All Forum Posts by: Tom V.

Thanks for that link, Jim. I am going to give that one a shot as well.

As far as no credit history, yes, it's rare and confusing. However, a couple of you have mentioned no credit cards.

I myself do not have a credit card. Why would I? Why in the world would I ever actually pay MORE for something than it costs? (item + interest - obviously properties excluded from this personal rule)

A second point of note, I have never, and will never, purchase an item I cannot pay cash for. (again, properties excluded, as well as vehicles in this case - talking credit card stuff here)

I do not believe in credit cards, and will NEVER own one. Ever. They are completely useless and irrelevant to me.

And I'm just a standard middle-aged caucasian. I just believe in fiscal responsibility and budgeting. If I can't afford something, I save longer, or I don't need it.

So yes, the lack of any credit history whatsoever is troubling, but credit cards are NOT the issue.

Yes, there was a mismatched address, however it verified it to be an actual previous address. Transunion has not updated it.

I am familiar with that, as transunion still has not updated my own address from one I lived at 12 years ago, and still lists current employer as one I worked at when I was 18-19, back in the 1990's. Wow. In fact, transunion has a name mismatch on my file, which has caused me numerous issues over the years. They say I have an alias, with my real name as my father's last name. I disputed it, and they confirmed it and denied my dispute. ????No idea how, but I am obviously not a dead 65 year old man....

There were no other fraud indicators on their file. SSN was good, name was good, everything else was perfect. Employment verified. ID's verified. Income verified.

Mid 30's, caucasian. Both of them.

And while I can understand no credit cards, as stated, there is no history at all. No loans, no car payments, no house, no late anything, nothing. Just blank.

I pulled from another bureau, and there were a couple of 75 dollar late medical payments, but closed paid. That's it. Everything else blank, as before.

I traced them back 7 years, as far as employers and addresses. Before that, nothing. I've never seen  his before. I've had 18 year old applicants with a credit history. I have never seen nothing.

Unfortunately, I can not ask for an additional deposit, the state limits what I can collect to 2 months, and I am already requiring that.

No, they have not.

I have a couple interested in a unit. They did a smartmove credit check, and both came back with "Not enough info".

They make well in excess of the rent, about 5 times. Verified income.

But there's no credit cards, no late bills, no loans, no anything to judge them on. 

On the plus side, no criminal history or eviction history. All a-ok there.

References check, and all else looks good. But smartmove won't give a recommendation.

They seem nice, but we all know how that goes. Googling them shows nothing unusual, no odd FB or G+ accounts.

What would you do?

 The law.

In my state, a tenant cannot unreasonably refuse a landlord entry for any of your above stated reasons. (and more)

However, if they do, what is the remedy?

Start a court action and request an order of entry from a judge. Have such order served to tenant, and then enter, possibly requiring the presence of local law enforcement or hire of a state marshal.

A process which takes weeks and 100's of dollars.

The ONLY time the rule does not apply is an emergency situation. ie; an emergency repair, such as a broken water pipe, or an emergency medical situation.

All others, go to court.

I enter without permission under ANY other circumstance, I get arrested. No matter what.

The court doesn't care if I own the property or not. Nor do they care what the lease says. After all, also per state law, any provisions of any lease in violation of state law, in whole or in part, are unenforceable.

Remember, not everyone lives in a lenient state, and has luxuries that you or some others may. Many of us have pour hands tied.

So, in our case, rather then spend hundreds and 6-8 weeks or more in court to obtain an order of entry, we decided to wait the 3-4 weeks and have a contingency of him providing the pics.

There was no possible way such order would have been obtained prior to his move anyway, so it would have been a costly, fruitless endeavor.

Don't believe me, read here:

https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm#se...

And yes, I know Sec 47a-16d (2) does state "as permitted by section 47a-16a" however that is contingent upon Sec 47a-16d (3) "pursuant to a court order"

Without a court order, the "as permitted by...." cannot be upheld. Trust me. I've been down that road. More than once.

It is not spelled out in the law itself per say, but it IS established via prior case law and opinions. Which I could link to, but would rather not.

Sorry for the lengthy reply. Just though I'd illuminate some of the troubles that are region-specific.

Thanks, I really appreciate the responses.

Yeah, I made the mistake of crossing the friendship line before. But kind of in reverse.

A friend of many years needed a place, so we decided to rent him one of the units, ata  slightly discounted price, no security.

Wouldn't you know, worst tenant ever. Never on time, partial payments (which we took as he was a friend, and it hadn't gotten bad yet), culminating in damage to apartment, appliances, and taking off with no notice and rent unpaid - just a check for a couple of hundred taped to the door.

Blocked me on phone, internet, and everywhere else. Never heard from again. I will never rent to friend and/or family again.

Sorry for your recent troubles, Nicole W. Goes to show that really, you never know.

On the flip side, I also had a recent tenant who signed a lease with his wife, a few months later they broke up.

Wouldn't you know it, every single month he would meet me at the bank and pay his 50% portion of the rent. Even though he no longer resided in the unit. His ex-wife paid the remaining 50%.

Talk about integrity.

No, he refused to provide his new address.

He also refused to do a walkthrough. Hence why we didn't know the scope until after.

I really don't want to go through the hassle, but my wife is upset and wants to take it all the way to court.

Laws in the state are security deposit/deduction letter and remainder due tenant within 30 days of move and notification of new address.

If notification not provided, it can be held and once notification received, 15 days from then.

He won't give us notification - ever. 

I realize now our mistake in pro-rating, and won't do it again. But it is what it is now. So I'm just trying to deal with it.

My niceness gets us hurt sometimes. My wife says my trusting, forgiving nature has to be put aside in this business. It's hard for me.

Either way, thanks for the advice. Any more?

Hi guys. Been a while.

I have a question for you all.

First off, I am in CT.

Now, my questions revolves around a tenant breaking a lease, damages, repairs, and liability.

I had a tenant break their lease. 2 weeks early. (lease was april 1-march 31, they were supposed to move march 15)

We made an agreement that yes, we would allow them to break the 2 weeks early, under the condition that it be broom clean (as normal) and they provided us pictures of the unit to list on zillow and whatnot for new tenants. In such case, they would only have to pay us 1/2 the rent for the month of march.

The picture requirement stemmed from a confrontation a few weeks back where he stated he did not want us in the apartment, knocking on his door, showing the unit, or otherwise any way disturbing him. So we figured, since he's moving anyway, providing us with pics to list is fine, he'll be out the 15th, and we can start showing the unit after that.

He did not move until the 18th, and never provided pictures. Further, he left furniture, trash, fridge full of food, dishes, dirt and grime everywhere. The bathroom floor is so soaked with urine that the entire subfloor needs to be pulled up and replaced, and a new floor laid down.

The entire apartment is a mess, and full of old clothes and trash.

It is obviously not in showable condition.

So my question is this - since the verbal agreement we made was broken (not moving out the 15th, not providing pictures, and not leaving the place clean) do the terms of the original lease remain in effect?

IE; is he liable for the remainder of march?

And further, as the repairs now cannot be done in time to rent for April 1, is he liable for April as well? (seeing as his damage is the direct cause of the apartment not being suitable for rent in April)

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I'm just not sure what to do.I cannot do the work myself as usual, I am pending surgery for my right arm, and it is currently very limited in use.

Therefore I am needing to hire people to do it for me. And the cleaning quotes I'm getting are 400-500 alone, not to mention the repairs.

We're already beyond the scope of his security, and I'm going to have to pursue legal means. So I just want to know what he is liable for so i can proceed.

Thanks!

Thanks, Chris. Only one of those were my tenants. The other 3 evictions I had were tenants in place when I purchased the property. I had to honor their leases as the new owner. Unfortunately, they all chose not to. It was ridiculous.

The 4th, which were tenants I approved, had income many times the rent, fantastic credit scores, no eviction history, and seemed, on paper at least, perfect. They just didn't pay. Literally moved in and never paid another dime since day one.

At any rate, can anyone attest to the quit claim idea? Is it, in anyone's experience, actually rare for a bank to call a loan under such circumstances? Or have I been told incorrectly? (my attorney in fact told me this, however I have no experience in the matter, so am seeking further opinions)

Hi guys. Need a bit of advice here.

I have a multi-family building as an investment property here in CT. It is held under an LLC.

Property value 190k (for 2 lots next to each other - 1 for the house, the other is an approved building lot, however I use it for parking)

Debt: 107k left on first mortgage 25 year term, 5% adjusts once every 5 years. 21 years 4 months left.

20k left on seller's note 30 yr amortization, balloon payment at 8 years. (4 year 4 months to go!)

I found out the hard way that here in CT I am getting shafted having the house in an LLC. Eviction costs are quadruple the cost as I am required to hire an attorney at 1200+ vs doing it myself for 300 bucks.

250 in business fees to the state

Equity loans/refi's/anything of the like falls under "commercial" and is EXTREMELY expensive. (like 10k+ closing costs quoted from multiple banks for a simple refi)

Insurance in the 300 per month range vs 85 for the same property if it were held privately.

Town taxes such as water/sewer/property are billed at a higher rate.

Plus more.

So, what I am thinking of doing is:

a: quit claiming the deed into my personal name.

b: adding a million-dollar liability policy to the standard dwelling/fire coverage to protect my assets. (the cost of such policy as quoted to me by multiple companies + the cost of dwelling/fire is STILL less than what insurance costs me now)

c: Once this is done, seek out a proper refi.

My question is this, is this the wrong strategy?

I know I am taking a risk of my lender calling the loan due to the quit claim. However I have been told that while technically possible, it is in actuality quite rare, and they likely won't care.

For the record, my lender is a small-town bank that holds their portfolios, NOT sell them.

My goal is to reduce overhead. Not the monthly mortgage, that is all well and good. But eviction costs, taxes, fees, etc....are killing me - and my profit.

And if the mortgage drops as well because of it, all the better.

But what kind of a risk am I taking here?

And is there another strategy that could be put together that would be better to follow?

Finding out after 4 VERY costly evictions over a 24 month period that something needs to change.

(1200+ per eviction for attorney, + 3 months unpaid rent each eviction = average 4.2k per eviction = 17k loss over 2 years - not including the thousands in damage that was done)

Business evictions are heard one day every 2 weeks and take  3 months, privately held every day and take 6 weeks on average. Ridiculous.

BTW if this is the wrong section, sorry. Seemed the best fit.

Thanks for the input, guys. It has been a long road, but I followed the correct procedures, and the tenant was removed by the state Marshals a couple of days ago.

Now looking to schedule showings of the unit.

She never even filed an answer, showed up in court, nothing.

Of course, she went kicking and screaming. She even called the police to claim we were illegally removing her, and report that we were not allowed on her property. Of course, the police basically told her to stuff it.

Oddly, she claimed that the Marshals who had served her every step of the way were actors hired by us to harass her, and that all of the court paperwork was forged.

She genuinely looked stunned when everyone showed up and started moving her.

Ah well, it's over. Now to move on to better tenants.

Thanks all for the help and advice!

PS Yes, we had her served with small claims for back rent and damages before they were done moving her. Had the paperwork ready to go, finished it on site, paid the fee, and it was served. Filed, and now awaiting a court date.