All Forum Posts by: Star J.

Thanks to all those who encouraged me and gave solid advice.. appears that this judge (all are different I've heard) went straight to the matter of unpaid rent and gave the tenant 10 days to get out. Realizing that it's not over til it's over, I can say that I'm relieved that THAT part is over!

I have used the kwikset version on a two-famy I own and I love it..tenants love it more. Easy to change combos and so far I haven't heard of them using the key override :-) It also came in handly when one of the tenants locked herself out of the downstairs apartment she was able to get into the inside hallway.

And yes..hopefully this will be a learning experience for anyone reading this... "Kids, don't do what I did!"

#sigh

To clarify.. some due diligence was done, however some was not as this was a short sale, the seller wasn't invested anymore so he was hard to ge a hold of during the purchase. After closing on the property, I had the tenants sign a new lease with me starting in October, well 3 of the 4, one said he'd be gone by the first of the month. In the lease, owner covers water and sewer - gas and electric is on them. When I had them sign my lease, an inspection was done of their apartments. All except one said nothing was wrong. October came..no rent. I did the "late letter", then did the pay or quit..and the eviction was filed on the 20th. One of the tenants paid half and said she would pay the other so I didn't file on her at first and the other tenant said he was leaving..I assumed he was running a little late but now..not so much.

Now the apartments have all of these issues and I suspect a lot of it is the tenants. But no, I didn't turn any utilities off the gas and electric companies did that themselves. And yes, in the lease it states you have to maintain ur utilities...but it also says you need to pay rent and well, they're not doing that either.

@Robert - I love Texas! lol

Bought a building and 4 of the 4 tenants refuse to pay rent. Oh and it's not just me, no gas is being delivered to any of them due to nonpayments and some have no electric for the same reason..one has electric in her 7 year old daughter's name. Well after the expense of buying and doing some minor repairs in the building, I've only filed eviction for 2 of the 4..other 2 will be filed this week. Since filing for eviction, things in the apartments are mysteriously "breaking". First the basement had an arrempted breakin, then plumbing backing up in one of the apartments, refrigerator not working in another apartment. Of course they are calling to have repairs made but noone mentions the missing months of rent payments. I'm wondering what am I liable to repair considering we have court dates coming up.

One thing the electric company has here is a "landlord account" so you can be copied if utilities are late or being turned off for non-payment. I can ask if they have the same for water...as I agree w/ Scott, it would be hard to get tenants to pass along a copy of that bill each month.

That's definately something to think about...putting the non-payment of lienable utilities in the lease as a cause for eviction.

Thanks! Good feedback, I too have felt the tenant should pay and would better manage the utilites if made to do so but I like the ease of just maybe bumping the rent up to cover my cost. I agree with you Sam - the cost to add additional lines would probably not be the best investment. The submetering may get difficult..unfair if I do a straight $xx/8 units but dividing it based on a head count may be hard also. It's a new property so I'm not sure how much the water is going to cost but I will watch and adjust accordingly. YAY to rent increases!!

Thanks all. In this case, there are 8 tenants in the building (only one water line). I too think it's a good idea to have the utilities billed to them directly as long as I can keep up with the balance to ensure I don't get an unexpectingly high bill and have to pay it all at once. But for this multifamily, I'm needing some ideas :-|

Newbie 8 family rental owner. In my area the water company can hold the landlord liable for any unpaid water charges whether it is in the tenants name or not.. How are other landlords passing that cost to tenants while maintaining the utility in their name? Or is it better to increase rent and obsorb the cost?