All Forum Posts by: Suzette T.

You guys won't believe this.

I started this thread when a tenant died last week. It was the second death since October. I manage 400-ish rentals so it's not terrible odds, but it's the most I've ever seen in such a short period of time.

Well, it just happened again but this time there are two deaths in one night!

I drove past the tenant's house last night and noticed a police car in the driveway. I mentioned it to my wife, who was with me. She said, "The police car lights are off, so maybe he's just visiting." This didn't make sense, but it's plausible, so we went home and forgot about it.

Three hours later I got a call from an officer stating that both tenants are dead. No signs of foul play, no drugs, nothing. They are identical twins, look exactly alike. One of them worked as a nurse at the hospital and he is the one that always came to pay the rent. The other brother was an extreme recluse that I never saw outside of the house in the 10 years I've known them. The working brother was sent home for a non-COVID illness but was supposed to report back on Wednesday. He never did. The hospital didn't do a welfare check until Saturday when they were found.

What a terrible three months.

Thank you both! Wish the days had more hours or that I just didn't need sleep! 

@Suzette T. Hi Suzette! I ended up listing the property and selling it for asking price instead of placing another tenant. It was a good time to sell because of excellent comps in that time period and since my exit strategy was to eventually sell anyways, I just got rid of the headache and put some money in the bank for a flip project. I hope to never revisit that issue! I hope other locales don't make it is difficult as mine does with this sort of thing! 

Hello BP,

TLDR: Unreasonable neighbors are harassing my tenants to the point where they no longer feel comfortable living there. They are trying to break our lease agreement because of this. Due to HOA regulations, doing so would cost me about $10k, as I would not be able to rent the unit again for about 9 months, and the rental income is paying my mother's mortgage.

I have recently acquired a rental through creatively financing my mother's bad situation.

The property:
My grandfather who was also living in the 2nd floor unit with my mom, and mentally ill brother, was entering hospice care at the time, and could no longer walk up/down the stairs. I agreed to pay my mom's down payment, and service her mortgage for a new home, in exchange for taking over the condo. I rehabbed the condo for about $8k, and am making about $450/month in cash flow after maintenance and mortgage on the new home. I plan to use the cash flow to subsidize my mom's retirement, as she is still working full-time and would like to retire soon. I spent my childhood in that condo.

The problem:
New neighbors have moved in downstairs, and have been complaining about EVERYTHING. Their complaints include noise from the floor above, stating they want the floors to be torn up and redone with superior soundproofing. They have also been complaining about the tenant's dog barking (it is a tiny little dog). They even complain about hearing toilets flush and cabinets closing. 

They have been harassing my tenants to the point where they now no longer feel comfortable or safe renting in my unit, and are moving to early terminate our lease agreement. I have executed the lease prior to transferring title, because condo rules state I cannot rent for first year of ownership. They have about 9 months left of their lease term. If they leave, I cannot rent again for 9 months, which will cost me about $10k to hold vacant. 

To make matters worse, the evil neighbors' daughter is a lawyer. She has pulled the public records on the unit and is now moving to take action against me for transferring title without association approval (we used a quit-claim deed within the family, I grew up in the unit). She wants to have my tenants evicted (who want to leave anyway because of their harassment), she wants me to redo the entire floor in the unit, among other unreasonable demands. From speaking with the neighbors personally, they want to move also and don't want to live in a condo. I've gathered from HOA members and my tenants that they are living there because the daughter doesn't want them to leave. I have also been told she doesn't want them to move yet because she wants to rent the unit after the 1 year restriction has passed.

My tenants are absolutely wonderful people and are not doing anything extraordinary to cause noise. Apparently, the association and other neighbors living in the condo have similar stories about these peoples' unrealistic expectations and complaints. Everyone around them, including the HOA volunteers, want the neighbors to move elsewhere. They have made the family living across from them in another building split up their 2 dogs because you are only supposed to have one dog. My tenants called the police on them once for banging on their door and making threats and mentioning they have a firearm because of a very minor leak, and then they lied to the HOA that they called the police themselves.

I don't know what my options are, as this is my first rental property.
Should my tenants decide to bail and stop paying rent, would I be able to pursue them to maintain their obligations to our rental agreement?
Would it be possible, under the circumstances, to get around the HOA rules of renting within 1 year of ownership, and only one 12-month lease allowed per year.
Can I go after the evil neighbors?
Will I eventually have to end up selling the unit to avoid 9 months of vacancy?

These people are absolutely unreasonable. I have tried speaking to them directly to try to reach a compromise, I have even spoken with their lawyer daughter. Their sense of entitlement and disregard for others is something that I've never encountered before. I am especially concerned because their lawyer daughter has gone through the lengths to pull public records on my unit and is making threats to take action against me and the HOA. I am convinced that if I am able to rent it again this year, that she will come after me for doing so.

I would overwhelmingly appreciate any seasoned landlords who might have had similar situations share their experience. Thank you in advance!

Hey Folks-

Has anyone had to deal with a cruddy neighbor next door to one of your rental houses (not condo or townhome)? Short version: I have a rural property that is in a very nice area ($275K-500K Homes) but I keep getting reports about how awful the neighbors are--non stop dog barking and other noise late at night. Neighbors are homeowners of a $480K house on about 3-5 acres. My property is around an acre.

More detail: My previous tenant complained about the dogs being loose and barking at all hours of the night and I had at least 3 discussions with the offending neighbor during her tenancy (which ended about 3 years ago). Each time we talked he seemed nice and agreed to try to move the dogs further back on his lot  yet the problem persisted. After speaking to Animal Control, I instructed the tenant that I was told she would have to be the one to call to complain before Animal Control could do anything. I even relayed to the neighbor that if the issue persisted that the tenant would have to call Animal Control and he would be issued first a warning and then fines for subsequent issues. She was continually frustrated but never called Animal Control; she just moved out. Fast forward to current tenant and they complained about the same thing starting a couple years ago. I had 2 or 3 more conversations with the neighbor and again, they were neighborly conversations and he said he'd do his best. I stopped hearing from the tenant about it so I thought all was well. Today I just got notice that they are moving and he told me they were the worst neighbors he has ever had. He said it got better for a short period and then they were running loose, barking and now they were even riding ATV's at 11- midnight. 

I have never had this kind of pervasive thing occur without being able to clear it up on my own friendly terms. Does anyone have suggestions for a next step with the neighbor? I could potentially sell the property (I bought it Sub2 and plan on selling within a number of years anyways) but it nets a nice amount each month and each year I hold it, it nets me another 10K between the principal pay down and monthly profit. It's an awful feeling to feel like I can't do anything about something that affects my property so much. Any suggestions on how to handle to get results? 

Many thanks in advance for sound advice from experience!

@Susan Herschell you'll learn pretty soon that the transparency is not to your benefit.

When one or two Tenants will ask you to wave late fees when "their car got broken", "the baby get sick", the bank account got broken into", "they change the job and will get back on track soon" - you will help them.

But eventually you'll understand that these reasons are endless and you run a business, not a charity.

The lease states parties as "Landlord" and "Tenant(s)", I sign the lease on behave of the Landlord as a property manager for the XXX, LLC.

They contact me, they might guess now and then that I'm the property owner but I don't disappoint them with the truth. If I need really third party to refer to, I'll bring my partner for few properties and show him as the owner......his company AKA XXX, LLC - the Landlord. He will say whatever he has to......but in the end of the day, I'll collect the rent and enforce the lease. Someone has to - and it's very hard when your tenants think you're made of money

I have this house that I am in the process of closing on in Lafayette Louisiana market. I want to flip it. This would be my second house I’m flipping. I’m new to this world of flipping and I need some help. I got this house under contract for $163,000. After repair value is most likely $230,000 but could get all the way up to $255,000 according to the comps. I will have a total of $195,000 with realtor fees and repairs. This will take about 3 months to get the house back on market. I feel like this is a bad time to do a deal that is this thin. I’m worried about the market dropping or it sitting long because of all the COVID changes that are about to happen at the end of this month. This house has 2305 Square feet with 3 beds and 2 baths. What do y’all think?

We require proof of utilities switched in tenant's name before exchanging keys at move-in.  If they don't have actual proof, I've actually called the electric company to verify it is in their name before handing them the keys.  More importantly, I always call the electric company to cancel my service at the unit and tell new tenants I've scheduled it before possession as lease states it is their responsibility.  The places that allow me to have a Landlord account are wonderful, but it varies.  Raleigh will let me have both gas and water/sewer landlord accounts, and the gas company even lets me see online "tenant switching over x date."  They won't, however, do that for electric, so I have to call each time.  Other cities won't let me transfer water to tenants name, must stay in my name and I am responsible, so I have it in lease that they will reimburse me within 30 days of receiving an email copy of the bill.  If they don't, I can deal with it right then and final bill can be deducted from deposit.  I wish there was a more uniform policy on utilities, but you get used to it.

@Hobart King,

Those numbers do sound a bit high. That said, your chances of damage due to hurricane / tropical storm remnants look to be considerable, especially with what we've seen this year. The outlook going forward is, well, less than "rosy".

My $0.02 ...

@Paul Brown

Hi Paul,

Any suggestions for finding a broker that can shop commercial rates? Is Google the best bet?

Thanks