All Forum Posts by: Tim Miller

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!

First thing first, until you receive official notice from the bankruptcy court, you are free to continue to try and collect the debt you are owed.

Now sit aside the lawyer and ch 13. You have to follow your local laws regarding landlord-tenant issues. Since they are gone, you have to put together the cost of damages, lost rent and any other cost to get this unit re-rented. Then you need to send this information to the tenant (include the lawyer) stating security deposit amount minus repair and re-renting cost, you owe X dollars. State that you will file a suit in your local court to get a judgement.

They are going to say you can't do this and this is where you either say "see you in court" or "talk to my attorney". Just remember that if they do file for BK, then you have to stop all legal actions and collection. You'll want to file with the BK court what is owed to you. Doubt that you'll see a penny but you won't know until you do. Good luck!

Everybody is going to love the software they use. My advise is to pick a mix of about 4 or 5 different software. Setup dummy accounts and run them through what would be (as close to normal) day to day process and see which one works best for you. If you're looking for just the basic, Avail or Innago would work. If you need a little more power, look at Rentredi or one of the other software to charges a monthly fee.

Personally, we don't like all in one software because they never do everything great. They may do 1 or 2 things really good and the rest is so so. For that reason, we use Innago and it works great for collecting rent, fees and maintenance request. What they lack is Advertising, Application processing, bank connection and a thorough nationwide background check. So we have other services that does a really great job for us. Good luck.

Quote from @Wes Glass:

Update. I spoke with my insurance company (Farm Bureau). They confirmed what I already believed. They said that they would exclude the dog from coverage. AKA. If something happens with the dog, Im on my own. So, I have been shopping around. State Farm offers insurance without regard to breed. I also found an insurance broker, which shopped around for different companies. I ended up going with Auto Owners, due to price and coverage. FYI, State Farm, at least here, uses a percentage of the dwelling coverage as the deductible amount. Example: if dwelling coverage is $500,000 then deductible is $5000. 1% is lowest they would go. So, for me, that was a no go.

You shouldn't have to change insurance companies to please a tenant. This is your out with this ESA Pitbull. This is the undue burden that is your saving grace. You can now tell the PM to get the dog out or allow the tenant to break the lease agreement and move. Good Luck.

@Wes Glass As other have suggested, ask your PM for all the documents that the tenant provided. Don't say anything, only that you want them. I would also ask the PM what is their process to verify that the ESA Letter is legit and not some piece of paper they paid $49.95 from online.

Here is a website that anyone can get an ESA letter from https://www.supportpets.com/  I went through this website and I even qualify for an ESA letter. That's how fraudulent this website is and others like it.

You need to look at the supporting document's provided and see if this is from a local doctor, social worker or if it's from an online service. I'd reject it totally if it's online. You might want to use petscreening.com and let them decide if it's legit or not. Tell your PM they must use this service for all your property.  Good luck!