Buying a House and Renting it out?

[lorenzo]

I had bought a house to rent it out in Florida. I had a real bitter experience due to local laws. The laws applying to landlords and tenants are almost always local, and often complicated. Many laws and regulations allow bad tenants to take advantage of landlords, especially if there are small children involved. The landlord-tenant arena is one an investor should enter only with great care AND only as a last resort.

Finally I could settle the issue with a lot of efforts and spending money. It is horrifying.

Have any horror stories aborting renting out a house or apartment building? We?d love to
hear um!
Thanks
lorenzo

[aquila]

Hi

Yes a number of stories.

A while ago a very well known firm of Realtors said they were letting one of my US properties out and they had a rentor for $2,200 per month. Sounded good so off we went. First month no money in the bank - deposit or rent - chased the Rental Manager - said was coming, chased again, said the cheque had been lost, chased again - this time the Broker and found there was no one in the place at all and never had been anybody contracted to go in.

So - long story but - Rental Manager gets the boot (well I hear he does anyway) and I give the Realtor Co such a hard time they pay me two months rent at the figure agreed - I let them off a third month.

The same Rental Manger let out my bank managers property in the same town - never got a security deposit, when the family moved in they never paid rent, messed up the place and it took months to get them out. So - this guy was a real nightmare.

So - just dot all the i's and cross all the t's.

[vngrape]

My mother's friend used to have one property rented and the contract was renewed every year. There was no problem at first but after about more 8 or 9 years, the tenant had problems paying the rent. He then started claiming rights over the property but of course he had no papers to support that claim. They had to go to the court just to settle the issue. It was settled easily so much time was wasted just for that.