All Forum Posts by: Gabriel H.

Hahahah Ken Min!! Thank you everyone for your insightful suggestions. I think we have a few good routes we can take to solve things peacefully.

Shannon M. My lease is the standard texas apartment association lease. I'd have to look it over again, but I bet we're covered.

Michael Biggs i'm not sure exactly how old he is. Late 60's, early 70's if I had to guess. He has issues with his knees and is severely overweight, which is why he has trouble getting around. I shouldn't have referred to him as "elderly". Retired and mobility impaired would have been a more accurate description. I don't think we'd take any legal action yet, but I will tell my sister to not enter the house if he isn't fully clothed.

I've spoken with him a few times and it seems like he's working at full mental capacity. I don't think its dementia. It may be that he doesn't want to get off the couch to get dressed because it's difficult for him. But he still rides his Harley around town, so I don't think it would be too much to ask for him to put some clothes on before my sister comes over. I'm just wondering if it's legal for us to refuse to enter the property for a service call if he's not decent.

I have a unit in a duplex (in Texas) that's occupied by long term tenants that were there when I purchased the property.  They are an elderly couple and the husband is handicapped.  He can walk with a walker, but it's definitely hard for him to move around.

My sister manages my properties for me since I don't live in the area.  He's a pretty needy tenant and calls her about little issues, and sometimes calls just to chat.  She's been over to his place three times when he's been naked, covered by a thin sheet, and he tells her that he's naked under the sheet.  My sister told his wife that she was uncomfortable the situation, and the wife laughed it off and called him "silly".

Otherwise they're pretty good tenants.  They pay early every month and keep their place in decent shape.

Is there anything we can do to insist that he's clothed when she goes over there?  Can I tell her to tell them "I will not come in your property unless you're fully clothed.", even if they have a service request?  

Looking forward to some creative and maybe even some funny suggestions!  

Gabe

Hello,

I am a new landlord and I'm not sure how to deal with this situation.

I have renters who started their lease a couple months ago. According to their lease, they pay all utilities.  They set up all their own accounts properly except they forgot water/sewage/trash (all one bill). I didn't verify that my accounts had been deactivated like I should have, so I got a bill for water about a month and a half into their occupancy.

We let them know about the mistake, they were happy to switch it over.  We also delivered an invoice along with a copy of the water bill for the $55 of usage that I paid for and told them they could remit payment with their following month's rent (1 week later).

Rent came this month and they didn't include it.  We contacted them to ask why and they said they paid the water company directly and just added it to their water bill.  We told them they had made another mistake, they have to pay us for the water and they'll have a credit with the water company.

These 3 girls are in a new roommate situation.  They're young and seem pretty inexperienced.  I understand things can be confusing in a new situation.  What can I do to encourage them to get their (expletive) together?  Also - should I charge a late fee on the water reimbursement?  Or just keep bugging them about it?  I don't really have a clause for that in the lease since they're responsible for their own utilities.  I guess I could ultimately just take the reimbursement out of their security deposit if they don't pay.  Rent is $1200/mo.  A $55 mistake isn't worth an eviction to me.

A funny anecdote about these renters - a couple weeks after they moved in, one of the girls called because her car was "stuck" in the garage. Another one of the other roommates had already left for work and took the one garage remote and now she couldn't get her car out of the garage. We explained to her there was a button on the wall to open the garage door and she didn't need a remote to get out.  She was completely overwhelmed and couldn't understand how she could open the garage door with the button on the wall, move her car out of the garage and then close the garage door using the wall-button again once the car was out of the garage and then exit the house through another door.  We could tell she was extremely stressed out, so we went to the property and helped her open the garage door.    (face palm emoji)

Thank you BP!  I'm also closing escrow on my 2nd duplex tomorrow!  Couldn't have done it without you.

Gabe

Thanks for all the responses everyone! Love having bigger pockets as a sounding board.

We're looking into our options and will ask her for the case # so we can verify. My landlord association (Apartment Association of the Panhandle) sent me a great article explaining our legal obligations to the victim. There are definitely tenant laws protecting victims of domestic abuse in Texas, and, if verifiable by a case #, then she can terminate her lease without recourse with 30 days notice, and no reletting fee can be assessed by the landlord.

I'm not sure if "reletting fee" means we can't keep the deposit or not. The article doesn't really address the deposit - just the lease termination. If she's legally terminating her lease via the tenant victim law and not technically breaching the lease, then I assume that probably means I can take a cleaning fee and any repairs that need to be done.  But anything else would need to be released back to her.

Anyone have any experience with this?

I have a renter for the last 4 months who have paid rent on time or early every month.  They were late paying rent this month, so we reached out to them.  It's a family of 5 with 3 kids. The husband was arrested for domestic abuse and child neglect this past weekend. He bailed out of jail, withdrew all the money from their account and is facing 4-5 years in jail and won't be coming back home.

The wife is going to borrow money for rent from her parents and pay by tomorrow.  She started back in the workforce this week. But she won't be able to cover rent next month on a single salary and is asking to be released from the lease on Nov 1.

If she is telling the truth, which I have no reason to doubt, then I'd like to go somewhat easy on her - no late payment this month, let her out of the lease and return as much of the deposit as I can if there is no damage to the unit when she moves out.  So my question is - how can I look up the arrest record of her husband?  Should I somehow ask her to provide any sort of paperwork to show the arrest record or case #?  

If the story can't be backed up, then she'd probably be looking at late fees, eviction notice and forfeiting rent. It's sad, because they really seemed to love living there and were otherwise the ideal tenants.

I've dug around on the city and county websites a bit, but I can't find his name in any of the booking records for the past week or so.

I know that, by the books, I should serve a notice to start the eviction process to cover me if everything goes downhill. I'm just looking for the best way to look up his arrest record to see how compassionate I want to be.

@Elizabeth Schellhammer - I don't have any helpful advice, but it sounds like you are taking the proper steps.  Hopefully these guys will take you up on your offer to move out so you can find some lower maintenance tenants.

@Jim Meloche but he needs to test the walls for carcinogens!  He's apparently been using the same test for lead based paint for years.

Sorry, couldn't resist...