All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

In Germany, the tenants supply their own kitchens and bathroom fixtures, sinks and toilets, painting, and flooring.
An empty apartment has no light fixtures, fans, window treatments. There are bare wires everywhere.

The tenant must install kitchen cabinets, fixtures and all appliances. New paint, flooring, carpet, etc are all the responsibility of the tenant and must be taken with them when they leave unless approved by the landlord.

Kitchen moving, sales, and installation services are businesses here but as you can imagine, tenancy tends to be much longer here than in the states.

20-30 year tenancy is not out of the ordinary and the pro-tenant laws are extremely strong here, it takes over a year to evict and often the evicted wind up right back in the same unit due to social service laws.

Thanks to all for the heads-up on Marital Status inconsistency. I did some checking and here is what I found.

Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia have anti-cohabitation laws in effect. In short it is illegal under many old and silly laws,

The following states do not prohibit marital status discrimination in housing:

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming.

So California does have marital status in their Civil Rights laws. It appears that about half the US states have such laws so this must be checked locally.

http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/ms-statutes.htm

California Specific

http://www.ag.ca.gov/publications/womansrights/ch4.php

Jon is right, it is illegal to refuse a rental due to marital status.

But it is not illegal to refuse it due to inaccuracy on rental application, bad credit, criminal history, previous evictions, etc.

You mentioned that they filled out the application on the spot. You might want to do a little work on your app to support you in the decision making process.

We require photocopies of two forms of id, Drivers license, SS Card, etc. as well as photocopies of W2 or last two paychecks as well as any form of income or assets to be considered in the application process.

You would be amazed how many bad candidates that alone stops. We never get the application back, or it comes back incomplete and is therefore turned down.

We require the cash upfront to run the checks on all signers of a lease, and we force all parties over 21 to sign the lease, period. This helps us weed out the groups of unrelated adults that pop up now and again.

We also would verify all information on all parties, you mentioned two separate addresses, check them both, if they turn out to be parents, this is also a sign of a problem, especially when age is considered. What are 30 years olds doing at home? This screams for judgement histories to be run.

Be thorough but legal in your process, as Jon mentioned, but contrary to the "social responsibility" nuts looking to get elected, your first problem is to survive this business, and you must use all information at your disposal to do that.

One bad tenant can put that into jeopardy.

Unmarried partners are my worst rental group, they have always had the highest number of broken leases of any group.

My last two such groups both broke their leases within six months even with good credit.

This is especially true when they are just moving in together, separate addresses you mentioned. They break up, one leaves, etc., etc, and you wind up with problems.

Once you have the credit check back, and make sure you get one run on both parties, you will know if one already has a poor credit history. As one is working and one not, you are basically stuck with the one that is working as your primary funder.

If they pass the credit history and criminal check, and there are no other candidates,and you feel pressured to get a tenant, I would make both parties sign the lease, and collect full first, last, and security deposits. No exceptions. I also stress the two-month penalty clause for breaking a lease, Florida statue, you statues may be different depending on where you are.

I might be more flexible with married or single mothers with co-signors,but no flexibility whatsoever with this rental group. All deposits in cash or checks cleared before keys are handed over.

You are right to be concerned with this group of renters, they have always been a headache for me and I avoid them whenever possible.

The only group worse, group of single men..

USA vs England

Would love to see a US victory, but being realistic, there is about as much change of finding an honest,responsible Republican or capitalist, no new taxes Democrat.

England is just too strong .. Call it:
3-1, England.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone brought up the issue of pre-1978 housing and the lead paint guidelines recently enacted by the EPA.

How do these requirements affect your numbers?

This is not meant to hijack the thread but I do not believe the court would agree with either of your positions.

The 2009 Florida Statutes

Title VI
CIVIL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE
Chapter 83
LANDLORD AND TENANT
View Entire Chapter
83.49 Deposit money or advance rent; duty of landlord and tenant.--

(1) Whenever money is deposited or advanced by a tenant on a rental agreement as security for performance of the rental agreement or as advance rent for other than the next immediate rental period, the landlord or the landlord's agent shall either:

(a) Hold the total amount of such money in a separate non-interest-bearing account in a Florida banking institution for the benefit of the tenant or tenants. The landlord shall not commingle such moneys with any other funds of the landlord or hypothecate, pledge, or in any other way make use of such moneys until such moneys are actually due the landlord;

(b) Hold the total amount of such money in a separate interest-bearing account in a Florida banking institution for the benefit of the tenant or tenants, in which case the tenant shall receive and collect interest in an amount of at least 75 percent of the annualized average interest rate payable on such account or interest at the rate of 5 percent per year, simple interest, whichever the landlord elects. The landlord shall not commingle such moneys with any other funds of the landlord or hypothecate, pledge, or in any other way make use of such moneys until such moneys are actually due the landlord; or

(c) Post a surety bond, executed by the landlord as principal and a surety company authorized and licensed to do business in the state as surety, with the clerk of the circuit court in the county in which the dwelling unit is located in the total amount of the security deposits and advance rent he or she holds on behalf of the tenants or $50,000, whichever is less. The bond shall be conditioned upon the faithful compliance of the landlord with the provisions of this section and shall run to the Governor for the benefit of any tenant injured by the landlord's violation of the provisions of this section. In addition to posting the surety bond, the landlord shall pay to the tenant interest at the rate of 5 percent per year, simple interest. A landlord, or the landlord's agent, engaged in the renting of dwelling units in five or more counties, who holds deposit moneys or advance rent and who is otherwise subject to the provisions of this section, may, in lieu of posting a surety bond in each county, elect to post a surety bond in the form and manner provided in this paragraph with the office of the Secretary of State. The bond shall be in the total amount of the security deposit or advance rent held on behalf of tenants or in the amount of $250,000, whichever is less. The bond shall be conditioned upon the faithful compliance of the landlord with the provisions of this section and shall run to the Governor for the benefit of any tenant injured by the landlord's violation of this section. In addition to posting a surety bond, the landlord shall pay to the tenant interest on the security deposit or advance rent held on behalf of that tenant at the rate of 5 percent per year simple interest.

The above is the description of the handling of security deposits. In both clause a and b, it clearly states that in the instance of non-interest bearing or interest bearing, no co-mingling or pledging of security deposits may occur.

The clause you quoted is part of the following regarding notification of where the security deposit is held during the term of the lease, and does not negate the clauses of section 1. The only reasonable explanation would have to do with clause (c) above, the posting of a surety bond rather than the isolated funds.

2) The landlord shall, within 30 days of receipt of advance rent or a security deposit, notify the tenant in writing of the manner in which the landlord is holding the advance rent or security deposit and the rate of interest, if any, which the tenant is to receive and the time of interest payments to the tenant. Such written notice shall:

(a) Be given in person or by mail to the tenant.

(b) State the name and address of the depository where the advance rent or security deposit is being held, whether the advance rent or security deposit is being held in a separate account for the benefit of the tenant or is commingled with other funds of the landlord, and, if commingled, whether such funds are deposited in an interest-bearing account in a Florida banking institution.

(c) Include a copy of the provisions of subsection (3).

Great list, but on point #4, wouldn't that attract lots of loser applicants and end up costing you a ton for paying those app fees, especially if you're paying an agency like NTN to do the screening?

Hi,
Not really. We screen the candidates over the phone for salary, jobs, etc and then ask the questions about evictions and criminal records before we do a showing.
Only after the showing has gone acceptably do we give them an application and go to the next step.
We usually get rid of the dead beats on the phone.
It does raise the costs a bit, bit the costs aren't really a factor when compared to an empty unit for a month.

Another situation where the local laws are paramount.

The new Florida law states that it is up to the landlord to declare in the lease what the penalty will be for breaking a lease.

Two choices are a two-month penalty that does not take anything else into consideration. Break the lease, and pay two months rent PLUS any damages.

The second is the old way of how much did you spend to find a new tenant, repairs and all rents up until a new tenant is found.

Most new leases are using the two month clause now as it was always such a pain to go through the costing and security handling with the second method; the security could be tied up indefinitely.

Again all the proper security handling notification procedures must be followed to the letter of the law, and that normally requires a certified letter to go out withing some time period.

Local laws rule the situation.

NC Mark is on the money about doing a better job of prequalifying the potential tenants before the first phone call is over.

We use a 3-4+ times rent income verification question, depending on family member numbers, on the first call and verify they have the money for any and all required deposits before we set-up a showing. It helps to reduce the wasted trips.

We also suspended any application fees once the prequalification has been satisfactory.