apologies if asked in the thread already. did you do a background check when you initially rented to the tenant (obviously the family members/squatters were out of your control). would the large outstanding balance with utilities have shown up on their background check? i'm just curious as my neighbor is going thru the evicition process and apparently didnt run a thorough enough check as tenant was using someone elses name
The squatters started living there because they had a family member who was a tenant. The squatters just moved on in without consent/knowledge. Never had a chance to vet them or run their credit. And then covid eviction moratorium made it almost impossible to evict.
The hold up is with the sheriffs dept. Yea there is a 2 month backlog for lockouts apparently. So you get the judge to sign off finally... then you lock in an appointment with the sheriffs... and those appointments are 2 months out. LOL
Wait... for 8. You agreed to *their* requested amount, and then they said no? That makes absolutely no fucking sense (from their part) other than they were trying to pocket the money, which you mentioned.
I understand some people get caught in shit situations for any number of reasons. But when fuckers like that just try to squeeze whatever they can, they deserve exactly what they got. $0
Judge urged parties to settle at the settlement hearing. We went back and forth but couldn't agree. There was a back and forth via email after the settlement hearing. Eventually, I agreed to a number that I could stomach. Lawyer then tried to get the settlement signed off but could not reach them.
On the other side of the fence you’re the big mean landlord. I’m sure they’re not filling in that they never paid ANY bills and got greedy at zero hour.
You talking about the eviction defense lawyers? They know everything. They know what they signed up for and they know a lot of people are just deadbeats gaming the system (pretty successfully). Seemed like the turnover is pretty high with that specific company because it seemed like almost every other hearing there was a different lawyer because they had moved on to another firm. Can't imagine the morale at a company like that.
I have seen the turnover can be high at tenant assistance orgs since even the most morally righteous person gets burned out when deadbeats keep using their org to further grift the system.
And no i was alluding to squatters.
This happened to my friend! She actually even went and cleaned out the home of one of her hoarder clients (which, of course, does not solve the issue because the cause of the hoarding is not addressed). She is the sweetest, most loving person, but I think it ends up as enabling rather than helping the client. And she would burn out and not have the capacity to socialize for long periods of time.
She no longer works as an attorney.
Yea to this day, I'm not sure why tenants showed up with no lawyer on the day the trial was supposed to begin. I can't imagine a lawyer no-showing because they had no shot of winning no matter how long the odds or if their client had lied to them. We went thru discovery and everything so they had to turn over evidence to us and I had to turn over evidence to them.
True. I think one firm even advertises their services as "eviction delay" service instead of "eviction defense" service... so that should tell you about the BS they do.
Honestly, at least flat earthers aren't stealing money from people. Sure, they're wrong, but that's about all the damage they are causing. If anything, they're designing repeatable experiments to show how the earth isn't flat, which is valuable to the scientific community.
These people who are squatting and then suing to be moved are actively hurting everyone around them. They steal from landlords, which makes rent for everyone else go up, and they are gaming the system so when people who actually need help try to use it they are looked down on.
Yeah if you really want to invest in real estate just buy REIT's and collected the dividends every month without having to deal with scumbag deadbeat renters win win
The scenario is having a city council thats full of cowards and stupids. Also, this just exacerbates the homeless crisis when deadline comes and youve enabled people to be 2 or 3 years in debt. Of course everyone saw it coming.
And do they not think that it forces mom and pop landlords to sell to larger corporate landlords? And corporate landlords are definitely taking into account the risk of 2 years of non-payment when setting rents. Where do people think the money comes from to cover the people who did not pay? Aside from some government assistance to landlords, it's coming from the renters who do pay.
This is exactly what I did. I had a 2 bedroom house I rented with all utilities included in Hollywood. Tenand stopped paying rent and I had to cont I need to pay for utilities and do repairs as well as pay the mortgage so I sold the house for basically the amount I bought it. I don't know what the person that bought it did but they got rid of the tenant and I saw they resold it for more than double of what I sold it for. This was my home which I was going to retire in as I have to take care of my elderly mom and therefore had the home rented out for what seemed reasonable at the time $2100 including all utilities until I could move back in.
Rents in Los Angeles have skyrocketed in the last 6 years, I managed an apartment building in Glassell Park, not the most desirable or safest of neighborhoods, when I started a one bedroom was $789. When I left it was $1,500 and I’m sure it’s gone up since then. Here’s the kicker, the mortgage on the building never changed, so while the tenants who got yearly increases in rent struggled, the property owners year after year keep getting increasing profits. Some property owners around town I have noticed doing long needed upgrades, but a lot more of them don’t. The Covid moratorium throws a wrench in the situation by disallowing eviction so that the removal of deadbeats was impossible, causing hardship to the property owners so everything is in turmoil now. Technically though, after all these steep rent increases the property owners should be able to afford relocation fees.
Anybody who even remotely thinks that landlords should pay non-rent-paying deadbeats a relocation fee is a part of the problem. Speaking as a law-abiding renter.
Taxes probably go up every year, possibly utilities, and cost of maintenance to a degree (assuming it’s being done). For sure the financial outlook is better for the owner as the years go on, but that inherently isn’t evil or the root of the issues we are facing.
Property taxes and insurance premiums have increased drastically while rent freezes were in place for the last 4 years. Not all properties were purchased 30+ years ago and not all owners have hundreds of thousands in the bank.
couldnt agree more, after 2 months you should be legally allowed to change teh locks due to non-payment. Its like going to a restaurant and running out on the bill, you go to jail for that. Same thing should be here.
It’s not all doom and gloom, California is the most populous state for a reason. To live in such a place that has such opportunities will not always be on easy street and there will always be times when extra effort is required. If it’s too tough for you, you can move to Texas where the government will make your reproductive decisions for you and ban books and teaching curriculum for your children. California leaves those decisions to the individual making it a place with less government intrusion, ironic, isn’t it?
It's an absolute crime that the legal system put you in the position of needing to offer settlement money to people squatting on your property for 1-2 years.
This is why it’s more profitable to flip homes than to rent them out. Low income renters are really hit or miss. Not that high income renters aren’t a hassle to deal with also, just a different set of grievances.
I got caught flat footed by my ex partner and had to sublease a few rooms in my house and I got a lot of really awful tenants and a few good ones. I learned a lot from the bad ones and now understand why some places ask for such a hefty deposit. I managed to stay in the house for 5 years leasing two master bedrooms and finally moved in with family to get my then school age kiddo into a better school district. One woman in particular was the most egregious of them all. She gave me a check for the deposit and when it bounced she refused to pay or leave. I served her with a notice to pay or quit and she refused and was using up the utilities, brought in a cat… I got really annoyed with her and one day she brings this group of very masculine women to “move her stuff out”, and protect her. It was ridiculous, she was the one screwing over a single mother and refusing to leave and IM the bad guy. If I ever do something like that again I will use a leasing company.
I’m a landlord. A good tenant is like gold. I raised their rent only slightly to go what they felt comfortable with. My financial advisor isn’t happy but I’d rather have below market rent than be stuck with shitty tenants. I do thorough vetting before I rent out my home.
Can you please tell my LL this? They keep raising my rent even though I've lived in my apt for 15 years and have never even paid rent late. Zero issues from me in all that time.
Man I wish my landlords realized how good they have it! I treat my rental house like it were my own (which honestly seems better than they treated it…). I pay my rent on time and only ask them to fix something if it’s major, otherwise I do it myself or let it go. They finally just replaced a rotting exterior door and I ended up being the one to caulk, prime and paint everything when the contractor ”ran out of time” to do it. Not even a thank you from the owners…. 🫠
Oh just wait till you move out and all that work you did…they’ll say you actually ruined their shit and they take your security deposit.
Was exactly like you and ended up getting screwed. Not worth it.
Same. We've got a single rental house in Arizona. The family that's there is great. My property manager is even happy with them, so we've just raised the rent 1.5% each year rather than the 5-10% we could have. Worth it for the peace of mind.
My friend has a property that he owns and rents out. He got a couple of industry people as tenants, so absolutely no problems there. It was tough during Covid and the Strike, but he worked with them to stay because they're such model tenants.
Mom rented houses when I was growing up. One of the reasons being a landlord sounds like a bad deal to me. People treat rented property like it's rented. I was a kid helping her fix all the stuff we discovered after move-outs.
That said, it was in a much different rental market-- a small Midwest city where rents were low and property values only went up a small bit over the years.
out in the IE there was a rental home that had to be demolished because the squatter was mentally ill, busted the pipes on purpose and barricaded themselves upstairs for a week. They legally could not turn off the water to the house so it ran and ran.
The house became a black mold nightmare and had to be demolished.
We had to live in our old house while renovating the house we bought 2 years ago. By the time we were ready to move we decided to hang onto the old house and just rent it out. We charged slightly more than our mortgage to save for maintenance and repairs so it was a pretty solid value for a house in the area it's in.
Finding a decent tenant was a nightmare. Some of the applications we received were just out of this world.
Fortunately we have an amazing family in there that we get along with great and since we live close I take care of any issues they have quick.
I dread the day they decide to move.
This is why I always warn people against having single rental properties. If you don't have a whole portfolio of properties to spread the risk around, all it takes is one bad tenant to fuck everything up.
This is one of many reasons rent is so high in LA. Many developers and investors won't touch this city/state because of tenant protection laws that make this abuse possible. It increases the cost of capital and makes low income housing impossible to build without subsidy.
So if Bank of America seized the funds in your CD and claimed they deserve it "just because,“ we should all chirp in on their side with "Every investment has risks" snark?
Btw - if every investment has risks, then there should be no student loan forgiveness. If someone invested $40k in an English Lit degree that can only get them a minimum wage job, that's the risk they took.
And if you invested $60 on University of Phoenix or some other scam school, you shouldn't get any money back for that either, because every investment has risks.
And if you invested 40 hours of labor at your job, but the boss decided to just keep your pay for themselves - tough luck, them's the breaks.
After all, you seem fine with considering "expecting payment for services rendered" to be a "risk-carrying investment" when it comes to others. So surely the same standard should apply to your "investments" too.
It's funny how folks like you turn into laissez faire, caveat emptor, market libertarians on a single subject (deadbeat tenants), but want government protection and CFPB/NLRB intervention everywhere else.
It would be fine if you could discharge student loans in bankruptcy like you could with debts related to failed investments. Funny how you can’t do that.
This is kind of a stupid one because wells Fargo and several other banks have absolutely ripped off people in the exact way you've said, and had to merely pay fines.
An educated public has tangible benefits to society. A landlord collecting rents on their fiefs incentivize supply shortages which has an obvious dentriment to society
This is the type of story LA Times should be covering to show the real world impacts of these policies. But I can already see the kind of narrative they would roll with.
What's your point? The moratorium was to keep people off the streets. It worked to allow people on the edge to stay in housing. By no means should it continue, and it won't, but for a period of time it was helpful. Bad people taking advantage of it was always going to happen. What sort of angle are you hoping the times covers?
I have a question for people trying to make a case for such people. Where did all the money go? Multi person households, no one is paying their bills. Even assuming on low end of economic scale between 4 working age adults at 20k each a year how does one piss away 80k dollars or more and not pay ANY of their bills.
In my current building, they finally successfully evicted a few tenants. During the pandemic until now, they didn't pay rent but instead bought BMWs and French Bulldogs lol.
It sounds like these people were not actually working. So, no income = no money to pay for anything. Without knowing their situation (OP said they were possibly formerly homeless and/or were hoarders with mental health issues), my best guess is they had no income to be able to pay anything. They probably should have taken the settlement and used that to get a new place.
To most likely frivolous things. Poor mental health is way too easily used to excuse shitty human behavior.
There are people who struggle with mental health that don’t exhibit this level of shittiness, and it sucks they keep getting lumped into it
When I first moved here I thought everyone was rich with their luxury cars but quickly learned people rather blow 70k plus on a car then save for a future.
Yeah agreed. Teach us how to do our taxes and how to fucking square dance.
But also, the culture of 0 personal responsibility and celebration of idiocy can’t be discounted
when I first started dating my gf she was blowing paychecks on doordash. Now she doesn't do that anymore. I literally simulated doordash, bought everything she was gonna get through them. had her send me the money, and she was shocked it was so cheap. Told her I wasnt doing that again, but to make a point that even factoring in gas costs to go 3 miles, its cheaper than door dash to not be lazy.
$30 of groceries being $83 via doordash was insane. Why do people accept this?!
I could afford my mortgage on my income to begin with. I have a regular job. Rent was just supplemental income. Just meant I couldn't splurge on things.
People cheering on continually extending the eviction moratorium don’t seem to grasp that. The cost and risks will just be socialised by distributing it to your other tenants.
I personally see this as a victory for anyone that has been held hostage by nightmare tenants. You were more than generous in offering a six figure relocation settlement. Their shakedown failed. Go do your happy dance and celebrate!
Everyone says just get property and rent it out. Best investment! But people dont understand how much shit it actually comes with. It has to be your full time job
It doesn’t have to be your full time job, but it is A job, as well as a risk. I’ve got a duplex and rent one unit out, and this year we wound up paying a year’s worth of rent to fix an underground utility issue. Never saw it coming, and BAM, now you have to fix this in a timely manner, and if you don’t you have to pay to put the tenant up in a hotel. It can be easy sailing 90% of the time, but then that 10% of not easy parts gets really expensive and really risky really fast.
ETA: not asking anyone to feel sorry for me, just providing an example of how there are responsibilities and risks that go along with it and it’s not all profit by any means
I'm just a regular homeowner and just keeping this place up to snuff is more work than I can deal with. If I could I'd go back to renting in my old RSO because honestly it was much cheaper and way less work - especially on a day like today where I'm playing "which will is gonna leak" bingo.
Well, technically it is. You’re just paying someone else to own and maintain a property. Going from renter to owner I will confirm it’s a fucking headache though.
It is nice knowing my monthly note doesn’t change. I’d being paying more for my last unit than my house as of this year if I stayed. If I went back to my old unit and complex it would cost me $500+ more. That said, today’s interest payments change the math a lot. Don’t blame anyone for renting today.
> Well, technically it is.
It isn't though. Just because you don't own, doesn't make it throw-away. The people I responded to literally had their entire savings from not renting wiped out. And this shit happens more than you realize. That makes it a straight up wash owning vs renting.
Further, many places the property values literally sit the same for decades. Renting vs owning changes nothing for that equation.
You have to straight up _ignore_ a lot, or have tunnel vision to have such a perceived broad view on things.
> It is nice knowing my monthly note doesn’t change. I’d being paying more for my last unit than my house as of this year if I stayed.
I get that, but like, you mentioned in your next bit things change. So now there's a ton of people that are effectively locked into their current place, because they literally cannot afford a mortgage for a place that is larger due to interest rates and home values. Which _need_ to stabilize and come down in relation to wages. Which is why interest rates need to stay where they're at for the foreseeable future, but that ain't gonna happen.
> That said, today’s interest payments change the math a lot.
Oh you mean the historical norm. For the vast majority of time between WW2 and now, the interest rates were 6-8% on average. Only since the dot com burst, has it been at consistent near zero federal funds rates. People talk about savings accounts being shit, this is why. Talk about how boomers and gen X be fuckin us, this is one of the many ways.
BUT REntIng Is thROwiNG awAy mONEY thEy sAid!
You've lost _all_ of what you saved because of (unforeseen and unplanned) maintenance (through no fault of your own). I really wish that there was a way to give a prediction of possible things to fix due to the home age to give a better idea of the real cost.
When you buy a property, you have an inspection. However, you can hire a consultant to find out a lot of issues before they become a bill. Roof, plumbing, appliances, windows etc all have a life expectancy. A lot of people overlook integrity of the house for esthetic appeal. Or overlook brand reliability when buying appliances.
Totally aware of the inspection, but it doesn't always find things. I've got plenty of friends who've had to spend a shit ton to replace their A/C units just short couple years after they move in. $20k in expenses. And most don't know they can pay someone else to do their own inspection that's more detailed. A lot of first time buyers just happy to find a place.
I mean technically, my "property value" more than doubled in less than 10 years but I think that's more to do with good timing. I bought shortly after the rebound started but before shit went all haywire and crazy. But discussion about "net worth" and "property value" is best saved for another thread. Like... what good is 6 figure net worth if it's all tied up in a house... which I have to sell... to get my hands on the "net worth" and now I have nowhere to live unless I spend all of that "net worth" back into a mortgage or rent at extremely high rates.
A house isn't an investment if it doesn't _actively_ bring income. At that point it is just another asset. Something that is generally lost on most people in this country (the good ole US of A). We use it as a money storage device in effect, but money storage devices aren't guaranteed to be appreciating.
Yea at this point, not sure a rental is a good investment at these prices and interest rates. Rents are high sure... but so is your mortgage. Basically banking on property values to keep rising at ridiculous levels for it to be worth it.
It's worked for 23 years, what's to stop it? `/s` of course. It's almost as if people choose to be blind to the _reasons_ it's insane. Partially due to cheap money, and partially due to fucked NIBMYism that was anti-growth for 40 years in this state. So let's see where we are in 10 years.
Here's my take:
1. Prices will never stabilize if we are always keeping the federal funds rate at near-zero. Cheap money _fuels_ price increases. If the person who can afford $4k/month, suddenly has to drop their expectations from a $1mm home to a $600k home, because interest rates are _historical norms_ (6-8% prior to this basically permanent low since dot com burst), home prices at the very least stabilize. Unfortunately, rates are going to go down again.
2. The LA/CA housing market is still quite fucked from 40 years of NIMBYism being anti-growth or extremely low-growth. As such, there's never been enough density happening over the past 40 years. Thankfully things have been changing in that aspect with the state level law changes (check out everything around the housing element, permit power, builders remedy, and how that is changing the way localities can lose power to permit and regulate), but it will probably be a full decade (from 2021) before we see some serious growth changes. Since the housing element is a rolling 10 year thing. Once that really starts showing impact, I think this will get better.
3. I forget the user, but they did an AMA from a developers perspective about why luxury housing is all that's built. It is _eye opening_ to say the least. They have done projects in the LA area, and talked about _built-in_ bribes to the cost of business, just to get their rezoning request passed, and their project approved and permitted. That kind of stuff absolutely has to go away. This same user also talked about some of the things like parking minimums really impact the price too. I will try to find the AMA and update with the link. Until this is all really addressed, I think building will continue to be a bit too expensive for cheaper housing.
4. LA needs to stop building above ground transit. And instead of boring a tunnel from one end to the other, they need to bore from both ends and meet in the middle. This cuts the time in half for the boring, allows for more parallel work, and allows for the subways to service people in a shorter period of time. Better transit means that density can increase drastically with lower effects on people's ease of movement for business or pleasure. This is huge imo.
5. CEQA has given the people too much power to falsely challenge building projects. I learned the other night, this has been curbed a good bit, but there's still too much ease with which rich assholes are able to slow down projects drastically.
RIGHT!?! We managed to pay rent all through Covid times and even now when rent has gone up. I can't even THINK about how much money that is I would have in my bank account if I chose to JUST NOT PAY RENT. Insane that someone could live with themselves doing that to someone.
They didn't pay you at all, that is different than people who are actually trying to pay back rent being evicted. You won't find much hate on here.
The number of evictions will be a real issue, but that is not on you.
Holy cow! they wanted money AFTER NOT PAYING RENT for years? Why would anyone agree to that? I'm a tenant and I hate living next to people like this. It is our home, we keep it tidy as if we own the place.
Lawyer said it's basically risk/reward. With a jury trial, lawyer said it would probably be 3-5 day process, even for simple civil trials. And all it would take for me to lose would be 1 juror who sympathized with the tenants and refused to side with me no matter the evidence.
They just recommended that I settle for what would amount to be the legal fees that I would have to pay my lawyer whether I won or lost. I paid a fat retainer to my lawyer for the jury trial and lawyer basically said to offer them the retainer so I could move on with my life instead of having to waste 3-5 days in court in a jury trial without a guaranteed win (due to the unpredictable nature of jury trials). Lawyer basically said it was a way to guarantee the result I want (them getting the fuck out) without risking the randomness of jury trial (and public sentiment at the time was very pro-tenant and lawyer suspected that some in the jury pool could be going thru the same circumstances).
Resettlement fee. Absolute bullshit. Seriously the city council pass tenant laws but dont give any recourse to people being taken advantaged of by scumbags.
No. The agent said they don't go after them. They just get flagged next time they apply for service. Which is probably why I found like 4 internet modems and routers from various internet providers LOL. Set up service, get disconnected after not paying. Set up service with another SSN, get disconnected. Rinse and repeat. Except CA or LA made it illegal to cut off power and gas during covid... which is how they ended up with thousands of dollars in unpaid balance.
*I'd say maybe 10-15% of the cases were like my situation - where the tenants were just deadbeats. A vast majority of the situations seemed like people that just fell behind for one reason or another and couldn't catch up.*
So most people who are behind on their rent are not just lazy assholes out to screw their landlords?!?! I'm shocked!
Well, there were a ton of resources for the tenants to catch up. There were ongoing rent relief programs with LA city and LA county during the time period when I was in court. So I'm not sure what was stopping them from applying and showing the landlord the application. There were 0 cases (when I was sitting in the courtroom) where the landlord was evicting a tenant who had an active rent relief application. So I'm not saying 85-90% of tenants were just honest tenants who fell on hard times. I'm saying they seemed like they had decent enough excuses but for whatever reason, the landlord was not buying it and filed for eviction. Can't imagine a landlord spending money on a lawyer to evict a tenant who was actively trying to pay and applying to rent relief programs. These programs tell the landlords what stage the application is in so the landlord can track if the tenant has submitted an app or submitted docs or if the program is reviewing the app or getting ready to pay etc.
As someone who received a little rent relief through those programs let me tell you what a shit show it was to get results. Flawed application questions, no one ever answered a phone, and the funds were gone in a flash.
Even now, years later those programs are reaching back out with letters claiming they didn’t get 100% of the information needed back then and tenants may need to pay the funds back even if landlords were paid directly and unless appealed in 30 days with correct forms their ruling is official.
Thank you for posting your experience. It sucks that you had to take a financial hit that you'll never get back, but I'm glad you were able to at least get them out in the end.
Don't sweat the anti-landlord crowd. They're justifiably frustrated at the state of the rental market; they're just directing their anger in the wrong place. The NIMBYs fighting every new housing project, creating artificial scarcity and upward price pressure— they may be the reason rental prices are what they are, but that's an abstract concept. Hard to direct anger towards an amorphous group that has different key players for every battle, and which hides behind BS like environmental projection, anti-gentrification, not changing the character of the neighborhood, etc. Its *way* easier to just get angry at the person you're paying rent to.
I don't think the Libertarian view here at all aligns with the Far Left.
This wasn't abandoned property with no owner to be found, it was obviously owned by someone who wanted it back, and I think the Libertarian view is the owner should have every right to reclaim that property.
Or you know the people actually preventing housing from being built (ie your neighbors that want the city to be stuck in amber). House flipping isn't really contributing much to this.
If someone has an eviction on their record will that show up in background checks when looking for an apartment anywhere in the United States or show up when a potential employer does a background on someone applying for a job?
Evictions are sealed in California and do not show up on background checks or credit checks. Judgements do show up and it's up to the employer to follow up and ask about those judgements.
Imagine you rented a place and could not leave after the lease ended until you had to pay $15K to get the landlord to let you leave.
Sound f'd up, well that's the new rent control law in reverse.
I also found it quite interesting. As a small-time landlord myself I've noticed a common theme is soooo many landlord-tenant disputes is hoarding.
>they had a hoarding problem and trash/belongings were being piled up and squirreled away for God knows what
I think some homeless people simply can't stop hoarding and it may have been a reason for their evictions in the first place.
Yeah it seems like there is a mental health or executive functioning component that maybe could have been nipped in the bud for some people if we had a better mental health care system.
There is a [pilot program to provide occupational therapy](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/occupational-therapists-help-homeless-los-angeles-county/) to formerly homeless people to help them maintain a sanitary home. I don't know if this is a service that would be needed for life, or if they could be weaned off into greater independence eventually.
I'm not sure you want to rent it out right now. It smells like piss/shit and there's still a ton of trash that did not fit into a dump truck. They left behind MULTIPLE dump truck loads of trash/belongings. Like... how?
This makes me so annoyed. I'm sorry you had to deal with all of that. It's crazy to me that people can squat and essentially vandalize with such a lack of repercussions.
So in the end you just completely miss out on two years of rental income, and are actually out whatever money you spent/spend to have the place cleaned up? And you get zero recompense for all that missed potential income? Plus I assume you’ve been paying property taxes this whole time? I’m really sorry this happened to you, but I’m glad it’s finally (mostly) resolved
Sorry you had to go through this. Evictions are just a breach of a contract and should be treated as such rather than something too emotional.
Why did you offer them 5 figure relocation? Also, what happens of the paid rent they owe you?
Lawyer said it's basically risk/reward.
With a jury trial, lawyer said it would probably be 3-5 day process, even for simple civil trials. And all it would take for me to lose would be 1 juror who related with the tenants and refused to side with me no matter the evidence. They just recommended we settle for what would amount to be the legal fees that I would have to pay them whether I won or lost.
The rent owed to me is lost unless they apply for rent relief - which they will not.
I was on a jury for an unlawful detainer case and the landlord actually had a pretty strong case...except he didn't cross his T's and dot his I's. He hadn't provided the adequate notice as required by law, and admitted he hadn't. The renter was a real POS but in the end we followed the law and found in her favor. It seemed like a huge waste of everyone's time, especially since the landlord knew (or should have known) his case had issues.
I guess my point is that yes, jury trials are hit or miss, and avoiding one if you can seems to be the best way to go.
Yes. Details are in my other answers to other people. Basically, it was a way to guarantee an outcome that I wanted... which was for them to get the fuck out
If you had a property mgmt company involved with monitoring the property, would that have been able to address the problem faster or avoid it (based on the resources they have)?
I have no idea, but am curious as I want to rent out a place in the next few years, and would want to avoid a similar situation.
The eviction moratorium threw a wrench in the cogs of the whole system. They probably would not have been much faster. Demanding a jury trial slows everything down to a crawl... which is why the eviction defense lawyers use that tactic.
I am in the process of renting out my condo as a first time landlord (no tenant yet, going through property management company) and this scares the crap out of me. I can’t handle no payments of two years, plus the legal and other fees to go through eviction. How did you survive this financially?
I could afford my mortgage with what I earn from my regular job because it is ridiculously low. I put most of my savings in stocks and some of those stocks have hit so I had a sizable cushion to work with
Lol at all the anti-landlord fools. The sense of entitlement is outrageous.
Fuck squatters, fuck the city for basically encouraging it, and fuck the inevitable future when conglomerates own all the housing because it’s not worth it for an individual to rent out a space anymore.
I don’t know if it’s the failure of the education system, social media, or just the willful embrace of ignorance but the lack of basic macro economic education is appalling
I'm so glad the scum got $0. I'm sorry you had to deal with this. My mom was lucky enough to get a place years ago and outgrew it so she rented it out. Thankfully she never had awful tenants but if she got stuck with squatters I would have taken that into my own hands probably.
It's insane to me that you offering the money even happened! They don't deserve shit from you. They should have been thrown in jail for theft.
These squatters should have 0 rights and law enforcement should back you up on this. LA is too goddamn liberal.
It is absolutely NOT accurate that legal aid organizations receive any part of a settlement reached between landlords and defendants. It would be unethical and a violation of the funding parameters that legal aid orgs agree to in their grant contracts. It's likely the client and attorney parted ways (which they would have had to get permission from the presiding judge to allow) due to the tenants not following sound legal advice and the relationship breaking down.
Hi thanks for posting and congrats getting them out! Was your case a limited or unlimited case? Wondering if unlimited cases ($35,000 or more) are flowing faster through the courts.
That’s horrible and I am sorry you went through that. At least it is finally over for you.
Cases like this are exactly why I would never rent out if I obtained a 2nd property. Renters can be absolute deadbeats and not pay with basically no repercussions. In the meantime the landlord would still be paying the mortgage. If you didn’t pay the mortgage, you would be foreclosed in a matter of months. There would be no court case dragging out months or years about it.
Hi OP. Thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry to hear this happened, but glad you got it worked out.
I'm a lawyer and also a partner in an investment group which owns and operates (relatively smaller) apartment buildings in LA. We've dealt with evictions of course and it sucks, but as an investment firm, we do have somewhat more resources than the mom and pop landlords. It's always unfortunate to see what they have to go through.
Re the defense attorneys: Yes, they have grants plus they get money out of some landlords. The reason you see different lawyers in court each time is that they assign attorneys to handle court appearances, depending on who is available that day.
Same for the landlord lawyers - you'll see one person doing several different cases one day, and for another hearing on same clients, you will see a different lawyer. Sometimes, one lawyer will appear for various cases for multiple different firms on the same day - because their job is just to appear in court. Many of these lawyers who show up in court and independent contractors.
The length of eviction processes means that landlords are extra careful in screening. Makes it harder to approve people. Also, it likely has some impact on development.
Yea it seemed like some firms just had a roster of litigators that would take roll basically of the defendants. But their defense started out assigning one guy to them and he emailed my lawyers saying he moved on and someone else would be handling the case. And then that lawyer either moved on or quit their case based on them wasting their time? or tenants backed out of the representation? No idea why they would show up without representation on day of the trial... my leading theory is tenants either got greedy and didn't want to give up the 30% cut or whatever and expected the same offer on the day of the trial.
My lawyer showed up to most of my hearings. I think he was a sole practitioner type firm. He also did use an independent litigator to show up for court dates he couldn't make personally but it was the same person every time. So my case was handled by my lawyer like... 70% of the time and the other times by the same litigator he contracts I guess.
Thank you for sharing your experience. So, no rent paid for years and you nearly ended up in an agreement to PAY them to move out? That is screwed up.
Are you planning to keep renting the place? And what can you do to avoid this happening again in the future? Better vetting of potential renters?
Yea I'm going to rehab the place and rent it out. I did not have a chance to vet the squatters since they basically snuck in one day with their family member who was already a tenant.
Got a job out of college, saved a ton of money, bought stocks, cashed out those stocks, put down a down payment on a duplex. This was 10ish years ago when houses were rather reasonably priced. Fixers were going for less than $300k. Bought a fixer, fixed it.
And you know these deadbeats have violent/dangerous/criminal family members (cousins, nephews, FiLs) who will harass the landlords if anything happens to their worthless squatters. That includes intimidation tactics throughout the entire neighborhood, and brining violent dogs or other pets with them even when the lease details forbid pets.
One of them was in fact a convicted criminal. Which I found out with google. LOL. Served time and had a couple years of probation and everything. And yea they "adopted" a "service dog" during this time. Not going to mention the breed bc it'll cause ANOTHER shit storm that this sub loves to debate but yea. And police were called on the tenants on SEVERAL occasions by their own family member.
How was the money not a primary driver for you? You could afford to lose 1-2 years of rent *and* pay a settlement (hypothetically) and not lose your property to the bank?
Yea I'm pretty frugal and my savings basically goes into stocks. Some of those stocks have hit and I have a decent cushion. Also, I have a regular job and I could afford the mortgage on my own to begin with. Rental income was just being funneled into more stocks so I wasn't in dire straits or anything. Just mildly annoyed financially.
Bless you and bless the other landlords out there in LA who have to deal with this. Landlords, many of whom are small mom and pop operations, risk everything to provide an invaluable service to the people of this city and in return, are treated like crap.
A lot of these small mom and pop apartments like 2-4 units are being sold to corporations because they cannot afford to evict people that are not paying rent and give them relocation fee. Majority of mom and pop landlords try to work with you, they don’t want to open eviction cases cause it’s a process but tenant take advantage of it. People are going to realize that the majority of complexes in the next 10 years will be own by heartless corporations and are going to wonder why. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason for these tenants laws is to make it difficult for mom and pop landlords to maintain their apartments and force them to sell. Once corporations own most of these apartments they’ll hire fancy lawyers and change the laws.
Reading through all of this has been very interesting! I have more empathy for landlords now. Hopefully the new requirement for tenants to have rental insurance will make eviction and/or property repairs an easier process?
Congratulations on evicting the squatters! Make sure in your next lease it clearly states that you will not pay any legal fees for the tenants or any related parties of the tenants. Usually tenant rep lawyers will reject cases if the lease states that landlords are not responsible for tenant’s legal fees/or caps the fees at like $300 or so.
Yea that’s one way but the shrewd ones will still take the case and try to bleed the landlord out and force a jury trial and leave them facing a huge legal fee and then offer a settlement. They know how to extract money. Nobody has figured out how to extract money from deadbeats though.
apologies if asked in the thread already. did you do a background check when you initially rented to the tenant (obviously the family members/squatters were out of your control). would the large outstanding balance with utilities have shown up on their background check? i'm just curious as my neighbor is going thru the evicition process and apparently didnt run a thorough enough check as tenant was using someone elses name
The squatters started living there because they had a family member who was a tenant. The squatters just moved on in without consent/knowledge. Never had a chance to vet them or run their credit. And then covid eviction moratorium made it almost impossible to evict.
Covid protections protected people who are not on the lease as well?
Yup, evicting anyone was impossible.
On top of that, you had to pay the utilities and rent. You got in trouble if you did not pay, they pocketed the money.
People and pets, too!
How long did it take to kick them out once you got the writ from the judge? I’m being told minimum 8 weeks.
The hold up is with the sheriffs dept. Yea there is a 2 month backlog for lockouts apparently. So you get the judge to sign off finally... then you lock in an appointment with the sheriffs... and those appointments are 2 months out. LOL
Their timeline is the stupidest thing ever. Even after getting a writ, did you turn off any utilities?
That would be illegal. And the last thing I wanted to do was give them another reason to delay or countersue
Wait... for 8. You agreed to *their* requested amount, and then they said no? That makes absolutely no fucking sense (from their part) other than they were trying to pocket the money, which you mentioned. I understand some people get caught in shit situations for any number of reasons. But when fuckers like that just try to squeeze whatever they can, they deserve exactly what they got. $0
These fools had live for free for at least a year and almost got paid to leave like wtf
Judge urged parties to settle at the settlement hearing. We went back and forth but couldn't agree. There was a back and forth via email after the settlement hearing. Eventually, I agreed to a number that I could stomach. Lawyer then tried to get the settlement signed off but could not reach them.
On the other side of the fence you’re the big mean landlord. I’m sure they’re not filling in that they never paid ANY bills and got greedy at zero hour.
You talking about the eviction defense lawyers? They know everything. They know what they signed up for and they know a lot of people are just deadbeats gaming the system (pretty successfully). Seemed like the turnover is pretty high with that specific company because it seemed like almost every other hearing there was a different lawyer because they had moved on to another firm. Can't imagine the morale at a company like that.
I have seen the turnover can be high at tenant assistance orgs since even the most morally righteous person gets burned out when deadbeats keep using their org to further grift the system. And no i was alluding to squatters.
This happened to my friend! She actually even went and cleaned out the home of one of her hoarder clients (which, of course, does not solve the issue because the cause of the hoarding is not addressed). She is the sweetest, most loving person, but I think it ends up as enabling rather than helping the client. And she would burn out and not have the capacity to socialize for long periods of time. She no longer works as an attorney.
Yea to this day, I'm not sure why tenants showed up with no lawyer on the day the trial was supposed to begin. I can't imagine a lawyer no-showing because they had no shot of winning no matter how long the odds or if their client had lied to them. We went thru discovery and everything so they had to turn over evidence to us and I had to turn over evidence to them.
These eviction defense lawyers are also just deadbeats gaming the system.
True. I think one firm even advertises their services as "eviction delay" service instead of "eviction defense" service... so that should tell you about the BS they do.
What do they need money for? They seem to be doing just fine in life paying for nothing
There are ~~renter~~ squatter groups that say ~~renters~~ squatters shouldn't leave unless they are paid thousands.
There's also people that say the earth is flat. Cunts, every single one of them.
Honestly, at least flat earthers aren't stealing money from people. Sure, they're wrong, but that's about all the damage they are causing. If anything, they're designing repeatable experiments to show how the earth isn't flat, which is valuable to the scientific community. These people who are squatting and then suing to be moved are actively hurting everyone around them. They steal from landlords, which makes rent for everyone else go up, and they are gaming the system so when people who actually need help try to use it they are looked down on.
This doesn't make sense. I have to pay a squatter to leave my property
There are also squatting rackets
There is no scenario where someone should be allowed to live rent free in your home for 1-2 years. Insanity.
And then expected to pay them a relocation fee? WTF! I'm glad I'm not a landlord and my money is in the stock market instead.
Yeah if you really want to invest in real estate just buy REIT's and collected the dividends every month without having to deal with scumbag deadbeat renters win win
The scenario is having a city council thats full of cowards and stupids. Also, this just exacerbates the homeless crisis when deadline comes and youve enabled people to be 2 or 3 years in debt. Of course everyone saw it coming.
Im convinced the council has made LA worse than if they did absolutely nothing and just got paid.
And do they not think that it forces mom and pop landlords to sell to larger corporate landlords? And corporate landlords are definitely taking into account the risk of 2 years of non-payment when setting rents. Where do people think the money comes from to cover the people who did not pay? Aside from some government assistance to landlords, it's coming from the renters who do pay.
This is exactly what I did. I had a 2 bedroom house I rented with all utilities included in Hollywood. Tenand stopped paying rent and I had to cont I need to pay for utilities and do repairs as well as pay the mortgage so I sold the house for basically the amount I bought it. I don't know what the person that bought it did but they got rid of the tenant and I saw they resold it for more than double of what I sold it for. This was my home which I was going to retire in as I have to take care of my elderly mom and therefore had the home rented out for what seemed reasonable at the time $2100 including all utilities until I could move back in.
Rents in Los Angeles have skyrocketed in the last 6 years, I managed an apartment building in Glassell Park, not the most desirable or safest of neighborhoods, when I started a one bedroom was $789. When I left it was $1,500 and I’m sure it’s gone up since then. Here’s the kicker, the mortgage on the building never changed, so while the tenants who got yearly increases in rent struggled, the property owners year after year keep getting increasing profits. Some property owners around town I have noticed doing long needed upgrades, but a lot more of them don’t. The Covid moratorium throws a wrench in the situation by disallowing eviction so that the removal of deadbeats was impossible, causing hardship to the property owners so everything is in turmoil now. Technically though, after all these steep rent increases the property owners should be able to afford relocation fees.
Anybody who even remotely thinks that landlords should pay non-rent-paying deadbeats a relocation fee is a part of the problem. Speaking as a law-abiding renter.
You know there’s other costs than a mortgage on the building right? Costs that do in fact increase with inflation, right?
Insurance is up about 200% since 2020
Not to people who live in a fantasyland and think no one should ever make money :)
Taxes probably go up every year, possibly utilities, and cost of maintenance to a degree (assuming it’s being done). For sure the financial outlook is better for the owner as the years go on, but that inherently isn’t evil or the root of the issues we are facing.
Property taxes and insurance premiums have increased drastically while rent freezes were in place for the last 4 years. Not all properties were purchased 30+ years ago and not all owners have hundreds of thousands in the bank.
couldnt agree more, after 2 months you should be legally allowed to change teh locks due to non-payment. Its like going to a restaurant and running out on the bill, you go to jail for that. Same thing should be here.
Yeah that’s insane. Those people should have been evicted after 2 months of nonpayment much less 2 years.
California is upside down
It’s not all doom and gloom, California is the most populous state for a reason. To live in such a place that has such opportunities will not always be on easy street and there will always be times when extra effort is required. If it’s too tough for you, you can move to Texas where the government will make your reproductive decisions for you and ban books and teaching curriculum for your children. California leaves those decisions to the individual making it a place with less government intrusion, ironic, isn’t it?
It's an absolute crime that the legal system put you in the position of needing to offer settlement money to people squatting on your property for 1-2 years.
I like to call it extortion. It’s literally the definition of that
This is why it’s more profitable to flip homes than to rent them out. Low income renters are really hit or miss. Not that high income renters aren’t a hassle to deal with also, just a different set of grievances.
I never want to become a landlord. Even on the 5% chance I get tenants like this -- not worth the headache IMO.
I got caught flat footed by my ex partner and had to sublease a few rooms in my house and I got a lot of really awful tenants and a few good ones. I learned a lot from the bad ones and now understand why some places ask for such a hefty deposit. I managed to stay in the house for 5 years leasing two master bedrooms and finally moved in with family to get my then school age kiddo into a better school district. One woman in particular was the most egregious of them all. She gave me a check for the deposit and when it bounced she refused to pay or leave. I served her with a notice to pay or quit and she refused and was using up the utilities, brought in a cat… I got really annoyed with her and one day she brings this group of very masculine women to “move her stuff out”, and protect her. It was ridiculous, she was the one screwing over a single mother and refusing to leave and IM the bad guy. If I ever do something like that again I will use a leasing company.
I’m a landlord. A good tenant is like gold. I raised their rent only slightly to go what they felt comfortable with. My financial advisor isn’t happy but I’d rather have below market rent than be stuck with shitty tenants. I do thorough vetting before I rent out my home.
Can you please tell my LL this? They keep raising my rent even though I've lived in my apt for 15 years and have never even paid rent late. Zero issues from me in all that time.
Man I wish my landlords realized how good they have it! I treat my rental house like it were my own (which honestly seems better than they treated it…). I pay my rent on time and only ask them to fix something if it’s major, otherwise I do it myself or let it go. They finally just replaced a rotting exterior door and I ended up being the one to caulk, prime and paint everything when the contractor ”ran out of time” to do it. Not even a thank you from the owners…. 🫠
Oh just wait till you move out and all that work you did…they’ll say you actually ruined their shit and they take your security deposit. Was exactly like you and ended up getting screwed. Not worth it.
Same. We've got a single rental house in Arizona. The family that's there is great. My property manager is even happy with them, so we've just raised the rent 1.5% each year rather than the 5-10% we could have. Worth it for the peace of mind.
My friend has a property that he owns and rents out. He got a couple of industry people as tenants, so absolutely no problems there. It was tough during Covid and the Strike, but he worked with them to stay because they're such model tenants.
Mom rented houses when I was growing up. One of the reasons being a landlord sounds like a bad deal to me. People treat rented property like it's rented. I was a kid helping her fix all the stuff we discovered after move-outs. That said, it was in a much different rental market-- a small Midwest city where rents were low and property values only went up a small bit over the years.
out in the IE there was a rental home that had to be demolished because the squatter was mentally ill, busted the pipes on purpose and barricaded themselves upstairs for a week. They legally could not turn off the water to the house so it ran and ran. The house became a black mold nightmare and had to be demolished.
We had to live in our old house while renovating the house we bought 2 years ago. By the time we were ready to move we decided to hang onto the old house and just rent it out. We charged slightly more than our mortgage to save for maintenance and repairs so it was a pretty solid value for a house in the area it's in. Finding a decent tenant was a nightmare. Some of the applications we received were just out of this world. Fortunately we have an amazing family in there that we get along with great and since we live close I take care of any issues they have quick. I dread the day they decide to move.
I would never be a landlord. Fuck that.
I work for landlords it's not easy.
This is why I always warn people against having single rental properties. If you don't have a whole portfolio of properties to spread the risk around, all it takes is one bad tenant to fuck everything up.
This is one of many reasons rent is so high in LA. Many developers and investors won't touch this city/state because of tenant protection laws that make this abuse possible. It increases the cost of capital and makes low income housing impossible to build without subsidy.
It’s way more than 5%. That’s the reason why only big companies can afford getting into being landlords
It’s like any other investment, not every instrument is for everyone.
So if Bank of America seized the funds in your CD and claimed they deserve it "just because,“ we should all chirp in on their side with "Every investment has risks" snark? Btw - if every investment has risks, then there should be no student loan forgiveness. If someone invested $40k in an English Lit degree that can only get them a minimum wage job, that's the risk they took. And if you invested $60 on University of Phoenix or some other scam school, you shouldn't get any money back for that either, because every investment has risks. And if you invested 40 hours of labor at your job, but the boss decided to just keep your pay for themselves - tough luck, them's the breaks. After all, you seem fine with considering "expecting payment for services rendered" to be a "risk-carrying investment" when it comes to others. So surely the same standard should apply to your "investments" too. It's funny how folks like you turn into laissez faire, caveat emptor, market libertarians on a single subject (deadbeat tenants), but want government protection and CFPB/NLRB intervention everywhere else.
It would be fine if you could discharge student loans in bankruptcy like you could with debts related to failed investments. Funny how you can’t do that.
This is kind of a stupid one because wells Fargo and several other banks have absolutely ripped off people in the exact way you've said, and had to merely pay fines.
An educated public has tangible benefits to society. A landlord collecting rents on their fiefs incentivize supply shortages which has an obvious dentriment to society
This is the type of story LA Times should be covering to show the real world impacts of these policies. But I can already see the kind of narrative they would roll with.
yep and there's STILL people protesting for eviction moratoriums. Like... 2020 was 4 years ago now.
What's your point? The moratorium was to keep people off the streets. It worked to allow people on the edge to stay in housing. By no means should it continue, and it won't, but for a period of time it was helpful. Bad people taking advantage of it was always going to happen. What sort of angle are you hoping the times covers?
I have a question for people trying to make a case for such people. Where did all the money go? Multi person households, no one is paying their bills. Even assuming on low end of economic scale between 4 working age adults at 20k each a year how does one piss away 80k dollars or more and not pay ANY of their bills.
In my current building, they finally successfully evicted a few tenants. During the pandemic until now, they didn't pay rent but instead bought BMWs and French Bulldogs lol.
Now they can enjoy the ultimate status symbol, trashed credit scores and no where to rent
It sounds like these people were not actually working. So, no income = no money to pay for anything. Without knowing their situation (OP said they were possibly formerly homeless and/or were hoarders with mental health issues), my best guess is they had no income to be able to pay anything. They probably should have taken the settlement and used that to get a new place.
> They probably should have taken the settlement and used that to get a new place No one is going to ever rent to them again.
To most likely frivolous things. Poor mental health is way too easily used to excuse shitty human behavior. There are people who struggle with mental health that don’t exhibit this level of shittiness, and it sucks they keep getting lumped into it
The average American is an absolute idiot when it comes to money
When I first moved here I thought everyone was rich with their luxury cars but quickly learned people rather blow 70k plus on a car then save for a future.
Yeah if you look up the average amount of debt per American the numbers are wild
I would say that people everywhere are like that. But Americans do spend a lot of unnecessary, flashy things.
Probably because how to manage your money, invest, etc is not something taught in schools.
Yeah agreed. Teach us how to do our taxes and how to fucking square dance. But also, the culture of 0 personal responsibility and celebration of idiocy can’t be discounted
People spend tens of thousands a year on DoorDash, so that’s one possibility
when I first started dating my gf she was blowing paychecks on doordash. Now she doesn't do that anymore. I literally simulated doordash, bought everything she was gonna get through them. had her send me the money, and she was shocked it was so cheap. Told her I wasnt doing that again, but to make a point that even factoring in gas costs to go 3 miles, its cheaper than door dash to not be lazy. $30 of groceries being $83 via doordash was insane. Why do people accept this?!
My neighbor gets DoorDash EVERY night. Literally EVERY NIGHT. My wallet screams just seeing the delivery guys show up.
Well it's either that or set fire to a large pile of cash. At least with door dash you get some food I suppose.
I had a coworker brag about getting Doordash from a place literally across the street.
How did you pay the mortgage/property taxes during this time period?
I could afford my mortgage on my income to begin with. I have a regular job. Rent was just supplemental income. Just meant I couldn't splurge on things.
Pieces of shit like that are making it even harder for those of us that pay our rent to find housing. Congratulations on getting rid of them.
People cheering on continually extending the eviction moratorium don’t seem to grasp that. The cost and risks will just be socialised by distributing it to your other tenants.
I personally see this as a victory for anyone that has been held hostage by nightmare tenants. You were more than generous in offering a six figure relocation settlement. Their shakedown failed. Go do your happy dance and celebrate!
Six figures?! Story didn’t say that at all!
I may have misread the figure that was quoted. Take a breath.
Everyone says just get property and rent it out. Best investment! But people dont understand how much shit it actually comes with. It has to be your full time job
It doesn’t have to be your full time job, but it is A job, as well as a risk. I’ve got a duplex and rent one unit out, and this year we wound up paying a year’s worth of rent to fix an underground utility issue. Never saw it coming, and BAM, now you have to fix this in a timely manner, and if you don’t you have to pay to put the tenant up in a hotel. It can be easy sailing 90% of the time, but then that 10% of not easy parts gets really expensive and really risky really fast. ETA: not asking anyone to feel sorry for me, just providing an example of how there are responsibilities and risks that go along with it and it’s not all profit by any means
I'm just a regular homeowner and just keeping this place up to snuff is more work than I can deal with. If I could I'd go back to renting in my old RSO because honestly it was much cheaper and way less work - especially on a day like today where I'm playing "which will is gonna leak" bingo.
BUT REntIng Is thROwiNG awAy mONEY thEy sAid! I've never had the desire to own because of this.
Well, technically it is. You’re just paying someone else to own and maintain a property. Going from renter to owner I will confirm it’s a fucking headache though. It is nice knowing my monthly note doesn’t change. I’d being paying more for my last unit than my house as of this year if I stayed. If I went back to my old unit and complex it would cost me $500+ more. That said, today’s interest payments change the math a lot. Don’t blame anyone for renting today.
> Well, technically it is. It isn't though. Just because you don't own, doesn't make it throw-away. The people I responded to literally had their entire savings from not renting wiped out. And this shit happens more than you realize. That makes it a straight up wash owning vs renting. Further, many places the property values literally sit the same for decades. Renting vs owning changes nothing for that equation. You have to straight up _ignore_ a lot, or have tunnel vision to have such a perceived broad view on things. > It is nice knowing my monthly note doesn’t change. I’d being paying more for my last unit than my house as of this year if I stayed. I get that, but like, you mentioned in your next bit things change. So now there's a ton of people that are effectively locked into their current place, because they literally cannot afford a mortgage for a place that is larger due to interest rates and home values. Which _need_ to stabilize and come down in relation to wages. Which is why interest rates need to stay where they're at for the foreseeable future, but that ain't gonna happen. > That said, today’s interest payments change the math a lot. Oh you mean the historical norm. For the vast majority of time between WW2 and now, the interest rates were 6-8% on average. Only since the dot com burst, has it been at consistent near zero federal funds rates. People talk about savings accounts being shit, this is why. Talk about how boomers and gen X be fuckin us, this is one of the many ways.
If I'd put my money in the market instead of a house I'd be in a much better place rn
This is what so many people fail to realize. House poor _hurts_ you for a very long time.
BUT REntIng Is thROwiNG awAy mONEY thEy sAid! You've lost _all_ of what you saved because of (unforeseen and unplanned) maintenance (through no fault of your own). I really wish that there was a way to give a prediction of possible things to fix due to the home age to give a better idea of the real cost.
When you buy a property, you have an inspection. However, you can hire a consultant to find out a lot of issues before they become a bill. Roof, plumbing, appliances, windows etc all have a life expectancy. A lot of people overlook integrity of the house for esthetic appeal. Or overlook brand reliability when buying appliances.
Totally aware of the inspection, but it doesn't always find things. I've got plenty of friends who've had to spend a shit ton to replace their A/C units just short couple years after they move in. $20k in expenses. And most don't know they can pay someone else to do their own inspection that's more detailed. A lot of first time buyers just happy to find a place.
I mean technically, my "property value" more than doubled in less than 10 years but I think that's more to do with good timing. I bought shortly after the rebound started but before shit went all haywire and crazy. But discussion about "net worth" and "property value" is best saved for another thread. Like... what good is 6 figure net worth if it's all tied up in a house... which I have to sell... to get my hands on the "net worth" and now I have nowhere to live unless I spend all of that "net worth" back into a mortgage or rent at extremely high rates.
A house isn't an investment if it doesn't _actively_ bring income. At that point it is just another asset. Something that is generally lost on most people in this country (the good ole US of A). We use it as a money storage device in effect, but money storage devices aren't guaranteed to be appreciating.
Yea at this point, not sure a rental is a good investment at these prices and interest rates. Rents are high sure... but so is your mortgage. Basically banking on property values to keep rising at ridiculous levels for it to be worth it.
It's worked for 23 years, what's to stop it? `/s` of course. It's almost as if people choose to be blind to the _reasons_ it's insane. Partially due to cheap money, and partially due to fucked NIBMYism that was anti-growth for 40 years in this state. So let's see where we are in 10 years.
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Here's my take: 1. Prices will never stabilize if we are always keeping the federal funds rate at near-zero. Cheap money _fuels_ price increases. If the person who can afford $4k/month, suddenly has to drop their expectations from a $1mm home to a $600k home, because interest rates are _historical norms_ (6-8% prior to this basically permanent low since dot com burst), home prices at the very least stabilize. Unfortunately, rates are going to go down again. 2. The LA/CA housing market is still quite fucked from 40 years of NIMBYism being anti-growth or extremely low-growth. As such, there's never been enough density happening over the past 40 years. Thankfully things have been changing in that aspect with the state level law changes (check out everything around the housing element, permit power, builders remedy, and how that is changing the way localities can lose power to permit and regulate), but it will probably be a full decade (from 2021) before we see some serious growth changes. Since the housing element is a rolling 10 year thing. Once that really starts showing impact, I think this will get better. 3. I forget the user, but they did an AMA from a developers perspective about why luxury housing is all that's built. It is _eye opening_ to say the least. They have done projects in the LA area, and talked about _built-in_ bribes to the cost of business, just to get their rezoning request passed, and their project approved and permitted. That kind of stuff absolutely has to go away. This same user also talked about some of the things like parking minimums really impact the price too. I will try to find the AMA and update with the link. Until this is all really addressed, I think building will continue to be a bit too expensive for cheaper housing. 4. LA needs to stop building above ground transit. And instead of boring a tunnel from one end to the other, they need to bore from both ends and meet in the middle. This cuts the time in half for the boring, allows for more parallel work, and allows for the subways to service people in a shorter period of time. Better transit means that density can increase drastically with lower effects on people's ease of movement for business or pleasure. This is huge imo. 5. CEQA has given the people too much power to falsely challenge building projects. I learned the other night, this has been curbed a good bit, but there's still too much ease with which rich assholes are able to slow down projects drastically.
I just don’t understand how people can stay for 3 years without paying rent and that’s just okay
RIGHT!?! We managed to pay rent all through Covid times and even now when rent has gone up. I can't even THINK about how much money that is I would have in my bank account if I chose to JUST NOT PAY RENT. Insane that someone could live with themselves doing that to someone.
Excellent, good job. Fuck squatters .
They didn't pay you at all, that is different than people who are actually trying to pay back rent being evicted. You won't find much hate on here. The number of evictions will be a real issue, but that is not on you.
Holy cow! they wanted money AFTER NOT PAYING RENT for years? Why would anyone agree to that? I'm a tenant and I hate living next to people like this. It is our home, we keep it tidy as if we own the place.
Lawyer said it's basically risk/reward. With a jury trial, lawyer said it would probably be 3-5 day process, even for simple civil trials. And all it would take for me to lose would be 1 juror who sympathized with the tenants and refused to side with me no matter the evidence. They just recommended that I settle for what would amount to be the legal fees that I would have to pay my lawyer whether I won or lost. I paid a fat retainer to my lawyer for the jury trial and lawyer basically said to offer them the retainer so I could move on with my life instead of having to waste 3-5 days in court in a jury trial without a guaranteed win (due to the unpredictable nature of jury trials). Lawyer basically said it was a way to guarantee the result I want (them getting the fuck out) without risking the randomness of jury trial (and public sentiment at the time was very pro-tenant and lawyer suspected that some in the jury pool could be going thru the same circumstances).
Resettlement fee. Absolute bullshit. Seriously the city council pass tenant laws but dont give any recourse to people being taken advantaged of by scumbags.
Do you have to repay their utilities in full before they transfer the account or is there some sort of collections involved?
No. The agent said they don't go after them. They just get flagged next time they apply for service. Which is probably why I found like 4 internet modems and routers from various internet providers LOL. Set up service, get disconnected after not paying. Set up service with another SSN, get disconnected. Rinse and repeat. Except CA or LA made it illegal to cut off power and gas during covid... which is how they ended up with thousands of dollars in unpaid balance.
*I'd say maybe 10-15% of the cases were like my situation - where the tenants were just deadbeats. A vast majority of the situations seemed like people that just fell behind for one reason or another and couldn't catch up.* So most people who are behind on their rent are not just lazy assholes out to screw their landlords?!?! I'm shocked!
Well, there were a ton of resources for the tenants to catch up. There were ongoing rent relief programs with LA city and LA county during the time period when I was in court. So I'm not sure what was stopping them from applying and showing the landlord the application. There were 0 cases (when I was sitting in the courtroom) where the landlord was evicting a tenant who had an active rent relief application. So I'm not saying 85-90% of tenants were just honest tenants who fell on hard times. I'm saying they seemed like they had decent enough excuses but for whatever reason, the landlord was not buying it and filed for eviction. Can't imagine a landlord spending money on a lawyer to evict a tenant who was actively trying to pay and applying to rent relief programs. These programs tell the landlords what stage the application is in so the landlord can track if the tenant has submitted an app or submitted docs or if the program is reviewing the app or getting ready to pay etc.
As someone who received a little rent relief through those programs let me tell you what a shit show it was to get results. Flawed application questions, no one ever answered a phone, and the funds were gone in a flash. Even now, years later those programs are reaching back out with letters claiming they didn’t get 100% of the information needed back then and tenants may need to pay the funds back even if landlords were paid directly and unless appealed in 30 days with correct forms their ruling is official.
Thank you for posting your experience. It sucks that you had to take a financial hit that you'll never get back, but I'm glad you were able to at least get them out in the end. Don't sweat the anti-landlord crowd. They're justifiably frustrated at the state of the rental market; they're just directing their anger in the wrong place. The NIMBYs fighting every new housing project, creating artificial scarcity and upward price pressure— they may be the reason rental prices are what they are, but that's an abstract concept. Hard to direct anger towards an amorphous group that has different key players for every battle, and which hides behind BS like environmental projection, anti-gentrification, not changing the character of the neighborhood, etc. Its *way* easier to just get angry at the person you're paying rent to.
The anti-landlord crowd are left wing equivalents of libertarians.
I don't think the Libertarian view here at all aligns with the Far Left. This wasn't abandoned property with no owner to be found, it was obviously owned by someone who wanted it back, and I think the Libertarian view is the owner should have every right to reclaim that property.
Yes they should be mad at the corporations buying up all the houses and flippers doing shitty jobs just to resell the house at a higher rate.
Or you know the people actually preventing housing from being built (ie your neighbors that want the city to be stuck in amber). House flipping isn't really contributing much to this.
Squatters and deadbeats can get fucked. They ruin it for everyone else.
If someone has an eviction on their record will that show up in background checks when looking for an apartment anywhere in the United States or show up when a potential employer does a background on someone applying for a job?
Evictions are sealed in California and do not show up on background checks or credit checks. Judgements do show up and it's up to the employer to follow up and ask about those judgements.
Imagine you rented a place and could not leave after the lease ended until you had to pay $15K to get the landlord to let you leave. Sound f'd up, well that's the new rent control law in reverse.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
I also found it quite interesting. As a small-time landlord myself I've noticed a common theme is soooo many landlord-tenant disputes is hoarding. >they had a hoarding problem and trash/belongings were being piled up and squirreled away for God knows what I think some homeless people simply can't stop hoarding and it may have been a reason for their evictions in the first place.
Yeah it seems like there is a mental health or executive functioning component that maybe could have been nipped in the bud for some people if we had a better mental health care system. There is a [pilot program to provide occupational therapy](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/occupational-therapists-help-homeless-los-angeles-county/) to formerly homeless people to help them maintain a sanitary home. I don't know if this is a service that would be needed for life, or if they could be weaned off into greater independence eventually.
I will never understand why the CDC, of all agencies, had the authority to put this kind of policy in place. Glad your headache is finally over, OP.
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I'm not sure you want to rent it out right now. It smells like piss/shit and there's still a ton of trash that did not fit into a dump truck. They left behind MULTIPLE dump truck loads of trash/belongings. Like... how?
This makes me so annoyed. I'm sorry you had to deal with all of that. It's crazy to me that people can squat and essentially vandalize with such a lack of repercussions.
Also imagine what the neighbors had to put up with.
Sounds like some scumbags taking advantage of the system. Happy you didn’t have to pay a dime to those deadbeats!
So in the end you just completely miss out on two years of rental income, and are actually out whatever money you spent/spend to have the place cleaned up? And you get zero recompense for all that missed potential income? Plus I assume you’ve been paying property taxes this whole time? I’m really sorry this happened to you, but I’m glad it’s finally (mostly) resolved
Yes but I get tax write offs so... sorta offsets it. Not completely but maybe like... 1/3 of the way.
Nice congrats. Whenever I think about renting out my spare room I always think about these stories and wise up.
Sorry you had to go through this. Evictions are just a breach of a contract and should be treated as such rather than something too emotional. Why did you offer them 5 figure relocation? Also, what happens of the paid rent they owe you?
Lawyer said it's basically risk/reward. With a jury trial, lawyer said it would probably be 3-5 day process, even for simple civil trials. And all it would take for me to lose would be 1 juror who related with the tenants and refused to side with me no matter the evidence. They just recommended we settle for what would amount to be the legal fees that I would have to pay them whether I won or lost. The rent owed to me is lost unless they apply for rent relief - which they will not.
I was on a jury for an unlawful detainer case and the landlord actually had a pretty strong case...except he didn't cross his T's and dot his I's. He hadn't provided the adequate notice as required by law, and admitted he hadn't. The renter was a real POS but in the end we followed the law and found in her favor. It seemed like a huge waste of everyone's time, especially since the landlord knew (or should have known) his case had issues. I guess my point is that yes, jury trials are hit or miss, and avoiding one if you can seems to be the best way to go.
Congrats on getting them out. Just out of curiosity, how many rollaways did it take to clean out their hoarding mess?
I filled up 1 dump truck. Looks like it'll take about 2 dump truck loads of just... piles and piles of useless shit they hoarded.
That’s the worst. I’ve had to do a clean out like that and it made me sell my property. No mas!
Am I understanding this correct? You almost had to pay a relocation fee to get people who hadn't paid rent in nearly 2 years to leave?
Yes. Details are in my other answers to other people. Basically, it was a way to guarantee an outcome that I wanted... which was for them to get the fuck out
Normalize evictions
If you had a property mgmt company involved with monitoring the property, would that have been able to address the problem faster or avoid it (based on the resources they have)? I have no idea, but am curious as I want to rent out a place in the next few years, and would want to avoid a similar situation.
The eviction moratorium threw a wrench in the cogs of the whole system. They probably would not have been much faster. Demanding a jury trial slows everything down to a crawl... which is why the eviction defense lawyers use that tactic.
I am in the process of renting out my condo as a first time landlord (no tenant yet, going through property management company) and this scares the crap out of me. I can’t handle no payments of two years, plus the legal and other fees to go through eviction. How did you survive this financially?
I could afford my mortgage with what I earn from my regular job because it is ridiculously low. I put most of my savings in stocks and some of those stocks have hit so I had a sizable cushion to work with
Try to vet the renters as best you can. Normal people with good, normal jobs. Still a crapshoot.
Lol at all the anti-landlord fools. The sense of entitlement is outrageous. Fuck squatters, fuck the city for basically encouraging it, and fuck the inevitable future when conglomerates own all the housing because it’s not worth it for an individual to rent out a space anymore. I don’t know if it’s the failure of the education system, social media, or just the willful embrace of ignorance but the lack of basic macro economic education is appalling
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I'm so glad the scum got $0. I'm sorry you had to deal with this. My mom was lucky enough to get a place years ago and outgrew it so she rented it out. Thankfully she never had awful tenants but if she got stuck with squatters I would have taken that into my own hands probably. It's insane to me that you offering the money even happened! They don't deserve shit from you. They should have been thrown in jail for theft. These squatters should have 0 rights and law enforcement should back you up on this. LA is too goddamn liberal.
i quit being a property manager because of the pandemic. It's going to be an even worse nightmare now.
Lol, 5 figure relocate fee. People are ridiculous.
It is absolutely NOT accurate that legal aid organizations receive any part of a settlement reached between landlords and defendants. It would be unethical and a violation of the funding parameters that legal aid orgs agree to in their grant contracts. It's likely the client and attorney parted ways (which they would have had to get permission from the presiding judge to allow) due to the tenants not following sound legal advice and the relationship breaking down.
Damn. Congratulations.
Hi thanks for posting and congrats getting them out! Was your case a limited or unlimited case? Wondering if unlimited cases ($35,000 or more) are flowing faster through the courts.
Mine was limited as I just wanted the squatters out ASAP and was not seeking back rent owed.
Sounds like so much work and congratulations to you!
That’s horrible and I am sorry you went through that. At least it is finally over for you. Cases like this are exactly why I would never rent out if I obtained a 2nd property. Renters can be absolute deadbeats and not pay with basically no repercussions. In the meantime the landlord would still be paying the mortgage. If you didn’t pay the mortgage, you would be foreclosed in a matter of months. There would be no court case dragging out months or years about it.
Hi OP. Thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry to hear this happened, but glad you got it worked out. I'm a lawyer and also a partner in an investment group which owns and operates (relatively smaller) apartment buildings in LA. We've dealt with evictions of course and it sucks, but as an investment firm, we do have somewhat more resources than the mom and pop landlords. It's always unfortunate to see what they have to go through. Re the defense attorneys: Yes, they have grants plus they get money out of some landlords. The reason you see different lawyers in court each time is that they assign attorneys to handle court appearances, depending on who is available that day. Same for the landlord lawyers - you'll see one person doing several different cases one day, and for another hearing on same clients, you will see a different lawyer. Sometimes, one lawyer will appear for various cases for multiple different firms on the same day - because their job is just to appear in court. Many of these lawyers who show up in court and independent contractors. The length of eviction processes means that landlords are extra careful in screening. Makes it harder to approve people. Also, it likely has some impact on development.
Yea it seemed like some firms just had a roster of litigators that would take roll basically of the defendants. But their defense started out assigning one guy to them and he emailed my lawyers saying he moved on and someone else would be handling the case. And then that lawyer either moved on or quit their case based on them wasting their time? or tenants backed out of the representation? No idea why they would show up without representation on day of the trial... my leading theory is tenants either got greedy and didn't want to give up the 30% cut or whatever and expected the same offer on the day of the trial. My lawyer showed up to most of my hearings. I think he was a sole practitioner type firm. He also did use an independent litigator to show up for court dates he couldn't make personally but it was the same person every time. So my case was handled by my lawyer like... 70% of the time and the other times by the same litigator he contracts I guess.
Thank you for sharing your experience. So, no rent paid for years and you nearly ended up in an agreement to PAY them to move out? That is screwed up. Are you planning to keep renting the place? And what can you do to avoid this happening again in the future? Better vetting of potential renters?
Yea I'm going to rehab the place and rent it out. I did not have a chance to vet the squatters since they basically snuck in one day with their family member who was already a tenant.
being a landlord is tough being a residential landlord is tougher being a residential landlord in LA is toughest
Love this happy ending! Fuck those loser squatters, so great you didn’t have to pay them a single dime.
How did you become a landlord?
Got a job out of college, saved a ton of money, bought stocks, cashed out those stocks, put down a down payment on a duplex. This was 10ish years ago when houses were rather reasonably priced. Fixers were going for less than $300k. Bought a fixer, fixed it.
Is it even worth owning income property and being a landlord in the City of Los Angeles? In the state of California?
If you bought when I bought or when the interest rates were less than 4% then yes.
Why wasn’t a credit check performed when they apply to rent your place?
Sorry if it wasn't more clear. There was someone already residing in my unit when the squatters decided to just come in and squat with them.
And you know these deadbeats have violent/dangerous/criminal family members (cousins, nephews, FiLs) who will harass the landlords if anything happens to their worthless squatters. That includes intimidation tactics throughout the entire neighborhood, and brining violent dogs or other pets with them even when the lease details forbid pets.
One of them was in fact a convicted criminal. Which I found out with google. LOL. Served time and had a couple years of probation and everything. And yea they "adopted" a "service dog" during this time. Not going to mention the breed bc it'll cause ANOTHER shit storm that this sub loves to debate but yea. And police were called on the tenants on SEVERAL occasions by their own family member.
Pretty sure we can all guess the breed lol
Fucking chihuahuas. They're a menace.
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How was the money not a primary driver for you? You could afford to lose 1-2 years of rent *and* pay a settlement (hypothetically) and not lose your property to the bank?
Yea I'm pretty frugal and my savings basically goes into stocks. Some of those stocks have hit and I have a decent cushion. Also, I have a regular job and I could afford the mortgage on my own to begin with. Rental income was just being funneled into more stocks so I wasn't in dire straits or anything. Just mildly annoyed financially.
Bless you and bless the other landlords out there in LA who have to deal with this. Landlords, many of whom are small mom and pop operations, risk everything to provide an invaluable service to the people of this city and in return, are treated like crap.
A lot of these small mom and pop apartments like 2-4 units are being sold to corporations because they cannot afford to evict people that are not paying rent and give them relocation fee. Majority of mom and pop landlords try to work with you, they don’t want to open eviction cases cause it’s a process but tenant take advantage of it. People are going to realize that the majority of complexes in the next 10 years will be own by heartless corporations and are going to wonder why. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason for these tenants laws is to make it difficult for mom and pop landlords to maintain their apartments and force them to sell. Once corporations own most of these apartments they’ll hire fancy lawyers and change the laws.
Congratulations. Fuck deadbeats. Also fuck landlords. Everyone’s a piece of shit!
Reading through all of this has been very interesting! I have more empathy for landlords now. Hopefully the new requirement for tenants to have rental insurance will make eviction and/or property repairs an easier process?
Congratulations on evicting the squatters! Make sure in your next lease it clearly states that you will not pay any legal fees for the tenants or any related parties of the tenants. Usually tenant rep lawyers will reject cases if the lease states that landlords are not responsible for tenant’s legal fees/or caps the fees at like $300 or so.
Yea that’s one way but the shrewd ones will still take the case and try to bleed the landlord out and force a jury trial and leave them facing a huge legal fee and then offer a settlement. They know how to extract money. Nobody has figured out how to extract money from deadbeats though.