Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by Wm-Pa

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
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Posted by Wm-PA on March 08, 2005 at 18:20:00:

David,

As always I appreciate the time you take to respond not only to my post, but others as well. You mentioned a few great tips! I will be using the one where a co-signer who owns real estate in the area is needed if the tenant has poor credit. Never thought about that!

I will be going to small claims court to try and recoup my losses. Your examples give me some hope.

Thanks Again,

Wm-Pa

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Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by Wm-Pa

Posted by Wm-Pa on March 05, 2005 at 18:28:01:

I remember reading on this site about sending a tenant that was evicted a 1099 form for the rent that they didn’t pay. This 1099 showed that unpaid rent as income to the tenent. I can’t find it in the archives, but does anyone remember this??

I have a tenant that owes me $2100 and I don’t want her to get off without any penalty.

Wm-Pa

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by michaela-ATL

Posted by michaela-ATL on March 07, 2005 at 09:38:02:

Have you tried finding them? If you go to www.intelius.com it’ll cost you $ 7.95. If this just happened last week, they may not have updated info, but, I’ve found that site a great resource to find people. It usually shows people’s birth dates and then you can find previous addresses and other people, that have lived with them at those addresses, which might be relatives (if you don’t have them on rental application).

Michaela

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by rdlazo

Posted by rdlazo on March 06, 2005 at 04:02:55:

File law suit at small claims court. Less than $50 cost. Send the summons to the last address which is your property.

Good luck,
RDJLAZO

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by John

Posted by John on March 05, 2005 at 18:31:16:

You have to either forgive the debt or settle it… You cant just charge it off and send it to a collection agent. If you do then you cant issue a 1099. If you forgive the debt then you can issue a 1099

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by Wm-Pa

Posted by Wm-Pa on March 07, 2005 at 21:07:57:

Michaela,
Actually I know where she works, for the city of Philadelphia where I live and rented the house to her. I have to find out if I can have her served at her place of employment. If I can I will be doing this. She has not changed her mail yet or switched over the utilities from her name to mine, although she has moved out without leaving any forwarding address.

Thanks for your reply,

Wm-Pa

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by WmPa

Posted by WmPa on March 06, 2005 at 15:05:36:

This is something I will be doing very soon, like yesterday!

WmPa

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by Sterling

Posted by Sterling on March 07, 2005 at 07:00:24:

Am I understanding you correctly? For bad tenents, all I have to do is send out a 1099 to a forward address and get a break on IRS tax. And since I own a construction company with employees, will I have to then pay workers comp insurance. I have the court order judgements but still have not collected.

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by Wm-Pa

Posted by Wm-Pa on March 05, 2005 at 20:23:56:

John,

Thanks for the reply. By forgiving the debt is there any legal documents that must be filed with the municipality or IRS?

Again,

Thanks for the reply

Wm-Pa

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Re: Tenent Skipped town and owes me rent - Posted by David Krulac

Posted by David Krulac on March 08, 2005 at 06:52:29:

in Pa, you can attach wages now too for judgements.

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in Pa. you go to district justice… - Posted by David Krulac

Posted by David Krulac on March 06, 2005 at 16:29:44:

and it will cost you about $95

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Re: in Pa. you go to district justice… - Posted by Wm-Pa

Posted by Wm-Pa on March 06, 2005 at 18:42:55:

David,

You are correct. I live in Philadelphia and it will cost me 74.50 to take them to small claims court. Now I have to figure out if it will be worth my time and effort to do this. I might be better off reporting her to the credit beaureas if that is possable.

Thanks

Wm-Pa

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Re: in Pa. you go to district justice… - Posted by ski

Posted by ski on March 07, 2005 at 19:35:58:

good luck. you can get a judgement against them that you will NEVER collect. they have nothing to attach. it is probably your fault to allow this to happen. you must do your screening process a little better. the more money you have up front and the sooner you begin the eviction process the less you have to loose.

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Re: in Pa. you go to district justice… - Posted by Wm-Pa

Posted by Wm-Pa on March 07, 2005 at 21:13:13:

Ski,

Thanks or your very informative post.
SARCASM ALERT****
SARCASM ALERT****

…just in case you thought I was being sincere.

Actualy I was planning on getting a judgment against her and reporting her to the credit beaurea if possable.

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if you get a judgement and - Posted by David Krulac

Posted by David Krulac on March 08, 2005 at 06:50:50:

record at the courthouse (which office do you record judgements in PA? … Prothonatary) it will automatically get on a persons credit report.
I evicted 3 last year after having years without an eviction.

  1. rented to a friend of a friend who was just getting out of service. I felt I was doing my patriotic duty helping a retirning sevice person. I got exactly 2 months rent and took 3 more months to get them out and the place was trashed cost me thousands of $
  2. tenant didn’t have car and relied on family member to drive tenant to work etc. after family member was intitutionalized tenant needed to taxi everywhere and became slow, then stopped paying rent.
  3. tenant got divorced, fired from good paying job, lost a home to foreclosure and had car wreck and car repossessed all in one year. That’s pretty hard to do. I’ve had other tennats that have had the trifecta of divorce, bankruptcy and foreclosure all in one year but this even beats that.

I can only recall three where I ever got money from a tenant judgement after they moved out and on. In all cases the judgement was recorded.

  1. Once the judgement
    was recorded and the former tenant wanted to buy a car, and they wouldn’t finance it since he had this judgement, so he paid me off. (BTW his crdit report was good but neither he nor the credit report told me that he was just released from prison for hard time. He was a tough character and still had some issues including anger management and violent tendencies. The police had to be called, and I have a rule that police calls are grounds for evictions, so he was evicted even though the rent was on time.)

  2. Another time after recording the judgement, i processed it through the Sheriff Dept and they went to the tennats new address and inventoried their belongings for a Sheriff Sale. Everyhting was thrift store junk so there wasn’t anything of any value…
    except a classic restored car. It was inventoried for the Sheriff Sale and a sign was posted in their yard for the scheduled upcoming sale. He paid off the judgement the day before the sale and kept his classic car.

  3. The thrid case a divorced person was still on the deed of the personal residence of their former spouse. I recorded the judgement which went against the house, even though they were not longer married. Nothing happened until some time later when the ex-spouse wanted to refinace, whih that person couldn’t do without paying off the judgement.

Most tenants don’t have much worht placing a judgement against. Very few own any real estate or valuable free and clear cars. In cases where the tennat applicant has bad credit, I require that they have a co-signer, who owns real estate in the 3 county area nearest me where I can attach their real estate. An ounce of prevention…