All Forum Posts by: Timothy Sparrow

Hello BP'ers,

Wanted to ask all of you a question regarding a recent situation with a contractor that I'm dealing with.

Back in May of 2013 I renovated a kitchen in one of my rental properties. I hired an electrician to do all of the electrical work to the tune of $2500. Just an FYI, we did not pull permits (I know, I know). I paid him half ($1250)up front and he did most of the wiring. After the sheetrock was finished I called him back to finish the job (install all the appliances, do all the recessed lighting, all the switches, etc. He never returned my call. I left messages, texts, and received nothing for 3 weeks. I finally said the hell with it and called another electrician to finish the job. The second electrician cost me $1500 to finish everything the other contractor didn't do.

After a month goes by the electrician calls me up finally and tells me "I'm ready to come by and finish". I told him that because he never returned my calls and I needed to finish the kitchen, I hired another electrician. He was all huffy and puffy and told me he was going to report me for not having a building permit. I wasn't too worried because I knew he would be shooting himself in the foot if he reported it because it would put his own license in jeopardy.

Fast forward to November 2014 (today).I received a bill from that electrician (over a year later!) for $500 with the invoice for "Owners choice to finish job with another contractor". In the invoice he states 2% interest will be charged every month it is late.

My question is, Do I need to worry here? Should I just ignore this invoice? Does he have any recourse to file suit and if so does he have a case?

Thanks in advance for all your help BP'ers!

Hello BP'ers,

I wanted to get some of your opinions on my current situation. I purchased a foreclosure townhome in Alexandria VA in May of last year for $190k ($20k down). It was a fixer upper that I lived in for 6 months and did a lot of the reno work myself. I ended up dropping another $20k for repairs/upgrades.

I moved to Tulsa, OK for my job in Feb of this year and decided to hold and rent my Alexandria, VA property. Currently it is cash flowing about $450 per month (would be more but I am paying a PM). The DC market has been pretty hot this past year and recently a couple identical units have sold in my development for around $270k. Therefore, if I sold now I could potentially walk away with around $100k to reinvest.

Here is my dilemma:

1. I really like the stability of the DC market (lots of jobs) so I know the rent will continue to be consistent as well as increase over time. I also like having the "safety net" of owning a property there in case I ever want to move back.

2. If I sold I would need to reinvest so I am not penalized by capital gains. I really only feel comfortable in buying and renovating in markets that I live in (I'm ok holding properties after I leave however). This would mean I need to purchase in Tulsa, OK. To be honest it's a decent market for cash flow but I won't be in Tulsa for more than a couple years. It's also not a place I really want to come back to after I move away ;).

3. $100k is a lot of money. I could probably buy 3 properties in Tulsa for that kind of money. I could also probably double my cash flow from the $450 it is now to about $900 per month. 

I want to make sure I don't act on impulse here. It is easy to be greedy in this situation and sell but I was always told "slow and steady wins the race" as a kid :).

What are everybody's thoughts? Thanks in advance for your comments!

Brian,

I'm not angry with the electrician...as far as I'm concerned he was just doing his job. I know this invoice will need to be paid. The question has to do with the PM. If you were in my position how would respond to the PM? Try to get them to pay for it?, Fire them and find a new PM?, Report to BBB?, or just state your frustration and move on with the same PM?

I have the same limits setup in my contract however there is a clause that states they reserve the right to move forward with any repair that is deemed "urgent" which could impact the immediate safety of a tenant.

Still though, no communication whatsoever until after 20 hours of work was performed? Seems very fishy to me.

Hello Everyone,

First, sorry about the lenth of this post...I'm pretty upset with the situation and wanted to get it off my chest.

Long time reader, first time poster. I have a couple rental properties however I recently hired my first property manager for a property in Northern Virginia. I hired them in February to find a tenant and manage the property in my abscence. I have since moved 800 miles away. We found a tenant and she moved in this past weekend. I lived in the property for 6 months before I left and renovated almost everything however I never touched anything electrical. Also, my home inspector gave me an "all clear" on the electrical during the walk through. I installed new ceiling fans upstairs which all worked when I left. My property manager emailed me to tell me the master bed ceiling fan was not working and a couple outlets were dead and they needed to send one of thier maintenance men out.

Ok, now please read the email I received from them today:

"Good evening, Mr. XXXXXX.

We have sent out several XXXX Handyman technicians at different times to investigate the electrical issues that we have discussed through previous emails. While investigating the power problems in your home, one of technician found that the light at the top of the stairs had 240 volts as well as the attic light fixture. As much as our initial effort was to minimize your costs and not get a licensed electrician involved, we had no option but to call on a licensed electrician to investigate and resolve the issues. We called upon XXXX Electric, who is one of our trusted vendors. We were under the assumption that something had gone wrong at the breaker box and we would still be well within our previous estimate.

Upon investigating the issue with the ceiling fan, the electrician notified us of numerous building code violations that are causing these severe issues throughout the property. It appears that during the home remodeling stage some building codes were not adhered to. What he found was that there were exposed wires in the attic, open wiring connections in the attic, incorrect gauge wiring, and ground wires not connected. Any one of these items would be a fire hazard; all of them combined was a situation that required the electrician to either immediately notify the County or begin to repair the issues and eliminate the threat of fire. Notifying the County would have meant an immediate visit from the fire department/fire marshal who would have condemned the building unsafe for residency, having to schedule an inspection with the County to validate that all violations were corrected, paying a fine of $350 for each violation found in the house, and having to break the lease because the house could not be delivered as agreed upon.

For all of these reasons, we asked that the violations be corrected as quickly as possible. Originally the electrician was planning to call the county on the spot, however we convinced the electrician not to call county and told him that he can do the work immediately which meant there was no reason to report the property to the county. I have attached a copy of the final invoice from XXXX Electric Services for your property at XXXX. for work performed. The original pricing for the work was at $100.00 an hour. The electrician spent over 20 hours working on rectifying the issues. We negotiated a 25% discount to reduce the expense for you as much as possible. He sent us his final invoice today.

Would you like to send the check directly to XXXX Electric or would you like us to pay the invoice on your behalf and charge your account?"

Needless to say my first experience with a property manger isn't starting off well. My issues with this email:

1. They performed 20 hours of work and I receive no communication whatsoever until now??

2. The "trusted vendor" they chose to come out threatened to call the county on the spot? Doesn't sound like a very trusting relationship to me

3. I never touched any wiring while living there and the inspector gave me the green light (although I don't know how closely he looked at the wiring).

So here is my question for all you out there in the bigger pockets community: How would you respond to this situation? In my current state of mind I want to fire this PM, find another, and report these guys to the BBB and NPMA.

Please help this newbie. I'm extremely disheartened by this and am second guessing being an absentee landlord.

Tim