Landlord
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Landlord
Questions
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Answered by
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Answered March 12, 2010 I am a new landlord renting my first property. I want to double check before I do this. I have a couple who has filled out their application and they are both undergraduate students employed by a local university. They both make $12,500 a year. Rent on my units is $750 a month.
Is there anything against the law in me asking if they have additional income, student loans, etc.. Is there anything wrong with me asking how they plan on paying the rent with only netting $25,000 a year and a 1/3 of that going solely to rent? Thank you very much.
Dan, ---------------- We have a rental property (condo) that has had the same tenant for 12 years. He has been an excellent tenant and often we have renewed the lease at the same rent just to assure he stays. The current lease ends 12/31/2010. Unfortunately, my husband and I are divorcing. After all is settled, my husband will reside in the condo. Inevitably, the divorce process will take a few months and likely will be finished prior to the end of the lease. We are wondering if, in the interest of legality and just being fair/nice, we should stick it out and not attempt to do anything with the lease and just inform him in september or so that the lease will not be renewed and we need him to vacate. we just wanted to run that idea by you. Also, his deposit has been held for 12 years and given normal wear and tear, we'd assume he'd be entitled to the entire amount?
If the lease is valid until 12/31/2010, then you will legally need to honor the lease as long as tenant fulfills the conditions of the lease.
If the divorce is finalized sooner than 12/31/2010, then your ex-husband will probably need to find a different living arrangement. Your ex-husband would probably be entitled to the rental income on the condo until the tenant moves out if he receives the condo solely as his property in the divorce.
You could always offer the tenant an incentive to move out prior to the end of the lease if that made sense.
After a long tenancy of 12 years there will probably be very little damage that is NOT fair wear and tear.
I encourage you to visit this page for more information on California landlord/tenant law:
------------------------------ We have a residential property up for rent, and a military individual responded who indicates he will be deployed overseas very shortly. He will have his fiancee and child reside in the unit while he is away. He represents he want to move to our area because it's close to his financee's family. Only he will sign the lease as she does not work. If we do not receive the rent I understand we will not be able to evict because of a Federal protection act called SCRA that protects him and his dependents. Am I looking for trouble if we rent to them?
It is good to have a policy that all adults who will be living in the rental unit must sign the lease and pass a criminal and credit background check even if all adults do not have income.
Military tenants are usually high quality tenants who pay their rent on time. In some states it is illegal to discriminate based on veteran status, however. It can be a little bit more difficult to evict military tenants and their dependents if necessary, but it is only extremely difficult under rare circumstances. Please see the following link:
---------------------------- We had a "tenant" pay 1/2 sec. dep., sign a 1 year lease and then would never show up for the appointments to pay the remaining dep.,1st months rent or recieve the keys to the house. She would make the appt, and then not show. Now, after 1 1/2 months, she's contacted us to see if we have rented the property to anyone else. What is our right as landlords. Are we entitled to keep the partial deposit for loss of rental income? Or, is she entitled to a refund because we never totally executed the lease?
It is good that you had the tenant sign a lease and pay a partial deposit. Because the tenant did not take possession of the property, you will not need to evict the tenant. The tenant will owe rent from the start date of the lease until the rental unit is re-rented, but you must make reasonable efforts to re-rent.
__________________________Answered Feb. 23, 2010 Is there a way to report bad paying (or even non paying) tenants to a credit agency like Equifax or Transunion? I thought I heard of this but am not able to figure out how to go about reporting delinquent and tenants who have skipped out on us owing us thousands of dollars.... at least if we are not able to collect I would like it to go on their records so hopefully they will have a harder time going to rent the next place and/or if they need to get credit somewhere it will come up on the credit
report that they still owe their previous landlord money.... Thanks for any assistance you can give me... Linda
Our property management offices send tenants to our preferred collection agencies on a regular basis. We also screen the credit and criminal background of tenants before we place them into rental units in order for our rental properties to have high quality tenants. I will forward your question and contact information to our local office Real Property Management Coast http://RpmCoast.com so that our specific procedures can be explained in more depth.
___________________________ Answered Feb. 23, 2010 We have serious plumbing issues caused by foreign objects in the plumbing system. The current tenant has lived in the property almost a year.
It costs us more than $6000 to repair. The tenants gave a lot of excuses to
stop the repair, and claim the place is inhabitable because of mold (when
the mold specialist stated there was no evidence of mold) and noise due to
the repair (drying fan to remove the moisture from the water damage).
Prior to the plumbing issue, the tenant expressed their wish to terminate
the lease early. The early termination fee is 2 month rents as specified in
the lease agreement.
I think they plan to abandon the house after this month. Can I recover the
cost of repair, early termination fee, and further damages if any? If so, do
I just need to file in the small claim court and turn it into collections.
If they abandon the house, do I need to file the eviction?
Thanks
It is unfortunate that you have to deal with this problem tenant. Our franchise office near you has dealt with abandoned property and has coordinated evictions, so I will forward your contact information to them. This is the Real Property Management Northeast Atlanta office http://RpmNeAtlanta.com . This office can also place the tenants' debts to collection and screen the credit and criminal background of your new tenant. ___________________________ Answered Feb. 18, 2010 Hi:
I own a rental condo. I know that the management company takes care of the
outside of the building. Can I claim depreciation, for the carpet,
appliances that are inside the house? What would be the formula. Is the same
27.5 divided by the value of the principal that I currently owe to the Bank?
Thanks for your input
Nestor
For this answer, I will refer you to this source from the IRS:
Table 2.1 in Publication 527 says: Residential rental property (buildings or structures)
and structural components such as furnaces, waterpipes, venting, etc. 27.5 years
I will forward your contact information to our Real Property Management office in San Jose so that they can assist you further. Their website is www.rentalplacesanjose.com .
_________________________ Answered Feb. 1, 2010 My daughter signed a year lease not reading or understanding the terms, $900.00 a month she and a roomate agreed to with a 5% late fee every month. Is this fee legal, thay are paying $1600 a month in late fees well over the amount of the rent. I too am a landlord and was under the impresion late fees cannot not be abouve a certain percent. I am sugessting that she breaks this lease and cut her losses. No one can afford that loan shark rate this day and time and what kind of person would take advantage of 2 students 19 years old.
Please help!
A 5% late fee is fairly normal for a residential lease. Some states regulate the size of the late fee, and some state courts may reject a 5% late fee. I looked at the Georgia state website and did not notice a hard and fast limit on the late fee amount that is legal. Travis Oler
____________________________ Answered Jan. 27, 2010 What happens if an application gets approved. Offered was accepted. Tenant gave half of the deposit. The day of signing the contract Tenant called letting us know they were canceling the offer. Are we responsible of returning the deposit? If the prospective tenant did not sign a document acknowledging that the
deposit is non-refundable, then you will probably need to return the
deposit. The best way to accept a deposit in order to hold a property is to
also have the prospective tenant actually sign a lease but to hold the keys
until the tenant brings in the rest of the deposit and first month's rent.
Travis Oler
_______________________ Answered Jan. 25, 2010 I had a tenant who lived in my rental property for 6 years. The Management company had been doing all the trouble-shooting for us, as the landlord. After they moved out, we just realized that the house was a total mess, torn carpet, mold, etc. It cost us almost $40,000.00 to repair it to the origin condition. We are asking the late tenant to pay the 6/20( six years they live there) cost. The
tenant refused.
The question I have here are:
1) The tenant claimed that they did report the problem, but had been ignored. The Management company denied the statement. We are thinking take the tenant to the small claim court to get the issue solved( they hired the attorney and demand the security deposit
return). Do we have a good case?
p.s. The tenant did breach the contract for having a big dog and more
than one cat while they lived in the property.
2) How could I make sure that the Management company did/do their job? We do find out that they don't response promptly, even from us,
the landlord. Sometimes could take them a month to get back to our question.
Thank you for your property management question. I will forward this also to our local Portland area office for their input. Lack of prompt response from the property management company to this problem has certainly exacerbated the situation, and you should hire a different property management company. The property management company should have been doing regular inspections 2-4 times a year and following up with the tenant on the damage well before this point. When the tenant expects
regular inspections, then the tenant will take better care of the property. Regular inspections would have probably also turned up evidence of illegal pets on the premises.
If you move forward with legal action, the judge would probably react favorably to any damages that could be proven to be the result of the illegal pets. With the mold and other issues, if the tenants can prove that they contacted the management company and that the management company's neglect contributed to the problem, then it will be difficult to collect on damages from these causes. Also, with a very long tenancy of 6 years, normal wear and tear might be construed fairly liberally, to include
replacement of the carpets and repainting of the interior, for example.
Travis Oler
_________________________ Answered Jan. 22, 2010 I have tenants that I know are looking for a new place to liveeven though their lease does not expire until June 1, 2010. I received acall from another property manager wanting a tenant reference. There are noproblems with my property; other than the tenants advise they can no longer
afford the monthly rent.
How do I enforce the collection of remaining rent due as per their lease.Is their some kind of lien attached to them, or do I report it to the Credit
Bureau?
I'm guessing they forfeit their security deposit as well?
Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.
Yes, if the tenants break the lease, the tenants will still owe the rent until you find a new tenant. If the tenants leave quickly and voluntarily, that is certainly much better than if they force you to prosecute an eviction against them. You will need to send to collections any amount owing that the deposit does not cover. Travis Oler
____________________________ Answered Jan. 21, 2010 A year lease will be up on our home in WA. We sent a new lease with a new monthly rent of $80 more. The agreement is up Feb. 1, I emailed a new lease and addendum on Dec. 28th. Since I didn't hear, I emailed again and then called. I finally reached a male tenant on Jan. 18th and talked to him stating I would resend it to his personal email address that he gave me on the phone(didn't have new contact info). I finally received a cryptic response back tonight (the 20th) that with all that is going on, they want to discuss the increase and the lease. The question is, they have not given a 30 day notice to leave nor do we have a signed lease and have put off any discussion until now. What is our recourse - we obviously want to keep the rent coming in since it is winter and we are in bad times. What should we do and what are our choices and the law?
Real Property Managementhttp://RealPropertyMgt.com
___________________________ If my tenant breaks the lease unexpectly, can I deduct the remaining lease agreement amount on my tax returns Normally if a tenant breaks a lease through no fault of the landlord (such as if the property does not meet livability standards), then the tenant will owe the amount stated in the lease UNTIL the property is re-rented. The landlord is expected to make a reasonable effort to re-rent the property, but may usually charge the old tenant for advertising and other re-rent costs. You should send the tenant to collections or have your property management company send the tenant to collections. If the tenant will not pay the legal amounts owing, then the bad debt can be treated like other bad debts. Travis OlerReal Property Management
________________________________ Answered Jan. 11, 2010 I have a tenant that has terrorized us since 2 weeks into the tenancy, he has vandalized the outside, made up an order for stalking on my husband,(his girlfriend) in this order she also claimed that we had been entering into the unit and took $800.00, and scared her step children, he claimed we withheld heat,(he sent the police over to our other house, we walked over 1 min away he had the front door wide open and the kitchen windows open) water and electricity, we countered with an order on him for harassment. We've had 2 emergency plumbing issues in the space of 3 days after we went to court to get an order to allow us to enter the unit with police to fix his shower, which my worker had turned off the water only to, he had disabled our cable,phone & internet claimed that comcast told him to do this with the cable from his TV out the living room window to the line to the house, He has a one bedroom unit we have the back 2 rooms (with a futon that can also function !as a bed with a cat in residence also)and the basement is in use for storage for my biz, after fixing the 2nd repair he gave us this crap about the 800.00 being found (their druggies) I pretended to accept their line we went together to court next day, we both dropped our actions against each other he claimed he would move out, still here! We've done the claim to quit more than enough time to legally act on this the demand for payment, went down to the court house with notarized letters of the amount owed & his non-military status, he's on disability for mental instability, Jan rent also has not been paid ( we notified him by letter of the increase with more than 30 days notice)we went to the sheriff's dept to have him served with the eviction writ, I've made a chronological list of the events which have been many, including texts and incidents (one day we had the police here 5 times)the last texts from here involved an attempt to get me to accept 400.00 of a 800.00 rent with! her paychecks to finish up the balance until they are caught up they didn't even have the 400.00, with their notarized letter of intent to pay, then he wanted to know how much to stay another week, told him since they had prevented us from rented the unit out at fair market value to another who was scheduled to move in from CT, the unit is now off the rental market. He has until the 19th of this month to respond. What are my options if this creep wants still to contest the eviction. Thank you for your timeSincerely T.M Berger-Lister I am replying to the question that you submitted. I have included a copy of
your question below my signature for your convenience.
Real Property Management has over 100 operating offices in the United Statesand Canada. I will give you a brief answer, but also forward your questionto our nearest office, Southern New Hampshire Real Property Management http://RealPropertyNH.com , so that they can respond as well.
This certainly is a bad tenant! The cleanest type of eviction is fornon-payment of rent, so if the January rent is not yet paid then you shouldobtain a court date as soon as possible. Do not accept a partial rentpayment, and remember to ask the court for all of the late fees allowed inthe lease. If you need help in processing the eviction, our office can
coordinate the eviction process and place a new tenant in the vacancy.
Travis OlerReal Property Management
________________________ Answered Jan. 11, 2010 We own our a property management LLC co. for our 14 units. Everything goes through the co. and bills and rents are paid to our co. name. Tenant left and we had to spend $4,000.00 to repair newer duplex. We sent letter to tenant with amount owing us after deducting deposit. Tenant is taking only the landlord which is me the wife to small claims court for deposit. She has my first name wrong and did not mention my husband or our company name which is on her lease all documents we use, along with me and my husband's. Claim notice not served to us but to our ups store which we did not sign for. Can she just sue one landlord and not my co. P.s. duplex is in my husband's name had it before we were married Real Property Management has over 100 operating offices in the United States and Canada. I will give you a brief answer, but also forward your question to our nearest office http://RpmProfessionals.com .
I assume that in small claims court neither of you will be represented by a lawyer. Therefore, the judge is unlikely to delay the case indefinitely on legal technicalities such as whether the notice to appear was served on the owner of the property or the owner of the management company.
As long as you can (1) produce bona fide receipts for the damage that was done and (2) the damage was worse than that allowed for fair wear and tear, then there should be few problems when you and/or your husband appear in court.
Travis OlerReal Property Management
____________________ Answered Jan. 8, 2010 When a resident has asked for a reasonable accommodation such as a pet with Doctors orders, where do we stand on the issue they raise that they need two pets? Does not a doctor need to qualify that also? Jenn,
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