All Forum Posts by: Tom C

Guess I will throw this out here.. Just looking for opinions. Purely hypothetical situation, but could possible help some people out. Being a former cop, I always look for loop holes in policy, procedures and the law in order to legally violate some dirt bags rights. Just kidding, any way keep in mind, I am not condoning this work around.

One of the biggest issue for some landlords who rent to Section 8 tenants is getting Section 8 to pay the amount of rent that you are requesting. This usually comes into play when you find an excellent tenant who is, perhaps a single working mother with one child and she is also going to school full time. In this situation, Section 8 comes back and says, due to her income, family size and your house size, you can only charge her $400 bucks a month.

Your rent is $550. Of course, you never ever want to make side deals with the tenant. This is not only illegal, but as MikeOh points out, it will give the tenant power over you and you have just lost all control; however, you really don't want to loose this person, she is a perfect fit for your house.

Oh by way, this house has a detached 2 car garage. hmmm.

Many Landlords in my area often charge extra for use of a garage. Seems a little low life to me, but to each their own.

What would happen if you would strictly write up this girls month to month lease stating, lease does not include use of the garage and make sure Section 8 is aware of it and has it documented also. Now mom comes along and wants to use this nice big garage. You then write up a separate lease to mom charging $150 per month. You don't care if mom, let's her daughter use the garage too, right? All receipts are written out to the mother and the daughter as far as you know, gives those receipts to mom.

Comments, Complaints?

Exactly Tim! You can't rely on these people to change the battery in their smoke detectors, let alone keep a carpet clean. Too much headache. Pull the carpet, pull tack strip and freaking staples and if you can, wax the hardwood several times, if it's too far gone, paint the sucker. Let them buy floor rugs, if they don't like the wood floors. Keep in mind, I also allow small pets, cats and dogs. You can get a lot more in rent and sometimes better tenants if you allow pets.

Yeah, I know, figured someone would nail me for not being around. :) Working F/T and taking care of 3 houses and a duplex keeps a person busy. Starting to get the bug to work some deals again. Needed to come out and get some refresher notes. lol

I also go month to month for Sec 8, but Sec 8 also requires me to sign an agreement for 1 year for that tenant. That agreement only applies to payment amount and the rules of Sec 8, my month to month lease still applies. As far as funding, our local HUD is hanging on by a shoe string and doesn't know when more funding is going to be allocated.

Advertise that you will throw in a cheap flat screen at low monthly interest rates or something they value most. :)

Correct. According to my tax advisor, my front end loader is purchased by the business and deprecated over a number of years. I cannot attach it to any one house as an expense.

"European Style Wood Floors" I love it. Will have try that on my next vacancy.First thing I do to a new rental is tear out the carpet and I have never had any complaints.

Eddie, I couldn't agree more. I pride myself on treating my tenants like customers. I have from day one and thats how I run this company. Word of mouth spreads very quickly in my little city and I never have problems finding good quality tenants due to my reputation. I would not have been able to say no for $600 to these ladies even if I did have a legal standing, they are good people.

You all brought up very good points to consider in the future and I made it very clear to them tonight, that this would be the only time that I would permit this.

Thanks

"They've been good tenants for 2 years, been on this advanced rent arrangement the whole time and only now are asking for a one time car repair, one month of six prepaid months to be returned? Is that right?"

That is correct

"Is the prepaid arrangement part of the written lease?"

No. They sometimes pay on a monthly basis until her school funding comes through. Also, I have never had another tenant offer to pay in advance, so there would be no issue to deal with there.

Most likely they requested Jan back which is the last month of their 6 months advanced rent, because they figure that they will be able to come up with Jan's rent by that point. The daughter uses her school grant money to pay rent. I am meeting them tonight to return one months rent and I will lay it out that this is the only time that I will permit this, if they request this again, I will no longer accept advanced rents. They have rented from me for over 2 years now and I haven't had any reason to even consider evicting them in the past, of course something could always come up, they are what I would consider very good tenants.

Thanks