All Forum Posts by: Ric Ernst

I evicted a non-paying tenant from one of my Indianapolis properties last week and he was good enough to kick holes in many walls, kick in most of the interior doors, break cabinet doors and drawers and, oddly, stole all of the knobs from the kitchen cabinets. A typical repaint and clean up turnover turned into a $6k repair on top of several month's lost rent. Of course, I can't prove the tenant did this. My PM often uses a collection agent to pursue past due rents but is limited to $1,500. I'll be talking to my attorney and consider my options and may just end up sucking it up and moving on. But, I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and what you may have done

@Tricia O'Brien I have used Hocker for title and contract work, not evictions. However, I have no doubt they can handle an eviction for you. I would simply call their office and ask them to connect you with the appropriate attorney or paralegal for your situation. If you have a PM, that should be their role to handle on your behalf. Or are you self managing from Alaska?

@Tricia O'Brien Hocker & Associates should be able to help you out.

@Nathan Williams You can serve eviction papers now for non payment. No need to wait for the lease to end if she isn't fulfilling her obligations under the lease. I just evicted a tenant in Indy last week. However, your tenant could successfully have the eviction tossed if she convinces a judge that the eviction will lead to her being homeless. Then she will be there at least until the end of the year without any motivation to pay rent and you will have a pretty hard time collecting it later. If she is outright not paying rent, I would personally offer to pay her to leave. Offer an entire month's rent. That'll be cheaper than the combined court cost and lost revenue in the interim. It could take you a month or more to get a court date right now and, if you are unsuccessful, you will be out the court costs and rent. If she's just a bit behind and making an honest effort to pay, I would personally suck it up and wait for things to stabilize and work with your tenant to get caught up.

@Sacha Allen it depends on where exactly. Tuxedo Park closer to Sherman is a bit rough but it gets better further east. Indianapolis neighborhoods vary block to block. If you're considering investing there but can't research neighborhoods in person, I'd vet potential properties with your PM prior to making any offers.

@Bettina S. I've recently run into the same situation and, ultimately, you are on the hook if your tenant doesn't pay their utility bills and moves out. You can go after previous tenants for past due rents in Indianapolis (I believe only up to $1,500) and, presumably you should be able to sue them to recoup those utility bills but, that comes with time and expense and may not be worth it...especially in these times. I have a property that falls in a special sewage district called the Ben Davis Conservancy District which has its own extra bill and they actually threatened to put a lien on my property since the tenant was not paying their bill. If this is a consistent problem, consider putting utilities in your own name and adding a flat premium to the rent to cover utility costs that you pay.

@Deepak Kumar property investment is a business and, even if you only have one property, you cannot avoid being involved to some extent. Even a fantastic property manager will require some management from you. That said, Indianapolis like anywhere has a range of property types....class A to class D or F. Everyone here has their favorites but you'll get better recommendations if you let us know what type of property you need management for. An A class PM is not going to be a good fit for a section 8 situation or the reverse for instance.

@Enrique H. I doubt we'll know the answer until the 13th. You can be sure that if evictions are allowed to go forward, there will be a court backlog extending well into September or October. Although, if I were a betting man, my money would be on an extension of the moratorium.

@Łukasz Juraszek wow they really want to get rid of that property don't they? Despite what appears to be a bargain, you should realize that that is not a great neighborhood and, although houses built in the 1890s are totally cool, they typically need massive work to rehab....lathe and plaster walls, fuse boxes, exposed wiring, non-standard construction, etc.

I don't know a lot about short term rentals but my gut would tell me most people aren't going to want to rent this for a weekend in a distressed neighborhood. Monthly rental tenants will turn over more often than a SFR in a nicer area so you'll be putting money back into it each time that happens.

Could it be a great deal? Maybe. But there's a reason it's been on the market for 209 days and counting with the seller cutting the price to 1/3 of its original price.

@Ashley Willis a 10 day notice is the precursor to an eviction which is not allowed in Indiana right now and very likely won't be allowed nationally for quite a while. I'm not sure what you would accomplish serving this notice other than creating some hard feelings between you and your tenant. If they are paying monthly, consider yourself lucky and don't jeopardize your income stream. They could stop all together and you wouldn't have any recourse. When this mess passes and evictions are allowed, you can make a decision about how to handle this.