All Forum Posts by: Sharlene Ko

Quote from @Sharlene Ko:

Hello, thanks for replying and for the advice. Unfortunately, I might just end up paying for everything. I did try to file a claim and will see where it goes. 

I looked at Florida state website and it has a section 718.203 that's in regards to warranties from builders. I'm no lawyer nor very good at understanding legalize speak. But maybe this is something you could look into.

Hey @Sharlene Ko - sorry for the unfortunate situation, seems like everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else... in reality this may be something you end up having to remedy yourself IF your warranty service won't cover it. 

If you bought the house, and your bank approved it, and you also did inspections that gave you a due diligence period - technically the onus is on the buyer to go through everything before buying. 

Flippers like this give a bad reputation to all flippers, they're also common here in NYC. 

@Sharlene Ko, this is an excellent question. I always though the same thing when first starting out because I did not want to give my bank account a false since of improvement. 

But... as years passed, I always seemed to revert back to my old principle of Keep It Simple. 

So for me personally, I keep everything in one checking account for that rental property (rents + security deposits). 

If this is your only rental and you wanted to get technical, you can open up sub-accounts (if your bank allows that). That way you can do 1 of 2 things:

1. One location for rents and another for security deposits

2. sub account for each renter.

The downside to this is that it can be very administrative heavy and it is not scaleable after you start having multiple RBR rentals IMO. 

Best of luck!

One account for all deposits & no other transactions should use that account.

The account should be under your name or the company you operate.

As always, check the local ordinance.

Some areas require you to have a separate account.  Some may also require you return it with interest while others say you need to put it in a non-interest bearing account.  Find out what your local laws are.  I have to return the remaining balance with interest, but they have an online calculator that tells me how much that interest is...so I just keep everything in one account.  Where I am, banks also charge for bank accounts and if you don't do something with the money every 6 months, the account becomes dormant....hence I put everything in a single account.

I have a HYSA with Ally bank where I let security deposits sit. It allows me to get a 4-5% return with no risk of losing their deposit. 

You want to keep their deposits in a separate account from your own to avoid commingling funds.

Sharlene, 

I do not know the answer to this but I am commenting to give you more reach. 

I'd love to know the answer to this as well. My assumption is that you would have separate bank account under your name as the landlord for all of the security deposits for this particular property. I can't imagine you'd have to have a different bank account for every single room that you're renting. 

Hoping you get an answer soon!