Tenants are people, and we respect all people…but some people are easier to get along with than others. Some tenants are needy. We’re not talking about being low-income or Section 8 or whatever; We mean they’re the kind of people who constantly ask for (or demand!) your time and attention. Sometimes they’re just unlucky […]
Don’t forget to varnish and seal your landlord at least annually. You probably expect this to be a blog post about how important it is to have an expert come in and regularly perform the scheduled maintenance on all of your properties’ mechanicals and appliances. But if you expected that, why are you reading […]
“There is the mistaken thought that ‘fair’ or ‘consistent’ are intended goals of the system. Fair doesn’t and won’t enter into it. People who insist on working with a system that is intended to be fair and consistent should take up a team sport, or maybe get arrested.” — Craiglist Employee Craiglist is, despite […]
Not your former landlords, silly — your applicant’s! One of the most often-skipped portions of the tenant screening process is the call to the applicant’s current and former landlord(s). It’s skipped for a lot of reasons. Sometimes, the applicant seems genuinely afraid to give you their current landlord’s number, and they have a reason for […]
The FHA is much like the Wu Tang Clan — nothing to…ahem…mess with. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) — 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) — makes it illegal to: make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a […]
Seriously, who doesn’t love LEGOLAND? (Barefoot people don’t count.) We understand that life without entertainment sucks. We get it! We all occasionally spend money we shouldn’t on things we don’t need, strictly because what we do need is a break — some downtime where we can relax and enjoy something without having to worry about […]
Why the quote marks? Because the law defines aliens in a lot of ways — “documented” or “un”, “resident” or “un”, “immigrant” or “non”…but never as “legal” or “il.” Let’s get one thing straight — the term “illegal alien (or immigrant)” is a hot topic right now and we’re not here to discuss politics. We […]
And this doesn’t even count things like your hair, or sanity, or nights’ sleep. In our last post, we mentioned in passing the notion of the ‘professional tenant,’ and we wanted to expand on that a little bit because we didn’t really have room to do the concept justice. So let’s talk about what a […]
Some things are worth the money. Some things aren’t. Every lawyer loses some cases and wins others — so how do some lawyers charge ten times more than others? There are some pretty fundamental theorems of economics that almost everyone accepts as given. The principle of supply and demand, for example, tells us (among other […]
Michigan Landlords: Are You Safe from Utility Liens? Do you owe thousands of dollars for a years-old utility bill you never knew your tenants hadn’t paid? Did you know that unpaid bills from public utility providers can easily become a lien on your property? From Michigan State Law 141.121, Section 21 of the Revenue Bond […]