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The Crossland Team
Sylvia Crossland, Broker Steve Crossland, MPM (512) 301-5811 |
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Tenant Eviction in Texas
March 29, 2008
I had to file eviction in JP Court on one of my tenants this month. I’ve evicted more than 80 tenants in Austin since 1990, but it’s been about 4 years since my last one. In the old days (the 1990’s) when I managed 4-plexes and some lower end properties, eviction filings were more frequent. Now that we don’t handle low-end properties, it’s not often we have to evict a tenant.
What’s involved in evicting a tenant in Texas?
The following is an outline of the basic steps for eviction as I perform them. This is not legal advice, but an overview of the administrative steps and my personal experience. For legal advice, contact an attorney.
1) Make Sure You Have a Good Lease Agreement
It all starts with a proper lease agreement. A TAR (Texas Association of Realtors) or TAA (Texas Apartment Association) lease will properly protect your rights as a landlord and afford the necessary legal language. If you hire a Realtor to lease your property, you’ll have a TAR lease. You can join TAA as an individual, but many single-property owners find the dues to be high (though I’ve seen landlord boo-boos that would have paid 10 years TAA dues). Otherwise, have a good real estate attorney provide a lease for you if you are a do-it-yourself landlord. Why is this important?…
The worst lease I ever saw was an office supply store special that afforded the tenant a 30 day grace period to pay rent (because the owner filled “30″ days into that blank not knowing any better) followed by a 30 day “cure” clause (same thing, clueless owner filled in a blank with “30″).
This meant the tenant had to be 30 days late before a “demand to cure” (as the lease termed it) letter could be sent, then the demand letter had to give another 30 days to cure. After taking over that property from the owner, whom the “professional deadbeat” tenant was running circles around and was already more than two month’s behind in rent, I had to send the demand letter (which the owner had not done because she was afraid of conflict) and wait 30 days before sending a Notice to Vacate. It took another three weeks after that for the court date, and another 5 days which the court provides to appeal or vacate. Then the tenant finally vacated, leaving the home trashed with litter and junk furniture.
That owner lost a total of 4 month’s rent plus damages by the time it was said and done. How much do you think the owner “saved” by using that cheap office supply store lease and not seeking help from an attorney or a professional leasing agent? The owner also told ne that no credit report or eviction search or criminal background check was done on the tenant. “She seemed like a perfectly nice young lady” the owner told me. Deadbeat tenants are experts at seeming to be nice people, and they only seek rentals from do-it-yourself landlords who they know won’t check them out properly. But I’m drifting into another topic, tenant screening, so back to the eviction process …
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What to do when your home floods
September 7, 2007
This is a picture I took on Alcott street on South Austin November 2001. The day before, 16 inches of rain had dumped on South Austin. The tenant in the duplex I managed on this street called and told me his car had floated down the street and that there was 4 feet of water inside the property. This picture shows the scene the next day, as owners and tenants were pulling everything out of the homes and getting the recovery process started.
Yesterday, one of my tenants in Oak Hill called and said “Steve, I just got home and the entire house is flooded. There was water squirting from behind the commode and I turned it off, but the entire house is flooded and there is water running out the back door.”
I headed straight over, calling my carpet people on the way. 3 hours later it was all dried up, fans were running in all the bedrooms blowing air underneath the carpets. Luckily, we got to this one fast enough that we will probably have it all put back together today. The plumber has already been by to replace what turned out to be a cracked supply line. Also, I’m lucky that this is a one-story home with hard tile everywhere except for the 4 bedrooms, so there isn’t a lot of carpet to deal with. Before we button it back up, we’ll test all the baseboards and walls for moisture to make sure the water didn’t start wicking up into the sheetrock where it could cause mold if untreated. I don’t think the water got that high, so we should be ok on this one.
So, as a landlord or property owner, what do you do when your home floods?
It’s really quite simple, you call a water extraction expert immediately. Since you’re well prepared, you already have that phone number programmed into your cell phone, because you knew this would happen someday. This isn’t the time to be hunting through the yellow pages and shopping for the best deal.
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Another Problem with Investing in 4-plexes in Austin
August 13, 2007
Today I received a call from an out-of-town Austin 4-plex owner looking for his 4th property manager in 2 years. When I receive calls from Austin 4-plex owners looking for a property manager, I tell them 2 things:
1) I don’t manage 4-plexes. Period.
2) None of the good property managers that I personally I know in Austin are taking 4-plexes for management.
He railed on about his current and 2 former property managers, telling me things I’ve heard before. They don’t get the properties rented. They spend too much money on maintenance and repairs. They seem disorganized and not on top of things. Don’t return phone calls. And on and on.
It occurred to me that his property, located in a rough area even by 4-plex standards, attracts not only low-end tenants, but low-end property managers. What would motivate a property manager in Austin to take a new property management listing that is guaranteed to cause trouble and headaches and pay very little in management fees? Either they are desperate for new business (not a good sign) or they haven’t been around long enough to know any better (also not a good sign).
To be fair, just because a property manager would manage a 4-plex, or does currently, it doesn’t mean that property manager is not an excellent one. It could also be that they’re loyal to long term clients and have managed the properties for a long time. Or a multi-property client may have several great properties, and one 4-plex, in which case the property manager might grit his teeth and take it on as a favor more than anything else.
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Austin Property Managers and Repair Kickbacks
August 8, 2007
I met yesterday with a remodeling contractor at a listing I’m preparing for sale. As often happens in Austin, he and I got to jawing in the front yard under a shady tree, talking about business, remodeling homes, Austin traffic, etc. More specifically, we ended up discussing property managers and what it’s like to work for us - the good, the bad and the ugly.
During this conversation, the contractor mentioned that he was shorted 10% on the first invoice payment from a property manager for whom he had just started doing jobs. When he called to ask about the shortage, he was told “didn’t we talk about this when we first met to discuss working together?”
Turns out the Property Manager takes 10% off the top of all invoices paid out, as compensation for “making the phone calls, arranging the appointments, etc” related to property repairs. The contractor was further instructed to “add 10% to the top” of future invoices if he wants to net out full payment.
What this means, if your property manager in Austin does this, is that you’ll get billed (in this instance) a 10% premium on work performed on your home. That $500 make-ready will be billed at $550 to your account, with the vendor being paid $495 and the property manager “earning” $55. The property manager’s take may or may not be evident on your monthly statement, depending on the kind of property management accounting software being used.
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Austin renters to pay more late fees with new law
July 29, 2007
The brilliance of our Texas Legislature is on display again as a new law, HB 3101 which will go into effect Jan 2008, has been passed that will produce greater late fee income for landlords by ensuring that more renters pay their rent late. Undoubtedly, this is not the outcome hoped for by State Representative Rafael Anchia from Dallas, who boasted in this press release of his “ground-breaking tenant rights bill”, but in fact, the outcome will be more tenants paying more late fees. Of that I am sure.
The bill imposes a mandatory grace period for the payment of rents in Texas such that a landlord may not charge a late fee to a tenant unless the rent is more than two days late. This is in fact supported by the Texas Apartment Association as well as tenant rights groups, so what the heck am I talking about when I say it will result in tenants paying more late fee? Will it not benefit tenants to have a couple of extra days to get the rents paid? No, it won’t.
A grace period causes tenants to pay rent with less diligence than when no grace period exists. In other words, without a grace period, more renters will pay on time on the 1st and avoid late fees. With the grace period, tenants get confused about the actual due date because it’s a fuzzy date instead of the clear, hard line in the sand that the 1st represents. Let me further explain how I came to discover this.
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Quick-turning an Austin rental home - pros and cons
July 3, 2007
I moved two new renters in on Sunday July 1st. Both moved into homes that had been vacated by tenants with leases ending Saturday June 30th. There are all manner of things that can go wrong with such a tight turnaround, especially on a weekend.
Nevertheless, I’ve always been a proponent of quick-turning a rental unit whenever possible. The most I ever did was 12 next-day turnovers on May31/June1 back in the year 2000. That was pure madness, and I was still out checking up on the properties, painters and my carpet people at 1AM on the 1st. It didn’t go perfect, but everybody got moved in and the loose ends and problems were resolved soon after. Primarily though, those 12 property owners did not suffer one single day of vacancy loss. That’s a touchdown no matter how ugly.
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Showing Property Only After Offer Received
June 5, 2007
I’m making phone calls to preview a batch of homes this morning for an investor. One of the listings has showing access as “Appointment with Agent”. I called the agent and the conversation went like this:
Me: Hi. It’s Steve Crossland with the Crossland Team at Keller Williams. I want to preview {property address} today. Can we arrange that?
Agent: Uhh, well … we’re only showing that one after an offer is made.
Me: My buyer isn’t going to write an offer without me first determining that it’s a good candidate property. I can’t do that without walking through. Can we arrange it or should I scratch it off the list?
Agent: Scratch it off your list. Sorry. Our tenant won’t let us show the property.
Me: OK. Good Luck with it.
What chance does this home have of selling? About zero. If a tenant is uncooperative, or the home doesn’t show well with a tenant, the smart thing to do is not market the property until either the tenant moves out or the situation can be improved or at least mitigated to a workable degree. Simply refusing to show a home is a very tough way to sell a home. The Seller and the Listing Agent are both wasting their time.
Austin Landlord Tales - The Risks of Real Estate Investing
September 17, 2006
I belong to a couple of email lists for professional property managers. One is local to Austin. The other is National and includes over 140 owners of Property Management companies from across the U.S.
These forums provide a resource where Property Managers can ask questions, share advice, trade business ideas, etc. The egroups raise the level of professionalism and knowledge of all participants. No matter how long any of us have been managing rental homes, we all eventually encounter a situation for the first time, and we may need to seek advice or help from collegues.
Below I’m sharing a recent posting from the email list, then I will comment on it.
I have a tenant who is in the hospital after being beaten by her significant other. Her significant other is in jail, and their dog is still in the property. The keyless deadbolt locks are locked, and I just now was able to get inside the property to assess damage. We fed the dog (possible starving for almost a week) and met with animal control today. However, they cannot get a court order to remove the pet, because we do not have legal possession of the property. Pets are considered property, like furniture and personal belongings.
There is extensive feces damage on the floors, and this is a three month old property. Tenant has not paid rent, and the eviction was filed today. Utilities are still turned on, and supposedly a family member visited a few days ago to feed the dog, but was left in the home to poop, etc.
Have any of you been in a scenario like this? Can we remove dog and put outside instead of keeping inside the property? Can dog be put in the garage? Crated? What can we do to minimize more damage to the property? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.