Acquiring a Business the hard way
Stealing from your Landlord
The last 6 months or so have been boring as far as tenants go, which is good as you know. However, December didn't start so well, 1 tenant bounced a cheque in November with some excuse then paid me half of the rent with promise to pay the rest as she lost her job (smell it?). This month she didn't pay at all, but is voluntarily leaving before January 1st, which saves me the fees to have her evicted. She still owes me $670.00. I have placed her NSF cheque in collections at the bank (cool service). We'll see if I ever get it, lol. Another tenant has returned to drinking and didn't pay December rent so I have filed an N4 and an L1 form which gives him a date to appear in front of the tenant board with his sob story. This means I will probably lose January's rent as well waiting for the process before evicting him.
I received an interesting comment on an earlier post (evicting a tenant) and the person said something to the effect that why isn't it that when a tenant doesn't pay rent, that they are not charged with stealing. If you steal a TV from a store you go to jail, why aren't landlords protected the same way. After all, when you don't pay rent you are stealing from us, right. HMMMMMMM....
Crooked Lawyer
Although this happened a few years back, I noticed I never wrote about it. You guys are going to love this as I can write and joke about it now, 2 years ago, not so much. Scott Sullivan, a lawyer in Windsor, was my lawyer on most of my Real Estate transactions. He was actually a friend that I grew up with and lived next door to me for almost 20 years. On one particular transaction, I was renewing my mortgage on a rental property as the mortgage came due. I found another lender to use for the next term of the mortgage. Try and follow along. The funds ($90,000) were transferred to my lawyer in a trust fund to pay out the old mortgage. Unknown to me, that never happened. A month later I got a call from the 1st lender asking where there money was as the mortgage was not paid out ???? I called Scott's office and the secretary (whom he was screwing) told me that it was paid out and she had seen the cheque but would look into it and call me back. That never happened either and a few days later I began calling him to inquire and always got the same answer that Scott was looking into it. Meanwhile I was hearing rumours that he had taken peoples money and was being investigated. Part of the rumour was that he was collecting money for Title insurance but not paying the insurance and keeping the money. You can imagine where this is going. I emailed Scott and asked what was going on and that I was hearing rumours. His response was that he guaranteed me that I was not out any money. That felt reassuring lol. I drove to his house and waited in his driveway for hours for him to get home. Luckily it was raining out and I sat in my truck thinking that I better leave or I am going to jail tonight. The next morning I called another lawyer friend of mine lol, and he took the case on. I was now paying 2 mortgages with the first one threatening legal action as if it were my fault. Under legal advice I stopped paying the 1st mortgage after 2 months. After approximately 1 year this finally was resolved as it seems that Scott had done me a favour and purchased title insurance for me and they covered the $90,000. Problem is that they didn't cover the 2 payments I made or the new legal fees. I ended up being out about $4500. This was one of the worst experiences of my life. He was criminally charged as he stole about $500,000 from various people that they could find. I'm sure there was more that they couldn't find. I had to go down to the police station and give a video testimony of this and wait to see what happened to him. As of today he is still free, seperated and living with his secretary looking over his shoulder I'm sure. Nice friends eh. I mean Im not the brightest but, do you steal $500,000 when your a lawyer. They must make that in a few years, why blow a career on that amount of money. Looks good on ya buddy lol.
Regular Maintenance
It's been a while since my last post. Too much to write about. I'll just write about now and not what has gone on. All my places are full and with a good round of tenants, with the exception of a few rooms at the student house. The auto shop is busy again after a scare over the winter as the tenant wasn't doing so well with business. I thought I would have an empty building. All is good now as he weathered the slow times. Rents are due tomorrow June 1st and I just have 1 stop to make to inspect a stove that the tenant says is getting too hot and is afraid her kids will burn their hands on it if they touch it ????????? She's been their 3-4 months so I am assuming its a legit concern or she would have complained earlier. Marital issues has caused me to give 1 of my bachelor units to my brother so he has somewhere to stay. Only problem is its free to him as I just cant ask him for money. I guess he will at least have to maintain the property lol. I hate painting and 1 of the rooms needs to be redone. Grass is getting long too.
Evicting a tenant
This is not something I enjoyed doing but I had to evict a tenant for non payment of rent on Monday. The Sheriff showed him out. He owes me $3500.00. I realize tenants may read this and feel as if it was unfair but landlords will appreciate the action taken. I will list the procedure in Ontario on how to evict a tenant for non-payment. Assuming rents are due on the 1st and are not paid you can download an N4 form from this site http://www.ltb.gov.on.ca/en/STEL02_111286.html , fill it out and date it for the 2nd of the month and deliver it to the tenant. This gives him 14 days to pay or be brought in front of the rental tribunal. If he hasn't paid, on the 15th day you can go to the rental board and fill out an L1 form which can be downloaded from the link above as well, pay the $150 admin fee and serve the tenant with the L1 form which will have a court date to attend usually 10-14 days from then. On the day of court you must bring all relevant information to the hearing. In the 3 times that I have attended these hearings, my tenants have not attended making it much easier and quicker to evict them. The judgement is usually eviction if rents are not paid by a certain date usually 10 working days from the hearing date at which point lease agreements are null and void an you can bring the paperwork to the sheriffs office. Pay the $325 (sheriffs fee) and they post a notice on the door to vacate the premises or be physically removed usually 5 working days from the time you file with the sheriff. In total your looking at a completed eviction process of approximately 45 days and $475. I realize I'm not a writer and this may be difficult to follow, but I hope it helps any landlord who doesn't get paid. Now what do I do with all the crappy furniture he left behind ????????
