All Forum Posts by: Rick Bassett

@Kristine - we can charge late fees starting on the 10th (5% max) as well as documented collection costs (the court usually washes those away if it comes down to eviction) and we can dictate form of payment to some extent (unless the tenant is on assistance of some some sort).

Rick

In Connecticut you have to use a Marshall to serve all notices. If the property is held in an LLC then the notices (and the eviction) must be handled by an attorney. You also aren't allowed to serve the 'Pay or Quit' until the 11th (or later if the 11th falls on a weekend). Writing a check off of a closed account can be a felony (if it was written after the account was closed). In our state the offender has 8 days to make good on the funds (from when you notify them). Our leases are well written and we treat our tenants with respect but occasionally one of them mistakes kindness with weakness. Yeah, we know the rules. We typically would serve on the 11th but this tenant gamed us a bit by paying on the 9th and the check wasn't returned to us until the 25th.

Just curious how some of the other Landlords on BP handle tenants like this one.

We have a tenant who is a bit needy that has been gradually attempting to skirt by our lease conditions. Paying rent on the 3rd - 6th instead of the first, not get the required HVAC service contracts, not providing proof of renters insurance and a few other things.  

Well I drew them in line the other day when their check bounced (from a closed account) and they didn't promptly make good on it. Told them the Marshall was coming with Notice Quit and we would start the eviction process...etc. That got their attention and they had a replacement check to us in a hour. 

Fast forward 24 hours and they have sent us a modest list of problem items in the rental which are the first time being reported. One has merit and will be addressed the other 3 don't (like I want the deck stained) and probably won't be done.

I'm sure that this list is just a knee jerk reaction to being called on the carpet.

Obviously I'm not going to renew them when it comes up next year. 

Suggestions or your approach?

Waiting means that we lose the prime rental season, they are out on 8/31.

This really the first time that I ran into this before but we have a great house that we did in 2012 that is showing terribly to prospective tenants as the current tenants are filthy and seem to love clutter.

We normally have no trouble renting our houses (even with tenants in them) but despite over a dozen showings we haven't had any good bites on this one, just a bunch of comments like 'how can people live like this'.

Despite my assurances that the house will be delivered exactly like the photos I sense that people are having a hard time getting past the mess.

We were able to ferret out a family of Professional Tenants yesterday after picking up on few 'red flags' on their applications. 

The short story: They seemed very nice, applications looked reasonably strong with respect to employment, income and they had a compelling story. They were looking for a place to rent as their house, which they'd been in for 6+ years, is on the market under short sale. They  had an old previous rental 7 years ago with very vague landlord info provided on their app and mentioned that they left it as it had mold. 

They claimed no previous evictions, which later proved to be untrue.

With 20 mins of searching I located their old landlord through Google who opened our conversation with the line "I don't know how you found me but by the end of this call you will be glad that you did". He went on for about 10 mins detailing the non-payment of rent, property damages and the lawsuit  that these tenants launched against him for their 'claim' of mold. 6 years later and this poor guy is fighting these previous tenants in court after incurring thousands in lost rent, damages and legal fees. 

I don't usually dig back 7 years but in this case I'm glad that I did.

I am extremely grateful that we dodged the bullet by uncovering this hidden past. It took an extra 1/2 hour but I could only envision the what the downside would've been if we allowed these Professional Tenants into our beautiful rental house.

The reality is that with all of the disclosures required, especially in RE ownership, its pretty easy to find out an owners address if someone is willing to spend a little time doing so. 

Our business model lends itself well to this type of disclosure but a different model; such as managing an apartment complex in a war-zone, might not.

Originally posted by @Brandon Turner:

@Rick Bassett @Account Closed Not to take this thread too far off course, but I'm a huge believer in not letting the tenant know where I live. It has nothing to do with hiding - it has to do with running a business and not a hobby. When I get a bad hamburger at McDonalds, I don't drive to the owner's house because I don't know where he lives... and I'm not a weirdo. However, with rentals - if my tenants knew where I lived, they would come over because they are weirdos. Furthermore, I've had tenants threaten me and my family before because they are upset about being asked to move or because we charge a late fee. So it's not about hiding some secret from them - it's about maintaining a business relationship.

We are all business Brandon but we rent to people not weirdos. We pick nice qualified tenants and our relationship is a 2-way street. They do what they have to and we quickly draw them inline if they violate lease provisions.

I've never had a tenant stop by uninvited, threaten us or violate our space in many years of running this business, I can't say the same for my family unfortunately.

We always swap the lock-sets out with either recycled or new sets on every move-out. Sometimes it is a chore as certain properties have 4 locking knobs and deadbolts. Maybe 2015 will be the year we move to some form of smartsets.

All of our tenants know where we live (within several miles of all properties) and most prefer to drop their checks in our locked mailbox. I've never seen the point in hiding from them.