All Forum Posts by: Walt Dockery

Every mortgage I've ever had has had some form of grace period before a late fee or penalty. 

Sometimes the 1st falls on a weekend or holiday. Snail mail takes a few days and while I prefer online payment regular mail is an option.  We live in a practically zero percent interest rate environment, those extra few days are not material to me as long as the tenant consistently pays. My lease has due on the 1st and late fee after the 5th, I believe that's fairly standard and doesn't bother me. 

I'm no lawyer but I do not believe this is correct in FL (maybe it varies by municipality?).  If your neighbors tree falls on your house, or drops a limb on your house or property, they are not responsible.  I have never heard of anyone here forcing a neighbor to trim trees as part of a "code violation" either ... city has some arborist that will come out and look, and sometimes the city will trim them if its say over a road or power lines, but I've never heard of someone being forced by neighbors to trim trees.  We have a lot of mature trees and a lot of trees go down here too. 

I also believe you are incorrect that you can't legally trim a limb that's hanging over your property.  Personally I would always ask the neighbors first just to be a good neighbor. 

You can probably trim the limbs that are overhanging your property. If it were me, I'd make a reasonable effort to contact them and if that failed have the portion over my property trimmed.

I do not like keyed knobs/handles. They don't do squat for security but are a good way to lock yourself out. I prefer doors with a deadbolt and a non-locking "pass through" type handle/knob. 

Smartkey IME are very easy to rekey, though they are very cheaply made, easily defeated low security locks. Probably good enough for a rental, I'd never have them on my house. If I owned a lot of rentals I'd probably move to some type of keypad, Samsung makes a good one. For my one single rental, I use a high security lock where unathorized copies of keys can't be made and just require tenant returns all the keys and charge a rekey fee if I don't get them all back ... I lived in the house previously though, I would want a lower cost solution for future rentals. Maybe mul t lock which have interchangeable cores for easier rekeying (still expensive tho).  

Do you live nearby and have you been over to see the inside of the place?

Assuming it's all legit, as others have said a lot of that I would either do myself or hire out myself.  Seems they are nickel and diming you on small stuff ($45 a/c filter? $50 to change a lightbulb?).  I'd deal with trash and smaller stuff and buy appliances myself, and get quotes from my own people on the larger stuff. Even cleaning fee $415 I bet you could hire a cleaning service for a lot less than that.  Then again, I don't use a PM that you are using them maybe that means you are unable to do or directly hire this stuff out?

$300 is insanely high.  I would consider lowering it and changing to something that escalates per day ($25 per day or something). 

Refrigerator absolutely should be included in my opinion. Washer/dryer is much more iffy, some people prefer to bring their own. 

Zillow, Craigslist, Facebook, and sign in yard. Re yard signs, walking, jogging, or driving around neighborhoods you are interested in is invaluable. 

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