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All Forum Posts by: Yiming Li

Yiming Li has started 6 posts and replied 13 times.

@Nik Moushon thank you for your insight! 

Update from today:

I called LA DBS and someone told me permit is not really needed for the firedoor, and we should be able to replace water heater with permit, and deal with the door later. 

Then I told this to the plumber and they told me they couldn't do the water heater without the firedoor and it's safety related, and told me I can't find other plumbers who are willing to do that. And that prompted me to call other plumbers and I found one that could do the job... 

I also consulted a friend who is a general contractor who told me even the permit on water heater is not strictly required, it really depends on me. 

For the first plumber, I think since he was dispatched by home warranty, he has to obey some rules. 

@Kenneth Garrett Thank you for your reply. The reason the plumbers feel strongly about the fire door is that the water heater is located in the laundry room that is directly connected to a living space(the converted garage, even if it is not a garage anymore) and the fire door has to be in place to protect a potential fire coming from the laundry room, no matter it's related to the water heater. It makes sense but I'll double check with the city. 

@David M. I'll double check with the plumbers to see if we can turn it on before the inspector comes. Right now I don't know how soon the inspector can come but ideally we want to use the water heater immediately after installation. I feel it will be the plumbers who don't allow me to use until the inspector gives a pass. But I agree with you that they should be confident for the work and relax the rules during nowadays with Covid 19

Thank you @David M. for the insight. Yes replacing water heater requires permit and the plumbers were concerned about the door and felt obligated to bring the issue to me. 

Imagine the plumbers replaced the water heater and tell my tenants to use it before inspector comes to take a look at water heater, and there is some fire related incident happened, then plumbers would be liable. 
I'll call LA building and safety on Monday to confirm and share the outcome back here. 

Dear friends at Biggerpockets, 

The water heater(located in the laundry room) in my rental recently broke down and needs to be replaced, and the plumbers noticed that the door in between the laundry room and the garage-converted bedroom is not fire-compliant, and they won't replace the water heater until I upgrade the door to a fire door, and have the city inspector signs off on it. Their reason is that while the inspector checks on water heater they'll notice the door for sure and won't give them a pass on water heater. 

My question is that does installing a fire door require permit? There is no re-framing of stud wall and we'll just replace the door with exact same dimension.  The house is located in the city of Los Angeles. 

I understand permit is important and useful but currently my tenants family don't have any hot water and I want to make the process faster. 

Also any ideas for my tenants in this situation will be appreciated too, they are using cold water for everything and boil water to give their newborn baby bath, obviously not convenient. 


Thank you for your suggestions in advance, 

Yiming

Hi all,

We are considering a tenant family with a large(70lb) golden retriever, we've never had dogs before and not sure how to manage tenants with pets in general. Can you please share some tips regarding screening process? and anything extra we should do when inspecting the property if we ended up renting to them?  

Thanks! 

Yiming

I couldn't resist the curiosity and purchased the detail report, something came up was:

1) there was a traffic Minor Offenses (turned out to be true after verifying the country record)

2) a couple of dismissed bankruptcy filing around 2008~2009, (not sure where to check on this). The potential tenant does have a nice credit score ~770

If the above situations are real, would it be a red flag for this tenant? 

Thanks

Dear all,

I'm recently got a few applications for my rental property and as part of a screening, I was trying to search the tenant's name online, and the first Google result came from mylife.com.

I never used this site before and I see a mixed review online for it. I wonder how accurate the result is and if we can trust it? Without purchasing details, it currently shows the applicant has court records and 3.26 reputation score. 

Thanks! 

Thanks for everyone who replied my post, I ended up not putting an offer for the house because the seller insists we take over the loan and it's so great amount. Really appreciate everyone's feedback! 

Hi @Andrew Smith, thanks a lot for response. I am not sure about the seller's motives, but I guess they were probably got a wrong deal or fooled by salesman. 

Dear all,

I am recently trying to buy a house as rental property. The house has one issue: it has a solar roof still in lease and the seller wants the buyer to take over the lease. We need to repair/replace the roof and we actually don't need the roof since tenants will be paying for utilities. 

However the total cost of removing the roof and paying off the lease will be around 40k, and the seller doesn't really want to accommodate it or lower 40k asking price. 

I wonder in this scenario, are there any creative strategies to negotiate the seller? 

Thanks,

Yiming