This is my first one. The guy moved in on the 11th of last month. Hasn’t returned my calls or answered the door when I know he’s there. He dumped scrap metal outside and has an unauthorized pet. Hasn’t paid this months rent.
I guess I get to figure out how the eviction process goes in Kansas.
So, how do I report this to the credit agencies?
Moved in 1/11/13.
Has not paid the 2/13 rent as of 1/25/13.
Won’t respond.
Here’s some ideas.
Default option:
Post “Pay or Quit” notice on tenant’s door.
If posting does nothing, begin legal eviction proceedings immediately.
(Hire ‘the’ eviction attorney that ‘everyone’ hires. Contact other PM companies and see which name keeps popping up. Use the one that’s popular. File for eviction for non-payment ‘yesterday.’)
And/Or:
(At the same time as above) Leave a note on the deadbeat’s door and offer to give him his deposit back, no questions, if the place is left clean, on the day he’s out, if he out by ‘x’ date (1 week is good). Wait for an answer; negotiate).
The objective is to get the unit vacant, not cleaned up. So we offer what we have to, to ‘buy’ our unit back forthwith.
And/Or:
(At the same time as above) Leave a written 24-hour notice of our intention to inspect the unit. Next day, inspect unit, and see what we see.
We have done this many times to justify an expedited eviction. If we tell the judge that our unit has been damaged, is likely to be damaged, or is in the process of being damaged (on the complaint form), the court will often expedite the court appearance, if not the actual date of the eviction.
Otherwise, we use the inspection as an opportunity to negotiate the evacuation of the tenant. All sorts of things can crop up at this point, of course.
Frankly, we don’t want to wait until the 25th of a month to weigh our options and figure out crap.
If the rent is not in by the due date, and the tenant has not advised us in advance that the rent is going to be late, we post a notice to ‘pay or quit’ as fast as is practical.
We also demand a hefty late fee paid, in addition to the rent, to cure the default. Meantime, we don’t fart around after the rent is due.
I feel your pain. :banghead
I’m going with route “1.” I just want to make this guy’s life as difficult as I can. I want to get a judgement against him and turn him over to a dbt collector and report this to the credit agencies. that’s what I don’t know how to do.
Once you’ve got a judgment from the court, you can hire any collection agency to collect the judgment. They’ll charge you a nominal fee in most cases, and then forward you what they recover.
Meantime, the debtor has 30 days to respond to the collection notice/activity, and then the collection agency will/can report the unpaid debt to Equifax, etc.
The judgment will also show up on the debtor’s credit report by default. Meantime, he’ll eventually have both a judgment and collection activity show up on his credit, if he fails to respond to the collection agency.
Everybody says the worse thing is that the house will sit empty. That is not the worst thing. The worst thing is for somebody to be in the house and not pay rent. If the house is empty all you have to do is rent it, if somebody is in it you can’t rent it because he is in it. You need to get him out aggressively.
Just curious, did you screen him and if so how did he come out?
I did screen him. Found nothing. Kind of an odd guy, no rental history, email address, credit cards, bank account, etc. He rented from his grandmother until she passed away recently. He literally had no history. I made him show me drivers licenses and such to prove that he wasn’t stealing somebody’s identity. Everything checked out though.
Just got a call from some girl. Said she’s house sitting for him. He is out of town on business and left his cell phone at the house. She said she will borrow the money to pay the rent if I can wait until the end of the month on the rest. I told her I’d take the rent and wait until the end of the month to sit down and talk to the guy about the late fees, etc.
Whole thing stinks, IMHO.
For the luv of gawd, whatever you do, DO NOT accept partial rents.
It’s not a ‘good faith’ effort. It’s a legal trap that will delay any eviction actions you need to do.
Meantime, get the late fees first, then the rent, in one payment; one lump sum.
The girl is a 100% liar about the guy ‘being out of town and somehow forgot his cell phone.’ And borrowing and waiting til the first for “more rent?” Yeah, those promises are always kept. BS.
You actually do have a professional con man/couple here. Neither of these two just fell off grandma’s turnip truck, and I’ll bet a plate of ribs at the Claim Jumper, this guy’s been using and abusing females, one after the other, to avoid responsibility for himself.
You’ve got another problem: an additional ‘unnamed’ renter that will need to be added to the eviction notice(s).
FWIW
I told her the full rent. I’m meeting her tomorrow. Nothing to be lost by waiting a day, evictions need to be filed on Wednesdays in order to have a court date the following Friday.
There’s some things that don’t make sense here, both for and agains this being a scam. First, he will lose a lot more money than it’s worth. I have a security deposit and we are not talking about a great deal of money.
I appreciate the input. I’ll let you know what happens.
Now and in the future…
File a rent & possession suit sooner rather than later, either through self-filing (if permitted) in your county circuit/municipal court, or through a knowledgeable real estate attorney. Make sure that your lease agreement has very specific terms/covenants stating that in the event of a default, whereas lessor (you) files for the aforementioned type of legal action, that lessee (tenant) is responsible for all associated court costs and attorney fees. Typically this will be adjudicated in your favor through the judgment the court issues. Other attorney actions and/or collections agencies can take it from there.
As mentioned above, do NOT take partial payments under any circumstance of delinquent rent! Also be sure that any further formal written notices that you issue to the tenant(s) indicate that you have no intention of accepting partial payment(s).
When posting on tenant(s) via delinquency or “Pay or Quit” notices, be sure to address the notices to ALL of the known tenant(s) (those leased to under written lease agreement) and ALL known adult aged occupants. Be sure that before you even evaluate application(s) for rental agreement consideration, that you obtain copies of state-issued photo identification for all residents of legal adult age, this includes for non-lessee occupants. When/if you encounter situations where unknown adult-aged occupants are found residing in the property, as strange as this sounds, use the respective monikers “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” for the unknown male & female parties on the aforementioned notices. Most attorney’s will advise you of this, if you have them on retainer for consultation prior to filings, anyhow.
Make sure all deposits, fees, and first month’s rent, as prescribed via lease agreement are collected upon signing. Do not give your tenant(s) rope to hang you by.
The old adage “Evict them before you rent to them” applies here. Make sure you are properly vetting all prospective tenants. Typically, as long as your criteria for entering into a lease agreement with a prospective tenant does not violate Fair Housing and/or any state landlord-tenant laws… you are all in a good position to set the bars by which you grade your prospective tenants by. Usually if your intuition tells you that something seems “weird” and red flags are raised, you should probably do further investigating on the person. Ask for further references, require a larger deposit for gaps in good housing reference or time on job, etc. I recommend developing a pre-qualifying system when obtaining leads. Tends to weed out the bad apples.
I hate to see you in this kind of bind. But I assure you, as a long-time (and current) property manager and investment real estate management consultant, each one of these situations will build your knowledge base, and you will certainly enter into future transactions a little bit differently.
Well, this chick paid his rent for him last night. That buys him until like monday.
Who know what will become of this. I played 20 questions with her and she answered all the right questions. If it’s a scam they’re good at it.
I hate to say it, but typically if you have this many red-flag/sketchy issues right out of the gate from a tenant, this rodeo is likely not over. I would expect more of the same in the coming months (if they last that long).
I sincerely hope they pan out for you though. Miracles do happen. :biggrin
Let’s just say, for the sake of discussion, that this tenant isn’t lying, but really is this incompetent at taking care of mundane details of life …like leaving town for weeks, without making arrangements to pay rent, and forgetting his cell phone… and that he was living with his mother all these years, etc.
This means you’re gonna be the ‘training landlord’ that educates this guy on how to handle basic details of tenancy.
I could see how this guy could be this disorganized about his rent, since he’s never had to meet a rent deadline. Of course this probably means he doesn’t handle the rest of his bills well, if at all, without his girlfriend’s help.
The girlfriend’s ‘babysitting’ deal is really suspicious.
I find it impossible to believe the guy hasn’t called the girlfriend-babysitter after in all this time.
And ‘girlfriend’ didn’t think to tell ‘boyfriend’ that the landlord is demanding money? And he needs to call the landlord asap? Really? No?
Meantime, BF just disappears for weeks, without taking his phone? And no phone calls to GF? And ‘girlfriend’ is too stupid to figure out how to answer his cell phone when landlord calls?
She’s covering for more than just late rent here. He’s probably in jail.
The saga continues… [cue suspenseful chords] …daht, duht, dah…
lol. I had a guy like him. He showed up at the house to move in still owing me about $500. He stood there with his truck full of his things and 4 of his friends while I stood in the door. I talked to them friendly like, just as I do everybody else while his wife frantically called around until her mother came with the $500 cash. He said he thought I took a check. I (of course) told him to just take it to the bank and get the cash. It was Saturday after 2:00 and he said the bank was closed. I acted like I had no idea what that meant. The deposit and first month was all I got from him. I filed for eviction on the 5th of the next month. Showed up for court on the 15th and do you believe that this guy showed up at court…WITH NO MONEY!!.. The judge asked him if he was crazy.
His wife later tried to give me money and when I said I had an eviction and I would not take the money she said she was going to call the police on me to make me take the rent. That was an experience.
Jay, I don’t know what to think. I’ve never had a normal person renting this house. It’s a dumpy little place that I only manage because the owner has four others. It’s in the backyard of another SFH and rents for $360/month. It’s the only place I manage in which I cannot for any reason picture myself living in. I want the owner to renovate it but he won’t do it.
At one time the front tenant rented the back unit to prevent any other wierdos from renting this place, but he couldn’t keep up with both rents anymore.
I’m ready to drop the place. I post good pictures in the ads and everyone walks in disappointed. I label it as a “detached studio apartment” to illustrate how small it is. It’s half an hour away from my home and showing it takes up a bunch of time.
To answer your question though, this whole thing is no more or less wierd than the other folks that have rented. The owner says when he bought it a guy had been living there for a decade. He stopped paying rent one day and disappeared. Just him, not his stuff. The owner held it for a few years for him and never heard anything again. He says the guy had some pretty nice stuff.
This is an interesting thread.Hope you keep us updated on how the tenant does in future.I would really love to know what he is up to.
Well, this guy’s driving me crazy. He wants to stay but didn’t pay rent again. I’m posting notice on him today. Should have him out by the end of the month.
He accused me of being down at the breakfast joint in town on Saturday talking about him and his situation with his girlfriend’s ex boyfriend. Apperantly she paid the guy’s child support money to me to pay the deadbeat’s rent.
These idiots deserve each other. I don’t have time for this crap.
Now, that is funny!
These people NEVER get better. The best you ever get is when they first move in. They may stay good or they may get worse but the never get better.
…and that’s why they ARE professional grade!
Keith
Time to play hardball and evict, evict and evict. In the meantime I would check out the grandma story, find a obituary, find a probate, neither one, he committed fraud and the judge would like to know that.