Every Landlord's Legal Guide
Language: English
Pages: 496
ISBN: 1413322832
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The legal forms and state rules every landlord and property manager needs
To keep up with the law and make money as a residential landlord, you need a guide you can trust: Every Landlord’s Legal Guide.
From move-in to move-out, here’s help with legal, financial, and day-to-day issues. You’ll avoid hassles and headaches―not to mention legal fees and lawsuits. Use this top-selling book to:
- screen and choose tenants
- prepare leases and rental agreements
- avoid discrimination charges
- hire a property manager
- keep up with repairs and maintenance
- reduce the chance of personal injury lawsuits
- make security deposit deductions
- handle broken leases and terminations
- deal with bedbugs, mold, and lead hazards, and
- comply with laws regarding tenant privacy and disclosures.
The 13th edition is completely revised to provide your state’s current laws covering deposits, rent, entry, termination and late rent notices, and more.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Legal Theory, and Judicial Restraint
The Journalist and the Murderer
International Law (6th Edition)
destruction that is reasonable in the context of your business. For example, a landlord with a few rentals would do just fine with an inexpensive shredder, but a multiproperty operation might want to contract with a shredding service. • Don’t forget computer files. Reports stored on your computer or PDa (such as a BlackBerry), or information derived from them, must also be kept secure and deleted when no longer needed. Purchase a utility that will “wipe” the data completely—that is, a program
broadly written consent, your use of a credit report at that time might be illegal. (FTC “Long” Opinion Letter, July 7, 2000.) a. How to Get a Credit Report a credit report contains a gold mine of information for a prospective landlord. you can find out, for example, if a particular person has ever filed for bankruptcy or has been: • late or delinquent in paying rent or bills, including student or car loans • convicted of a crime, or, in many states, even arrested • evicted (your legal right
“finder’s fee” or “move-in fee” just for renting the place to a tenant. Whether it’s a flat fee or a percentage of the rent, we recommend against finder’s fees. First, a finder’s fee may be illegal in some cities and states (particularly those with rent control). Second, it’s just a way of squeezing a little more money out of the tenant—and tenants will resent it. If you think the unit is worth more, raise the price. 2. Holding Deposits 3. Conditional Acceptances you may want to make an offer to
in advance and apply the increase uniformly to all their tenants. Usually, this protects the landlord against any claim of a retaliatory rent increase by a tenant who has coincidentally made a legitimate complaint about the condition of the premises. EXAMPLE: Lois owns two multiunit complexes. In one of them, she raises rents uniformly, at the same time, for all tenants. In the other apartment building, where she fears tenants hit with rent increases all at once will organize and generate
statement that indicates a limitation or preference based on race, religion, or any other protected category • falsely denying that a rental unit is available • setting more restrictive standards for selecting tenants • refusing to rent to members of certain groups • before or during the tenancy, setting different terms, conditions, or privileges for rental of a dwelling unit, such as requiring larger deposits of some tenants, or adopting an inconsistent policy of responding to late rent payments
