Landlord Scams

[bentlebee]

You basically have to check the public records and if nothing is there than you should be fine. You won't be able to know if a new lien wasn't recorded though.

Florida law protects tenants for things like foreclosures. If a lease contract is signed before a lis pendens is recorded than the tenant can for sure stay until their lease is over. ...IF you renew the lease please check the records again because if you sign after a lis pendens has recorded than you are not protected but as a tenant you should have received mail at the property or be served about that going on.

Just this week we got a tenant that rents through us, on the phone stating she received mail about the owner being behind on the mortgage. We checked the public records and nothing is recorded yet. The lease protects the tenant and we contacted the owner immediately to know what is going on so we can protect the tenant and make sure the HOA is paid up for so the tenant can keep using the amenities at the community since we can take the HOA fee out of the rent before we pay the owner and that way protect the interest of the tenant...

We are there for both parties, that is the benefit of having someone looking out for you. If you rent a home with bad management or with a LL that is not following the rules you have to see how to handle it yourself.

We have not seen any rentals affected by Chinese drywall so don't worry, usually the owners won't rent them out because they can and will be sued for a lot of money, so don't be scared of that...there are always people who want to scare others for nothing.

There are people out there who scam tenants by renting out places they don't own...but as the saying is...."if it sounds too good it usually is!".

No background check;....there is a reason why the LL doesn't care!

No security deposit;....there is a reason why the LL let you in without securing some money in case of damages!

No last month rent;....there is a reason why the LL is not charging it...maybe because he needs fast rent money and perhaps will default on his mortgage and doesn't care about that last month rent anyway as long as he has fast money upfront,

No pet fee;....maybe the owner like pets so much that he doesn't care or some other reason, but most responsible LL will charge it, and although you may not like it, you might be better off in the end by dealing with a LL like that.

[chi_tino]

Originally Posted by Not_liking_FL

I wouldn't let prospective tenants make "demands" on my lease agreements. I'm also not a crook.

I'm not sure about the kind of leases that you have seen, but both sides in a lease have to fulfill responsibilities. It is a true bilateral agreement.

Besides paying the mortgage, I also believe that a landlord's responsibilities include paying for property upkeep. Is that an unreasonable demand as well, or do you hang up on your tenant when they call about a broken air conditioner?

[Not_liking_FL]

Of course I'd repair a broken air conditioner if I have a tenant in a property. That is entirely different than having someone interested in a property demand I change the lease agreement.

[algia]

Well, we as tenants have always maintained the properties we rented. Lawn, pool, paint etc. that because we like things to be very CLEAN.

We also got screwed because we rented a property BEFORE those new tenant rules were put into place back in 2007, and our dear owner had stopped making payments 4 months BEFORE he rented that property to us. Back then however, we never expected something like that to happen. Now we are checking out the properties we rent three generations back to make sure we don't get screwed again. Sorry, but finding decent owners/landlords is a lot harder than one thinks.

This landlord now, was complaining for having to replace a non working toilet. I can't even imagine what would have happened if the AC was broken.

[lilacmama32]

My current landlord lives in Texas and we live in Michigan. If anything breaks, he has us call a local place to have someone take a look/fix and he charges it to his card. We haven't had anything major just a furnace part and a 1 time electrical issue. My landlord before that was a jerk. He didn't pay his taxes, we have multiple basement floods and we took care of all but one of them (HE KNEW THE HOUSE FLOODED BEFORE AND LIED WHEN I ASKED BEFORE WE RENTED) and then skipped town and moved to Las Vegas.

We have rented 3 houses and I have never had to pay a pet deposit, just a security deposit. I have two cats and dogs and I don't know if people are more understanding because we have a Golden Retriever? She's a large breed but never had an issue renting. I was reading on Stress Free Property Management website that there is a 2 pet limit per house. This will not work for us and I hope we have the same luck that we have had here. Our relationship with our landlord is to live in the house as if it were our own. We maintain everything, we pay him like it's our mortgage company, and unless it's something major, we fix it. I do not call him if it's a simple fix. Our pets have never ruined anything, and when he came to town and we met him in person, I invited him to come inside to look around and he declined and we talked in the yard while he pet my dog.

I would LOVE to find someone as wonderful as this to rent from in FL. Then again...we are awesome tenants so maybe that is why we have the relationship we do with our landlord. I do not even feel like I rent.

[algia]

Our last landlord was like that in Tampa, the best ever! but we too are awesome tenants...so, it wasn't hard to have a great relationship. We found him through word of mouth though...and not on any of these websites. We hope to find one just like this one when we get back.

Originally Posted by lilacmama32

My current landlord lives in Texas and we live in Michigan. If anything breaks, he has us call a local place to have someone take a look/fix and he charges it to his card. We haven't had anything major just a furnace part and a 1 time electrical issue. My landlord before that was a jerk. He didn't pay his taxes, we have multiple basement floods and we took care of all but one of them (HE KNEW THE HOUSE FLOODED BEFORE AND LIED WHEN I ASKED BEFORE WE RENTED) and then skipped town and moved to Las Vegas.

We have rented 3 houses and I have never had to pay a pet deposit, just a security deposit. I have two cats and dogs and I don't know if people are more understanding because we have a Golden Retriever? She's a large breed but never had an issue renting. I was reading on Stress Free Property Management website that there is a 2 pet limit per house. This will not work for us and I hope we have the same luck that we have had here. Our relationship with our landlord is to live in the house as if it were our own. We maintain everything, we pay him like it's our mortgage company, and unless it's something major, we fix it. I do not call him if it's a simple fix. Our pets have never ruined anything, and when he came to town and we met him in person, I invited him to come inside to look around and he declined and we talked in the yard while he pet my dog.

I would LOVE to find someone as wonderful as this to rent from in FL. Then again...we are awesome tenants so maybe that is why we have the relationship we do with our landlord. I do not even feel like I rent.

[bentlebee]

Usually it is a 2 way street but not everybody is the same...some LL are horrible and the same counts for tenants.

We work with owners on a daily base and some are great when we report something needs to be fixed and others act like we reported a million dollar item even if it seems not that high amount but still something that is an owners repsonsibility. We even have owners who complain the tenant should be able to fix it themself and we never tell the tenant and have it fixed on behalf of the owner.

We know our customers, on both sides...some tenants are horrible and in the beginning report unreasonable items.

This month we had a tenant with a clogged toilet and when we sent a handyman to check it out he took out an ant pest control item which caused it. Since we take pictures on the spot, the tenant paid for the repair without causing any issues.

For us it is sometimes unbelievable to see the difference between owners and how the handle the rental situation. Luckily for some tenants, they never know how some owners are and they have no complains since we fix everything that is a LL responsibility within 24 hrs if possible...we wonder how the same tenants would feel if they would deal with these owners themself...

Originally Posted by lilacmama32

My current landlord lives in Texas and we live in Michigan. If anything breaks, he has us call a local place to have someone take a look/fix and he charges it to his card. We haven't had anything major just a furnace part and a 1 time electrical issue. My landlord before that was a jerk. He didn't pay his taxes, we have multiple basement floods and we took care of all but one of them (HE KNEW THE HOUSE FLOODED BEFORE AND LIED WHEN I ASKED BEFORE WE RENTED) and then skipped town and moved to Las Vegas.

We have rented 3 houses and I have never had to pay a pet deposit, just a security deposit. I have two cats and dogs and I don't know if people are more understanding because we have a Golden Retriever? She's a large breed but never had an issue renting. I was reading on Stress Free Property Management website that there is a 2 pet limit per house. This will not work for us and I hope we have the same luck that we have had here. Our relationship with our landlord is to live in the house as if it were our own. We maintain everything, we pay him like it's our mortgage company, and unless it's something major, we fix it. I do not call him if it's a simple fix. Our pets have never ruined anything, and when he came to town and we met him in person, I invited him to come inside to look around and he declined and we talked in the yard while he pet my dog.

I would LOVE to find someone as wonderful as this to rent from in FL. Then again...we are awesome tenants so maybe that is why we have the relationship we do with our landlord. I do not even feel like I rent.

[crazynip]

I have 2 rental properties, one in St. Pete I had very good tenants, but after 3 years, the house was more messed up than I thought it would be. Complete re-carpeting, which is RIDICULOUS after 3 years and more drywall (actually plaster) damage than I ever imagined. Needless to say they arent getting **** of their deposit back.

My other property in Tampa Heights... I get the kind of tenants you would expect for the area. And it's also usually trashed afterwards. One thing, I had one set of tenants there that was a couple of lesbians, they actually left the place in excellent shape. The ONLY ones I really had to do basically nothing to the place to turn around.

Pretty much all tenants live like slobs has been my experience.