We provide here a few questions that have been posted in the Community Forums and our answers to them. *  *  *  *  *  * Q1 One of my tenants smokes marijuana on a somewhat regular basis.  When I approached him about it he stated that he does this in practice of his religion and […]

Surviving a Tax Audit Since the beginning of the new millennium, tax audits have increased to higher levels than was seen during the last decade of the previous century. In light of the recent and still lingering serious economic downturn, further increases in enforcement will almost certainly occur under the Obama administration. Whether the number […]

In Review In Part 1 of this series we discussed the reasons why every business, including the real estate rental business, should have a disaster plan and the preliminary steps to take toward developing a plan and in Part 2 we briefly discussed the development of a plan. In this final part of the series […]

We provide here a few questions that have been posted in the Community Forums and our answers to them. *  *  *  *  *  * Q1                                                 I have a prospective tenant who wants to do a lease/option. The couple advised me that they intend to declare bankruptcy in a month or two due to $200,000 […]

We provide here a few questions that have been posted in the Community Forums and our answers to them. * * * * * * Q1 What constitutes a illegal apartment. We have a 1-family house. Upstairs we have a living room, bedroom, and bathroom. We added cabinets, refrigerator, and small electric plug-in stove. We […]

When Co-Tenants Split Many, perhaps even most tenants are co-tenants with other persons. Sometimes the co-tenants are spouses or relatives by blood, other times the co-tenants have no legal relationship beyond their tenancy. Renting to unrelated parties can result in problems for the landlord that are not usually seen with renting to a single adult, […]

In Review In Part 1 of this 3-part series we discussed the reasons why every business, including the real estate rental business, should have a disaster plan and the preliminary steps to take toward developing an emergency action plan. In this part of the series we briefly discuss the development of the plan. Develop a […]

Q1                                                 Is it legal to rent my own condo without a broker? A1 To my knowledge (and I’d bet a lot of money on it), no governmental jurisdiction restricts the right of an owner to manage his own properties. Most, perhaps all states require a license to manage property of another for compensation, some requiring […]

Q1 I have some concerns regarding screening for criminal records. What should the rejection threshold crime be? A1 You are right to be concerned about this issue. A comprehensive discussion of this subject is way beyond the scope of this forum, but I’ll briefly mention a few issues. In general, convicted criminals are not a […]

Disaster Planning – Part 1 Introduction This article is the first in a 3-part series on the subject of Disaster Planning. Is your real estate investment business or property management business ready for a fire, a hurricane, a flood, or whatever other unexpected event might occur tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and/or beyond? […]