All Forum Posts by: Aaron Hirshberg

Thanks for the tip Greg H. I have reached out to our Section 8 office to get a copy of the lease.

I am buying a property to live in, which has an attached carriage house with 2 current tenants.

The previous landlord passed away, and there are no leases. The landlords daughter is selling the house, and I had her and the tenants fill out an estoppel agreement.

The estoppel revealed that both tenants are on HUD Section 8 Voucher program and are paying $200 under market rents.

One of the tenants says she had a security deposit, but it was 2 owners and 8 years ago, and nobody knows if the security deposit was passed on, or how much it was for.

The daughter (current landlord) does not have any paperwork receiving a transfer of security deposit, so I am not sure if I am entitled to demand she come up with it and transfer it to me?

Question #1

Should I demand a security deposit from the seller, renter, or neither? The renter has been there over 5 years and seem to keep the place in reasonably good shape and are nice to deal with.

Question #2

I am required to give 60 day notice before raising rent, so I am unsure if I should:

Option 1) Have them sign a lease on day 1. Then give 60 days notice to increase rent.

Option 2) Give them 60 days notice of rent increase - if they stay then have them sign a lease.

I'm putting on a new TPO roof on a commercial building, that has retail on the bottom and apartments on top.

It's tempting to just pay it off in full with cash, but I'm wondering if I should get a loan instead and keep more money for future improvements.

We have a 1930's brick building we would liket to insulate. It is 8,000 sf and has a low slope roof so the back 2,000 sf cannot be accessed in the attic as it is too short.

Originally the building had a lathe and plaster ceiling, but half of the building has a drop ceiling and the other half has 12" ceiling tiles.

Our options seem to be:

1) Spray Foam
This would involve tearing off the ceiling in the back of the building, spraying the bottom of the roof deck and then rebuilding a drywall ceiling.

2) Cellulose
We might not have to rip off the whole ceiling, instead we could cut holes and blow it in. Then we would have to fix the holes.

3) Spray Foam Roof
Dont mess with the ceilings at all, instead wait until the rubber EPDM roof starts to fail (5-10 years) then re-roof with a closed cell foam roof and elastomeric coating.

I should also state that the top floor has not been renovated and that we need to make this decision before renovating the apartments.

All help is appreciated.