All Forum Posts by: Orlando Goodon

This is my first time dealing with multifamily rentals and every attorney I've come across seems dishonest and lazy. I've been struggling to find a good attorney for weeks now. I'm now starting to think:

-I'll need to accept hiring a bad attorney who is not as bad as others (lesser of two evils)
-I'll have to do much of the work myself (reviewing laws and finding exceptions that can help with evicting non paying tenants protected by ERAP)
-The main job of the attorney will be filing the paperwork, showing up in court, answering my questions and finding flaws in strategies that I come up with
-They all want to do the laziest thing. The most basic strategies like the last one who was doing a non payment eviction on tentents programs that specifically block you from doing so, rather than using things that are not blocked by the programs (owner occupy)

So how have you found good legal help? You can't even trust referrals because people refer people they LIKE, not necessary people who are good. If I hire a lawyer and they are NICE and friendly and SEEM knowledgeable, I'll probably recommend them. Problem is, if you are not an attorney, how do you know your attorney did a good job? Lazy attorney CAN win cases or SEEM to be doing good work. I think, only another attorney that you TRUST is capable of doing a worthwhile referral.unless you can find an attorney who handled your exact situation before and was successful.

For refence, I just need to do an owner occupy (primary residence) eviction on ERAP tenants in NY house I just bought. ERAP supposedly does not apply to 4 units or less and won't stop owner occupy...supposedly...but I need a good attorney to be sure.

Thanks in advance.

So I'm learning maybe some good news. Stuff I found though. None of attorneys have mentioned this.

So the protection for tenants have limits. for example it looks like maybe smaller than 6 units, does not have rent control and the eviction protections don't apply. Seems they are meant to target large buildings. Maybe sense. Imagine a duplex. One guy not paying means nobody pays.

also seems:

Selling a house is an exception, so seller could have used that to evict instead of continuing his non payment.

Owner move in also seems an exception, so I should be entitled to take one unit. Also mentioned family, so maybe I could even rent to family so I take two units.

Non-payment is not allowed beyond the 3 months of forward rent ERAP gives you. That should be another good cause.

Health and safety issues are another potential good cause. I got a guy with literal trash on deck and there are bugs and this endangers my other tenants child.

Also seems one tenant does not like my politics. Took down one of my signs. I was placed kind of close to their unit on exterior wall, but I'm entitled to post signs on my own property. The sign was in support of protected class, so I think its problematic for a tenant to take down such a sign I put up on my property on the outside.

I believe for a renter, all they get is inside. Once they step outside the door, they have no say unless its something like safety related.

I got court records today. Reviewing the causes before doing attorney session.

 My understanding is the eviction protection was over, hence they finally started evictions in the house early this year. The fact there were active cases, suggested evictions were again allowed.

The due diligence missing in my view was from my team. I looked at this as an amateur. The point of these professionals is that they were to warn me about stuff like this. Nobody even pushed for clarity on the cases. It was I who got nervous and went on court site and looked it up, found the cases and informed my attorney who did not have much to say beyond "You sure you want to get the house before the tenants get out?". Also "it can take months". This was perhaps enough for legal cover. Telling me it might take months is one thing, letting me know that its possible they stay in the house forever, literally, is another. Nobody even mentioned that squatting is a big issue going on right now. I was always the one raising alarms, and they would look at me like I'm just scared or something. For example, I was the one pressing hard on knowing if tenants were paying rent. Everybody else was happy with the seller just not responding.

When it came to protecting me deposit, due diligence was done. They found issues and adjusted contract. However the biggest risk (the tenants) was taken very casually. Bottom line, I had horrible resources so ended up in a situation one does, if they try to represent themselves...

 What you mean zero due diligence? What exactly are you referring to that you recommend I should have done?

 I've been asking for weeks for them to let me know whether the tenants were paying rent or not and every time I got the same answer. No response. This should have raised major red flags with my attorney and my buyer's agent but it seemed all they cared about was there paychecks.

I was overwhelmed and although I kept bringing it up if I was more focused I would have given a deadline and threatened not to close until the information is disclosed and require it to be disclosed in a manner that is super solid by Court standards. Signed original documents and the like. No PDFs.

one lesson I learned from this process is whenever you're asking for questions especially when they're basic things like is the tenant paying rent and it takes you two and three times that's a massive red flag that you need to treat super aggressively as if it's 100% proof that something shady is going on and at that point force them to using Court standards prove to you that your concerns are unfounded and if they can't be prepared to walk away

 Why you say that? Where are you getting this information from?

yes it seems the government programs are being used to take properties away from the owners essentially. They will put people in your home as far as I can see it, forever. The only way to get them out is with eviction and the only way to do that is they have to commit a crime or major violations of the lease which means they can basically stay in your place forever.

in theory they have to pay the rent but they have programs that are not funded and yet they will still protect them. This means you can have tenants in your place and not be getting your rent because the program doesn't have any funding and there's nothing you can do about it. Can't pay your mortgage? Keep writing it out until you get foreclosed. 

I have spoken to the housing authority multiple times and the general attitude I get is one of complete heartlessness. They seem to not care at all about homeowners. The focus is purely on tenants. I don't even get nicer treatment as someone new to the neighborhood who chose to invest and live within the community.

homeowners need to work together. If there is not a community I'm going to build one. We can't work alone. This is very serious stuff. People like myself who worked very hard for decades can end up losing it all in Newburgh with this kind of reckless anti homeowner policy.

looks to me like Newburgh like Newark is a dangerous place for new and small investors. Which is another dynamic of the problem. Major investors like Black Rock are the ones that have the pockets to come in and make major profit which actually will hurt the tenants that they're supposedly protecting. They should be helping local homeowners like myself in the same way they help the tenants because the alternative is corporations buying up a bunch of properties cheap and completely wrecking the market.

Having trouble finding an attorney in Newburgh New York to represent me. Just purchase the multi-family with pending evictions and I need to execute a move-in and renovation eviction ASAP. I need to start with an hour consultation to review the facts and my options then I need someone to proceed with legal actions. Does not have to be the same person. They must know section 8 and ERAP, inside and out.

if you don't know anyone please advise the best strategy is to identifying top attorneys who will deliver results rather than just take your money like my last attorney did.

 Great point, I was thinking same thing. Priority is to establish what the leases are and then go from there, but before I do anything, I need legal in place. Anything I say, can and will be used against me in court. 

 Really solid response here. Thank you. Good tip on hour with attorney.

I got royally screwed by attorney. He really failed me. It felt like he was just a contract attorney. That is all he really did for me. Review the contract and make sure I was protected based on what it said. However, technically the lack of clear terms in contract about tenants, might be considered a failure in the contract part. I mean the contract is everything on paper, I guess so maybe that part was no good.

I got sidetracked with FHA appraisal process. One lesson I learned is there is TOO much at stake for a major purchase like this and if its done in a tenant friendly area like Newark, Newburgh, Chicago...the risks are amplified. So you need to try to dig in on EVERY part of the process. There was a period of time when things slowed down before closing, 5-10 minutes of research about risks of tenants would have clued me in PRETTY fast. This is how sloppy my lawyer was. If me being new at this, can find out so many risks in less than 10 minutes, he should have.

I will admit, there is a chance I might have missed something, even if I looked...because techincally I did do SOME looking into this stuff. For example, I steered clear of Newark because of various warnings about tenant friendly situations not being good for new and small investors. I was not clear on the why. Just had vaige idea of long evictions. When I did my search now, it was targetted based on what is going on now. Before closing this was not clear to me, so I could have read some general advice which did not include some stuff I needed.

I think had to do again, I'd find a local guy in the community who can prove to me they know all the government programs well and had done many challenging evictions.

I'd potential advice future buys reading this, to consider hiring a eviction attorney prior to closing, in adition to who is doing your closing. Even if you spend an hour with them. Do NOT depend on your attorney when you have the complexity of tenants and government programs!

Just closed on a quadplex and I've identified several problem with tenants, that I want to address. Can I tell my tenants:

Smoking is not allowed in the house or within a certain distance from entrances(Just like standard rules in offices)

All possessions are to be kept inside your unit. Clear the patios and hallways.

I would also like to know about the people staying in my house, just like when you find tenants yourself. I want to know the things you get on applications:

Who is all living in my house

How are they able to pay the rent (income/job info)