Chan K.

@Rob Beland @Victoria Avery @Rod Desinord @Ned Carey @Russell Brazil @Stephanie Goodman ...... I could not fill all the names 

Update:

So I visited the unit on Oct 1, but the tenant was still there. I quickly gave her a call, but she did not pick up (go figure). So, I left a message stating that I am evicting her if she is not out in 1-2 day. I just visited the unit yesterday again, and she is gone. 

Question:

1) Can you still evict tenant under lease if she is gone but she broke her lease?

2) The unit is a mess. Her cat pee on my carpet and pretty much ruin it. I guess the cat also reaped off my carpet around the edge .... etc

3) Does anyone ever made a small claim again their tenant? Assuming the claim won, does anyone ever able to collect money from tenant either through their pay check deductible, debt collector, get arrest warrant for non-payment ..... etc

I guess tearing up the carpet, put a new floor/carpet on, cleaning fee, wall damage, I am also planning to charge her for breaking the lease (charge 2 months, is it reasonable?) ....

@Rob Beland @Bryan O. @Marcia Maynard Thank you for sharing the experience and knowledge. 

@Marcia Maynard It is easy to enforce tenants that live under my roof, but it is impossible to enforce neighbor tenants. I believe most of the events occurred when neighbor tenants/visitors parked/blocked around/in her spot. I think we sort of responsible to a certain point, but the line has to be drown somewhere like @Rob Beland mentioned earlier. 

I have my other 6-plex building, where there was choa before I took over. Tenants used to fight for parking, because the parking spaces were not marked and assigned. When I took over, I marked the space number and assigned the spot. It was like walking in the park as everyone is compliance. The reason they are compliance, because they are all my tenants. In contrast, the issue above is not easy to control, because the neighbor tenants/visitors randomly park there. 

As for the tow, I guess it is random. I asked a few tow places recently. One tow company said that I have to sign an agreement, so he can acknowledge that I am the owner of the building to the police. The other tow company just does not care. He can just tow when I call. They are there to make money, and it is a profitable business. 

Hi,

So, I have one of my tenants who is always calling me when other tenant or the neighbor blocks her way or temporary park on her space. 

FYI: I don't rent that parking space to her. I only rent a unit to her. During the showing, I just told her that she can park 1-off street parking space.

From my end, I told her that I reached out to other tenants and told them not to block or park on her space. I put up the sign that say no parking and tow zone. I also told her I don't have control over the neighbor visitors parking/blocking. I told her she has every right to call the tow truck. 

I tried to look around, but could not find any clause that mentions landlord is responsible for clearing the parking spot every minute. 

She strongly demands that it is my responsibility to make sure her space is clear and unblock at all time. 

The last time she called, I was not in a good mood. So, I nicely told her "I think it is sort of outside of my responsibility, and we don't usually get involved in this conflict. Please feel free to call a tow truck whenever it is necessary and feasible to your spot". 

Does anyone have experience with this? Usually and most of my tenants don't bother me with thing like this. 

Thanks,

-Chan-

@Luke Robins Depending on the market, single family is not for cash flow strategy. It is also risky. If a tenant moved out, you lost 100%. In the rental market, it is very hard to replace a new good tenant without the sacrifice of being vacant. Again, single family usually can get a very long term tenant. It is properly appreciate better. When you are ready to sell, you can sell to home owner (emotion). Most people that buy multifamily are investors.  

 In my case, the seller notified the tenants, and he transferred all the deposits over. He also gave me the lease paperwork that shows the amount. 

@Rich N. Rob is another landlord/realtor from my town, and we know each other. He told me before that if you don't handle security deposit correctly, the judge might order you to pay 3x. We talked about this offline before. 

Thanks everyone @Nicole A. @Rob Beland @Rich N. @Shaun Reilly @Russell Brazil ... for all the comments

After gather all this information, I think I have two approaches:

1) Communicate about the remaining days left (ask her to pay up to departure day) and tell her to pay me that. Then when she moved out on the first, return all her deposit. Keep ignoring about the wall paper that she put up

2) Don't communicate. Wait to see if she is going to pay on the due date ( up to Oct 1 or moving date). If she does not, then send her 14 days notice and start the eviction process. When she moved out, confiscate her deposit due to breaking of lease and damaging to the wall. If she brings me to court, then try to represent myself. The worse case scenario is that the court orders me to pay all her deposit back. 

I am going to return her deposit anyway, can't I wait until she takes me to court to do it? If she is confident and know enough to get there. My other risk would be that the court orders me to pay 3x if they concluded that I don't handle the deposit correctly. 

any thought ....

@Rob Beland @Ned Carey @Rich N. Thank you for the information and court clarification.

The prior landlord that evicted one of his tenants told me that it sort of depending on the judge. He has his properties under an LLC. In one situation, he tried to evict a tenant without a lawyer, and his paperwork was discard. In the other time, he brought in a lawyer, but the judge told him it was not necessary with the lawyer.

@Rich N. It is a bit funny, but this is not on purpose. I have the same business name/account under two different banks. One bank mingles the deposit, and the other bank only show deposit for 1-tenant. 

I am getting smarter now and took Rob's advice. For my newly tenants, I don't collect security deposit, but only collect first/last month. 

According to the letter that this tenant sent me, it sounds like she has experience or knowledgeable about the deposit issue. I think she might have done something like this in the past. 

@Rich N. I have 16 units so far. If I was to collect security deposit, would you assume that I have 16 saving accounts for them (one for each)? How do you structure your security deposit account? I think the bank will start to charge additional fee when the number of accounts exceed certain level. 

@Rich N. I have this property under an LLC, but it is a single member entity. I think it is disregard and I can represent myself in court. The reason I consider the lawyer earlier, because the tediousness between attending court/work as Ned mentioned earlier.

On my 1-year lease, I did mention as collecting rent on the 1st of the month on paper, but I told her I would collect weekly as optional for her (cheaper to get into the unit). She was fine initially, and I told her that she can convert to monthly anytime. I think she just struggles financially (problem managing her money). She is a young professional with a bachelor, and make decent money ... Her lifestyle is too expensive. 

For the deposit, I collected 2-week and cleaning deposit, in which I put in a saving business account (untouched). I don't know if the cleaning deposit is considered "security deposit). I don't think I stated "security deposit" like that that. I just stated "cleaning deposit".

@Rob Beland Rob, depending on how it goes down, I might need your help. I think I might pursue this option:

" Say nothing until after she leave in this week or two, then if you did the proper thing with the sec dep, then if you want to take on a challenge, deduct the cost of removing the wallpaper or her terminating out of the lease from the sec dep. But you better be right. ". 

You can run all the paperwork, and I just show up in court with you. It would be a good experience for me - maybe. I think she might be smart enough to keep paying until she moved out - will see after Mon. 

@Mike Hurney Mike, I did try to screen well, but you can never be 100% sure. I think the Mass Tenant/Landlord Law document seems generic, and too high level. You are correct that I did not spend as much as I did in my profession/degree. The shift will begin at some point when my cash flow is comparable. At the moment, I am only sustaining my real estate. You also correct that I have been so lucky so far in the past two years as I don't have much issue with the tenants (knock on wood) :). This allows me to gain confident and experience slowly as a landlord. The drawback is I don't learn much when there is no issue (I don't want to seek them though). I try to lean my process from time to time, but not as much as I want to. I also don't streamline a lot of the work - by choice.

@Victoria Avery Yea, the restraint order comment is great. Why do you know so much about it ;) ?

@Ned Carey If I hire a lawyer to represent me at the court to defense me from the accusation, property damage, lease broken, .... and that I won the case, would the court order her to pay for all my legal fee?

@Victoria Avery Thanks for the reference. It is great - " You can also find additional information concerning Landlord/Tenant laws at https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartII/...

"

I am so glad that she is leaving.