All Forum Posts by: Petra Handrigan

Hi,

I am looking for an attorney familiar with short-term/mid-term rentals to review/modify a lease agreement for a mid-term rental and review rental agreement for short-term rental. Properties are located in Fairfield County, Connecticut. 

It was resolved after I provided all the things they requested including a photo of myself holding a sign with the date and Avail written on it. Completely ridiculous. They should disclose what they need prior to when the property is listed.

Hi,

I am looking for an attorney that can review a mid-term rental lease and help prepare a rental agreement that can be used on Airbnb, Property is located in Bridgeport, CT.

Thanks!

Hi,

I posted a mid-term rental on Furnished Finder. On Furnished Finder every listing gets reviewed and verified before it will be live on their website. The listing also includes the rental license number. I planned to use Avail for tenant screening, lease signing and rent payment. I had a prospective tenant (traveling nurse) last week who was interested in renting the unit starting in mid-August and I sent her the link to the Avail application. She filled out the application  (Wednesday afternoon) and I received the report. On Thursday she asked when she would get the lease and I told her in the morning that I was working on it. I had an 8 hour surgery that day and my husband and I (mainly him) worked on uploading our custom lease after the surgery and we were going to send it to her that evening. That evening I received an email from her stating that she could not verify our profile and that she would be reporting us. We contacted Furnished Finder to confirm that there was nothing wrong with the listing. We decided that this is not a tenant we would want to rent to. Friday evening I received a message from another prospective tenant letting me know that they filled out an application. I attempted to log into the Avail account to review the application only to find that the account was locked. I attempted to call Avail but there is no phone support on the weekends. I emailed and received a response a day later stating that the "algorithm flagged the account". In order to unlock the account I need to send them a photo of myself holding a sign that shows the current date and Avail on it (what is this a kidnapping where I have to send proof of life?), my ID and documentation that shows that I am the owner of the property such as a closing statement.

I called again this morning, Monday, only to be transferred to voicemail, so it looks like customer service for when your account is locked in non existent. At this point I cannot review the new application I received and I am unable to respond to the new applicant to either accept or deny their application. I let them know that I have issues logging into my account and I would be in touch at the beginning of the week, so today, Monday. However, I cannot hold them off forever obviously.

Has anyone else run into this? I do not the believe the BS about the "algorithm flagged the account". Apparently an unstable individual can hold your rental business completely hostage by making false accusations. 

I have used Buildium and other screening and property management softwares in the past and never had something like this happen. Needless to say that I will not use Avail for any of my rentals going forward.

Thoughts anyone? How would you proceed with this?

Hi Ed, for a MTR in Connecticut should we have a lease/rental agreement if the property is listed/rented through Airbnb? If so, what supersedes, the lease/rental agreement or the "contract" that host and guest agreed to when renting through Airbnb. Also, any thoughts on how to handle maintenance and repair cost? Often times hosts are not being reimbursed for damages through Aircover. Appreciate your thoughts.

Hi,

we recently changed property managers after having the same one for several years. We started to have issues i.e. checks were starting to come in late, hard to get in touch with, and so forth so we were happy to hear that the PM wanted to retire. The change coincided with the tenant of 7 years moving out. The new property manager gave us an itemized report with photos outlining $7K of necessary repairs and make ready after an inspection of the property. We think some of the charges should be charged to the tenant i.e. cleaning, carpet repair (new carpet was installed during tenancy), damaged cabinetry, drywall damage, damaged doors, missing window screens and frame damage, burnt out light bulbs, trash removal, neglected yard maintenance etc. There is more but these are the ones we think the tenant is definitely responsible for. Out of the $7K we think tenant part is about $2.2K and Security Deposit is $1.2K. Our problem is that the both the previous PM and her broker refuse to do the itemization of the security deposit, PM did not do a move-in inspection (refers to Texas standard lease paragraph that says tenant should have turned in Inventory and condition form within 45 days of lease commencement), does not have any other documentation regarding property condition, and dropped off the security deposit check of at our new PM. The new PM says they cannot do security deposit itemization since they were not the property manager and do not have any documentation about move in condition. They now deposited the Security Deposit into our account. We're caught in the middle and we're getting close to the 30 Days in which we have to send notice to the tenant. 

We would at a minimum want to keep the Security Deposit and ideally charge the tenant for the overage. I am wondering though how much solid standing we have here since there is no documentation of the move in condition other than the lease specifying that property was as-is and that tenant was obligated to turn in Inventory and Condition Form within 45 days but failed to do so and therefore property is deemed free of damages at time of move-in.

Does the previous PM/Broker have any liability for not keeping property condition records?

Any thoughts on how to handle this?

Thanks