All Forum Posts by: Tim Miller

Yes this is a BIG RED FLAG! Not unless you don't care what happens to your property. This could also land you in a lot of legal trouble! Example: Maryland law now is that you can only have 1 month for a security deposit. If you took 8 months, she could easily turn around and demand her money back When you say no, she takes you to court. The judge won't care what the agreement was, you broke the law and now the judge is going to award the tenant 3 times the monthly rent to the tenant and order you to give back that money.

You need to tell any applicant that offers this that they must complete your application and go through all back ground checks. You do have policy and procedures in place? Right?!

If you don't you need to learn how to be a landlord real fast, get out of the rental business or turn over the property to a property manager. Good luck!

Check your local laws and see what will be the fast and easiest for you. In MD it would be Non-renewal because you can get a tenant out faster then non-payment. Good luck!

That's a good question, I've seen this done in Clear Spring which is just west of Hagerstown. Your best bet might be to check with Planning and Code. Good Luck!

Everyone is going to love the service they use. Prime example is Jake can't say enough about Turbotenant. Where as we tried it and didn't like the service. We settled on Innago, my advise is to sign up to 3 to 5 services and test them out. See which one will work for you the best. Good luck.

Quote from @Nathan Gesner:

Quote from @Matthew Ginsberg:

In Washington County, Maryland, if my Lease Contract says all charges owed are considered rent, if my tenant paid their base rent but not maintenance fees and water bills owed, can i file against the tenant for failure to pay rent?

I read the rules shared by Tim. Maryland sounds like a rough place for Landlords.

Didn't use to be but it's getting worst! If your in Hagerstown, MD you have to put up with city inspection and every now and then you get one with a chips on his/her shoulder. I'm dealing with one now, example of issue: They want hand rails going down to the basement from the outside cellar doors. Tenant doesn't have access to this part of the basement.

You use to be able to do this, "all fees are consider rent due" but not any more. A court case in Maryland has ruled against it. Below are a few links to the case.

https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2024/4a23.pdf

https://www.publicjustice.org/en/news/supreme-court-of-maryl...

Section 8 - either you love or hate it. Everyone keeps talking about how great it is and just set your processes around them. But there is a lot more to this and it starts with actually reading the contract you're signing!

See our short list:

Here are just a few items in the Housing Assistance Payments Contract that keeps us from accepting section 8

1. The owner must give the PHA any information on rents charged by owner for other unit.

2. PHA shall not be obligated to pay any late payment if HUD determines that late payment by PHA is beyond the PHA's control.

3. HUD shall have full & free access to contract unit, premises, & all
accounts & other records of the owner that are relevant to HAP
Contract.

4. The owner must grant such access to computerized or
other electronic records & to any computers, facilities & must
provide any information or assistance needed to access the records.

5. PHA failure to pay the owner is not a violation of the lease. The owner may not terminate the tenancy for nonpayment.

6. Must give 90 days notice to vacate

As you can see there are a number of reason not to take section 8. We will
not allow them full access to any of our computers, smart phones,
office and so on.

This is almost like renting by the room, all it takes is for one not to pay and the other one is going to say. "I paid my half" regardless of what the lease says.

We use an online payment system and we only allow one tenant to be responsible for signing up to make the monthly payments. They can figure out their own internal financial arrangements for themselves. 

Maryland has a similar law, we call it Reusable Tenant Screening Reports. Simply means they can process their report once on a service like Zillow and use it for up to 30 days or they can print it out and give it to you.

In Maryland you have to clearly state if you do not accept these reports. It's the first sentence in all of our ads, We do not accept reusable screening reports and it's on our application.

It sounds great but that's all. These reports do not provide all the information that we require. Plus I wouldn't trust them for anything.

Stay away from Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, these services are not meant for rent payments and/or security deposits. You have no control over these services. If a tenant stops paying and you file for eviction. On the day you go to court, the tenant drops $50 to you through Zelle. You could lose your case as you just accepted a partial payment from the tenant. Now the court will view this as the tenant is trying to make good on their rent.

Most rental apps (Innago, Avail, Zillow ....) can control if a tenant can make a partial payment or not and you can even stop the tenant from making any payment until a court decides the case.

My advise is to signup to 3 or 4 services and see which one works best for you. Good Luck!