Comments on: roomates, friends, or tenants

By: NEWHOMEOWNER

NEWHOMEOWNER — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:10:47 +0000

Wow, very interesting? And they were friends? how close of friends were they? Did you ever think in amilion years you would be in this position? Hi all I am about to be a homeowner and am struggling with the topic of renting to a friend, a best friend. Im petrified it will ruin our friendship….

By: justme(imho)

justme(imho) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:59:26 +0000

I saw this response in the “recent comments” bar on the right and clicked on it. This post and all but the last response are over a year old, and I think debtkid is long past the roommate/tenant situation.

However I wanted to comment on landlord22’s above post that seems to indicate you are only required to give tenants 20 days notice and the information regarding how the notice days are counted. I am not sure which state landlord22 is in, so the information may be accurate in some state. HOWEVER, in the vast majority of states, this information will not be correct; landlords are required to give 60, 45 or 30 days notice, and the notice must be prior to the end of a lease term. Do not rely upon posts like this for such information. Read your lease and research your state laws.

By: landlord22

landlord22 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:08:11 +0000

You are actually only required to give your tenants 20 days notice when asking them to leave (for any reason). They are also required to give you 20 days notice. If they give you notice and the day that they leave is after the first on the month they are responsible for the entire months rent.

By: Princess

Princess — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:22:20 +0000

Hey, I’ve been reading your blog for the last few weeks (learned of you from crazy ol’ Casey), and like many others, have been really impressed with your determination and integrity. I’m not much older than you (27), and I will be graduating grad school next week and come out with $150k in debt (most of it school debt). I’m also really bad with my personal finances, so reading your blog has been really inspirational for me and motivates me to handle my business.

Anyway, I’m commenting on this particular post because it involves legal issues and I wanted to point you to this site: http://www.kcba.org/ScriptContent/KCBA/legalhelp/legalasst.cfm

Specifically, the Neighborhood Legal Clinics. They don’t take cases, but if you just wanted some quick legal evaluation of your landlord/tenant situation, or maybe bankruptcy if it comes to that, you should call them and make an appointment. It’s free, and a consultation will at least give you an idea of what your options are. If you need info on other legal-related issues, feel free to email me as I’m from Seattle and used to be involved in the legal community there (and will be joining it myself in a few month’s time!). I’d offer to help with some free legal research regarding your situation but I don’t want to do anything that will even come close to giving legal advice being that I’m not licensed yet.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your situation. It’s kind of crappy what your roommates are doing, but I’m sure things will work out in the end. Take care!

By: Chris G

Chris G — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:05:23 +0000

Hi, found you from Casey Serin’s blog. While you initially made mistakes (like Casey), you are actually making concrete steps to fix the situation (unlike Casey).

The comments in response to this blog post are pretty good. I actually agree quite a bit with “The Landlord”’s comments. While you may be upset with them, it might help to address where they are coming from as well. You have also acknowledged that you have learned a lot from this experience, and I believe you will fix all of those problems in the future (again, unlike Casey).

I have traded some options myself (bought a few naked puts). I have only done this after doing a ton of research on the affected stocks, which include a couple subprime and Alt-A mortgage lenders (I am a financial analyst, so analyzing financials is my thing). I don’t day trade because it takes too much work and there is a lot left to chance. I prefer working on a 1-year time horizon by buying a stock that I think will be higher in a year, realize the lower capital gains tax rate by holding for a year, and then reassessing whether I should continue to hold the stock or sell it, or sell just a part of it to lock in gains. Of course you don’t want to think about any of that stuff right now, which is smart.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:04:11 +0000

Then I would second the other posters who said to see if the utility would offer a payment plan. If you play hardball, they will often allow that so that they will actually see some money. Then have the roommates sign a contract. Once you have that, you can use the courts for leverage! And then I would punch the roomie in charge of the bills. That’s just lazy on his part.

By: debt kid

debt kid — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:10:49 +0000

One of the other roommates was in charge of bills. So we all just gave him $ each month, and assumed that included the heating bill. Obviously that was a mistake on my part, and I should have noticed the bill was too low. But at the time, I still thought I was gonna make $10K that night trading…so, it didn’t seem important.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:01:26 +0000

One thing that struck me is the fact that you didn’t bother to find out where the heating bill was. Did you call to ask? That kind of negligence doesn’t look good, and in court a judge would ask you that same question.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 02:01:30 +0000

I am so impressed with your determination to dig your way out of the hole you dug yourself into. Don’t completely give up the idea of Bankruptcy, though – avoid it if possible, but don’t hesitate to file if you need to.

G-d bless you and give you success.

By: The Landlord

The Landlord — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:55:24 +0000

Knowing the landlord laws isn’t going to do much good unless you intend to take your “friends” to court. And trust me when I tell you that it’s probably not going to be worth your time.

Instead take a little time to realize that they probably feel a little bit betrayed here. The house that they live in is being foreclosed around their ears and they found out from a guy from the bank/court. And they are probably a bit hurt that they’ve been paying money to you and you haven’t been paying the bank (of course it’s none of their business, but even still).

As much as you need that money, speaking as a landlord myself, the best solution may be to split the bill and then prorate their last bill (if they move out in the middle of May, they only pay half).

For the record, I’m very much behind you and what you are doing. I’m looking forward to the day when I see a post that reads “today I payed off my last trading debt”. It’ll be a tough journey, but you are doing the right thing.