With $2500 at risk, and a complicated situation, and couple of hundred to a laywer could be money well spent.When you have a lease, and the property is sold, the effect on you is ... nothing.

Paper work is more than a straight sale but not complicated with good documents and due diligence.Realtors usually have one thing on their mind....commissions!

If gas is used for cooking, you may put in some fixed base amount per person or so, as simple or complicated as you want (or the tenants desire...).Of course, you would have to gradually change it when leases come up for renewal.

Bill, Thanks a lot, for your two back to back posts.You covered it all, and that’s exactly what I was looking for and it sounds very much like how I was interoperating the SAFE Act, though I am no attorney, I do have some 23 years of Mortgage Banking experience and until recently (end February) held a California DRE Broker’s License.Using closing attorneys may be an option for us (in mortgage states not trust deeds states) but like you mentioned in most cases their staff are the acting closing agents which may be problematic.For now we have decided to bite the bullet and go the section 8 route for our properties but then that has its unique complications.

I know the basics-neutral wall colors, lighter color cabinets for smaller kitchen, etc.My question is how much do we need to coordinate the cabinet color with the counter tops, then the wall color, and the carpet or am I over complicating it?

Basement conversions into living spaces and separate units are complicated by egress issues (and ceiling height requirements).

The issue with buying another house and renting the one you have has become complicated because of all the foreclosures.

I see both as complicated and costly- just one is costly financially and the other is costly in the social structure.

While I'm a big believer in always making good on promises and debts (I pay my credit card off twice a week :), there is another -- more impartial -- way to look at this issue that makes the ethical question a bit more complicated: When it comes to a mortgage contact (or any service contract), making payments is only one part of that contract.

Income tax consequences start to get more complicated when real estate investors start wholesaling property.