Please e-mail us if you have any questions or would like to add or share any material / information. I hope this month's newsletter finds you well and in a successful landlording season.
John Nuzzolese
John@theLPA.com

LANDLORD SPECIAL REPORT: #25

How to Find a Good Eviction Attorney

A carpenter needs a hammer to be able to drive nails properly. A plumber needs wrenches to do plumbing properly. Can you imagine a roofer banging in the nails in your new roof with a monkey wrench or a pipe instead of a hammer? How ridiculous! With that in mind, do you know how many landlords get legal advice on landlord tenant matters from unqualified family members and aquaintances? Some landlords even ask their other tenants for advice. The sad fact is most landlords DO NOT even have an eviction attorney to turn to when tenant problems arise. They'd rather ask their friends, neighbors, and auto mechanics for advice. Most are too afraid to employ a lawyer because of the expense. The courts are full of novice landlords having their cases thrown out in favor of the tenant because of some minor mistake in the paperwork, all because they were trying to save the attorneys fee. Well, I have news for those landlords: Bad tenants who don't pay rent can be more expensive than paying an attorney to do an eviction.

A real estate attorney experienced in landlord tenant law is an essential element of your landlord tool-kit if you want to be successful as a real estate investor / landlord.

If you are searching for a good landlord attorney, there are a few ways to narrow down your search.

• ask your family attorney (if you have one) for a referral.
• ask a local real estate rental office
• ask a local property management company who they recommend.
• My favorite and most reliable way to find the right eviction attorney is to go to your local courthouse during a landlord - tenant court session and sit there listening to the cases. Watch the performance of the attorneys. (It may take an hour or two, but the time spent will be well worth it.) Then just choose one of the attorneys who auditioned for you.

If you are going to interview eviction attorneys, I suggest you ask a few key questions.

1. Are evictions your specialty?
   
   
2. How many do you usually do a month?
   
   
3. How long does the average eviction take from beginning to end?
   
   
4. How fast can we have these tenants in court?

An "on the ball" eviction attorney will have the answers to these questions on the spot. Pay attention to # 4- because that should be an easy one to answer if the attorney is familiar with the Landlord Tenant Court schedule.

I can't stress enough how important it is to develop a relationship with a good landlord attorney. It will be an empowering and liberating feeling to know you are prepared to do what must be done in order to run an efficient landlording business.

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Landlord Do's & Don'ts

What The LPA says you should do and what you shouldn't do about:

Tenant Move In:

• Take dated pictures of the condition of the rental
  
• Make a video tape of the rental before the tenant moves in, and be sure to confirm the date on the tape by showing a current newspaper
  
• Require the tenant to sign a Property Condition Inspection Report before turning over possession
• Require all security + 1st month rent to be paid in cash, money order or bank check before giving the keys to the tenant. If payment is by personal check, make sure the check has cleared in your account first.
  
  
  

• Make promises you can't keep.
  
• Expect the tenant to fix up the rental to your standards even if he agreed to.
  
• Give the tenant your credit card to go to the Home Depot!
  

Landlord Since 2005
State: NY
Property Type: Three-Family, Owner Occupied

How I Got Started

I have one main reason for starting my investment into real estate, especially the landlord arena. That reason was, I wanted to move out. I did some research on what it would cost for me (a 22 year old college graduate who just started a full-time job and had a fair amount of debt) to purchase a small home to live in. Since I was only 22, I still lived at home with my parents. One thing I vowed never to do, unless it was an emergency, was rent. I never want to spend money without retaining some type of equity in a residence. After doing some investigating, I came to the conclusion that purchasing a $90,000 home was a fairly affordable mortgage. .....

The Lease...

My lease is the basic outlined LPA Lease. I had it reviewed by two separate attorneys. One was my law teacher at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. He felt that it was a strong lease and helped me to protect myself in other ways that some people don't think about. The other lawyer, or law firm, was a previous employer of mine. I was in charge of accounts payable and accounts receivable and other various accounting tasks. They are great friends/colleagues that were very impressed with the lease. Basically, it protects me beyond the law....

The LPA would like to thank Phillip for his valuable input and sharing of knowledge with us. When first asked, Phillip wasn't sure if he had anything to share since he has been a landlord for such a short time. But as you can see, he has an excellent business sense and handles his rentals accordingly. Thanks to landlords like Phillip, Landlords everywhere have the opportunity to benefit from the lessons and knowledge brought to us by our Landlords of the Month.

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." - William Shakespeare

"Action is eloquence." - William Shakespeare

"How much did your last tenant problem cost you?"
- John Nuzzolese

A Way of Being
- Gary Link, Attorney at Law

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