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HELPFUL HINTS FOR MORE EFFECTIVE TENNET USAGE

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Property Managers, Commercial Tenants and Evictions

By David S. Roberson, Esq.

Your commercial tenant failed to pay rent. You have heard that things are not going very well for them, but now it is apparent. As a property manager your duty and obligation is to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. When the tenant failed to pay by the due date they have effectively breached the lease and you are entitled to evict the tenant from the property. An eviction lawsuit commonly called an Unlawful Detainer action is a fairly straightforward legal process. The important thing for property managers to know is that the steps involved in this process are critical and must be followed to the letter of the law. A real estate attorney representing both parties in the action is common. If your property manager has followed the law, given proper notice, and has a detailed file of all of the correspondence between the tenant and their company the unlawful detainer action should go fairly smoothly and the landlord or owner should prevail.

The First Step Is To Resolve Rent Payment Issue If Possible

If at all possible the property manager should make every effort to get the tenant to make the rent payments and bring their lease current. If this involves waiting a few extra days for payment maybe this would be the best course of action instead of filing a lawsuit. Your individual company policies and best practices will dictate this action, but it would be better for all parties to resolve before litigation.

Three-Day Notice Drafted

If a payment is not forthcoming then a ‘three-day notice to pay or quit’ must be prepared and properly served on the tenant. This notice must be in a specific legal format. A commercial owner, landlord or property manager can choose between different types of 3-day notices; 1) specifies the precise amount of rent owed; or 2) estimates the amount of rent owed – usually when a tenant is paying a percentage rent.

If the lease requires the tenant to pay rent and other separate amounts for triple net or CAM charges, the property manager should get the proper advice on whether or not two separate and distinct notices are required to be served. For example, if the property manager or landlord accepts an overpayment of the rent because they have miscalculated and the tenant overpaid estimated rents and CAM charges this may lead to a tenant victory in the unlawful detainer action. This would also possibly give the tenant the right to attorneys’ fees. It is critical to be correct in this step.

The Three-Day Notice Must Be Properly and Legally Served

The tenant is deemed served when they are personally served with the three-day notice, or a responsible person at the place of business is personally served on the premises. In the event no one is available the landlord or property manager can attach the notice to the front entry door of the business premises while simultaneously sending a copy of the three-day notice by certified mail return receipt requested. The landlord or property manager must then prepare a ‘proof of service’ in the proper format which states in pertinent part that the ‘three-day notice’ was served on the tenant, or describe the method of service.

The Property Manager or Landlord Has a Three Day Waiting Period Required for Service to be Effective

After properly serving the three-day notice a three day waiting period begins on the next business day. If the third day falls on a weekend or holiday the three day waiting period is extended to the next business day.

If the tenant decides to pay all rent due at this point or corrects any outstanding violation of the lease terms then the eviction process ceases. If the tenant makes partial payment the landlord or property manager can accept partial payment but must notify the tenant that they are not waiving their rights to proceed with an eviction.

In the event that the tenant has violated the lease by way of some criminal act or conduct then the eviction process continues.

At the end of the three day waiting period the landlord or property manager may go forward with filing and serving a complaint and summons.

Summons and Complaint are Prepared and Served

In the event that the tenant has failed to cure their outstanding rent violation, or failed to cure any other violation that they have been property notified of, then the landlord or property manager may proceed with filing and serving the summons and complaint to the tenant. A third party not involved with the action, typically a registered process server can be hired for a fee to serve the papers on the tenant. The summons, complaint and proof of service must then be filed with the court clerk’s office together with a copy of the lease, and then property served three-day notice and its proof of service.

Technical Mistakes Can Cause Delays

If the landlord or property manager has taken this process on by themselves there is a possibility that they have made a technical error in the processing, preparing, serving, and filing these documents. There are several technical areas of the law which must be followed or will result is substantial delays if they are not. A tenant who hires an attorney will likely find these technical errors, if the court doesn’t find the errors. This will likely result in delays which means money to the property owner. The best course of action in these situations is to hire an eviction attorney to help prevent delays and additional costs for the owner.

Court Proceedings Require that All Parties Appear in Front of a Judge

If the tenant does not contest the eviction

A properly served tenant has five days to oppose the eviction. If substituted service was used then the tenant would have fifteen days to file a responsive pleading to the action. If the tenant fails to oppose the eviction the landlord or property manager will seek a default judgment of possession of the premises. This will most likely be granted and the case will be referred to the Sheriff’s office for tenant lockout (see below).

If the tenant contests the eviction

In the event the tenant hires an attorney and contests the eviction then things will take a while longer. The tenant will be granted more time to prepare and there will be approximately thirty-day period in which a trial will be set. If the landlord wins then the tenant will have to pay the rent and other losses most likely including attorneys’ fees. If the tenant wins the landlord may have to pay attorneys’ fees. In this situation a property manager really needs to be represented by counsel.

The Landlord or Property Manager has the Right to Lockout the Tenant

Assuming a landlord victory the county sheriff will post a ‘Five-Day Notice to Vacate’ the premises on the tenant’s door or entry into the business. On the sixth day the sheriff meets the landlord or property manager at the property. The landlord or property manager then receives a receipt of possession of the property. If the tenant is still there when the sheriff arrives, the sheriff will then physically remove the tenant. The landlord or property manager will now have a locksmith come and change the locks to keep the tenant out.

Notice to Claim Property

If the tenant leaves behind personal property there are state statutes that deal with this specific issue. The landlord or property manager must give the tenant fifteen days after the lockout period to claim any possessions from the property, or if the tenant left before the lockout, eighteen (18) days after the mailing of the “notice of belief of abandonment” to the tenant’s last known address. The notice must describe the property with specificity so the tenant can identify it, and the notice must also describe the storage costs. A prudent practice for a landlord or property manager would be to photograph and log all of the tenants’ belongings so that there was not a later dispute.

It is not legal for a landlord or property manager to hold a tenant’s personal property as security for payment of money awarded by a court judgment.

Unclaimed Property Disposed of or Sold

When the fifteen day waiting period is over the landlord or property manager can dispose of the tenant’s personal property if it is worth less than $750 or $1.00 per square foot, whichever is greater. If the property is worth more the landlord or property manager must auction it through a public sale held after properly published notice with the proceeds turned over to the county, minus expenses.

Conclusion

Although this article has briefly touched upon this process one should see that this is not a simple process, but is a process which should be taken seriously and professionally. It is always a best practice to have an eviction attorney help a landlord and/or a property manager through this process.

David S. Roberson, Esq. is a principal at Silicon Valley Property Management Group, 1900 Camden Avenue, San Jose, CA 95124, david@svpmg.net, 1-408-559-5649. David is a licensed California Real Estate Attorney, is a licensed California Real Estate broker, and has conducted over 2,500 residential building inspections. David has also inspected well in excess of 2.4 million square feet of new commercial construction from foundation to final building department approvals. David has also developed and supervised multiple residential construction projects from inception to building department approval.

For Answers to Any and All Property Management Questions Go To http://www.siliconvalleypropertymanagementgroup.com and https://www.facebook.com/siliconvalleypropertymanagementgroup

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/David_S._Roberson,_Esq./509218

http://EzineArticles.com/?Property-Managers,-Commercial-Tenants-and-Evictions&id=8350074

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NEW RENT STABILIZED LEASE RENEWAL FORMS UPDATE

ATTN: ALL TENNET USERS

We are pleased to announce the completion of the DHCR required update to the Rent Stabilized Lease Renewal forms that landlords must now provide to their rent stabilized tenants.

The change has added a Line #10 to our Renewal Lease Form which states whether or not the apartment is equipped with an operational sprinkler system (Does or Does Not), and if operative the Date it was last maintained and inspected.

As is the case with the rest of the data automatically produced, these two new fields are fully editable allowing the user to select the answer to the first part and include the date on the second part of Line #10. The lease can then be printed and sent to your tenant as usual when their renewal is due, and also stored as a PDF file for future reference.

Once again, this is the advantage we provide with TENNET…Necessary updates are completed as the need arises at no cost to our valued users.

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ANNOUNCING NEW MEMBER AFFILIATION WITH SPONY

The market development team at TENNETSoft, LLC is pleased to announce that we have become the newest Vendor Member of SPONY – Small Property Owners of New York.

Our hope is not only to access the over 1,000 members from a marketing perspective, but to also gain invaluable insight and feedback in future development decisions moving forward, as we already do with our existing loyal users. In addition to the basic content already present with TENNET, we will be developing a complete Profile system at the Tenant, Apartment & Building levels to store retrievable data critical to future repair and maintenance and cost/management decisions. Once completed, we will continue to look at new development features keeping our core philosophy in mind…Basic, Efficient and Easy for a small monthly fee.

Please continue to visit our website at www.tennetsoft.com with more new ideas and valued feedback as we continue to build our property management software solution.

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Hints For Rental Property Investing

Rental property investing is generally a great strategy to obtain steady earnings. In recent times, this sort of investment has quickly come to be increasingly well-liked as making an investment in the rental property is often rather rewarding.

Typically, you’re likely to invest money in the property for many purposes like money flow, appreciation too as saving tax savings. By investing in rental property, you could have all these rewards simultaneously. In case you seek possibilities for rental property investing, you must search across various categories of rental properties such as single family rental properties, multi-unit residential rental properties like apartments, vacation residences and industrial rental properties such as shopping centers and office buildings.

Rental property investment is not restricted to just obtaining a property, collecting rent and loosen up. If you wish to earn consistent income for many years to come, you need to manage the rental property pretty carefully. You’ll be able to get specialist advice for rental property investing from different sources for instance nearby appraiser, local bank or mortgage enterprise, county tax assessor and neighborhood multiple listing services.

Smart tips for rental property investing reveals that you simply must have sufficient knowledge concerning basic principles of investing and need to have a considerable research before initial investment in rental property. The first vital aspect in investing would be to assess your economic situation and objectives for profit. You’ll want to calculate income that you’re preparing to commit and whether it will be adequate to cover the upkeep along with other costs to ensure that your investment will not be wasted. It can be pretty crucial for you to create and comprehend the model of cash flow from the rental property by thinking of the optimistic and adverse things which can have an effect on the profitability of the rental property.

It’s advisable by the experts that you should get started with calculating the costs that you just might have to incur when investing in the rental property. These costs may be operating costs, depreciation and mortgage interest expense. Then you must calculate the interest on the mortgage loan. The operating expense could incorporate property tax, insurance and repairs.

In order to find out your total taxable income you can substract those expenses from total yearly rent you will be charging for your property. Multiply this rental property loss by the federal income tax rate which gives your deductible rental loss. Your total income from the propety rental adds to your annual revenue minus mortgage payments and operating costs. In the event the your money flow is an increasing figure, then you have a chance that your investment will likely be a successful one.

While investing in the rental property, you should select a property that may appeal to various individuals. Choosing an attractive, decent area is extremely vital as most people want to live in the well-maintained locality which can be near the shopping centers, workplace and schools. When investing in profitable rental property, you’ll want to take into consideration substantial expenses preparing for many years ahead for instance costs of repairing, management of the property, emergencies and vacancies.

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Benefits Of Property Management Software

Benefits Of Property Management Software

TENNET Property Management Software is a way out that can save you tons of money, while keeping all the paperwork and other matters related to your property well organized. So, whenever you have a question mark in your mind about something, you can simply open the app and check what you need in an instant. It is handy and mobile. This suits people on the go. This can be your ultimate partner in organizing and managing properties.

Property management software is portable and flexible. It runs on the Internet and it can be access from laptop, or any other web connected computer. That means you can get to important records from almost anywhere. And, if you need an original paper document, you can get it instantly without much searching or aggravation.

These and several other benefits are associated with the management of the property management software. Everything would be easy to manage after installing this software. There is no need to be tense about keeping up to date in sending reminders or worried about forgetting one of the tenants. There is no need to set up reminders, everything is set up using the software in automation and there is no chance for anything to go wrong.

Managers maintain a number of essential tasks as it relates to these properties. They need property management software in order to work efficiently. Old techniques of running rental properties are very time consuming. They also require a lot of paperwork. TENNET offers managers the opportunity to use software for many of their duties. Here are some of the benefits that our product provide for managers and their staff:

• Available through any internet enabled device

• Secured, password protected, 24/7 access

• Double back up

• Automatic upgrades and improvements

• User friendly interface with no learning curve

• 30 days, free trial period, no credit card required

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TENNET featured in ABO Magazine

TENNET has been featured in a 2014 Winter edition of  Developments Magazine
– publication of Associated Builders and Owners!

Here is what Steven Cutler, author of the article “High Tech Management Solutions” said about our software:

“LOWER THEN THE LOW- COST ALTERNATIVE
Designed primarily for small and midsize property owner/managers, Tennet is a basic, low-cost online property management system, a stripped down version of the complex computer-based software system the company has been providing to the New York market for many years.
Launched just 10 months ago, Tennet is relatively inexpensive, ranging from $9.95 per month for up to 25 units to $29.95 per month for up to 250 units, to $49.95 for unlimited units. According to Tennet owner Matt Haas,“There are so many options out there that are more sophisticated than people need.
This is meant to be a very inexpensive yet efficient way of maintaining your building each month.” The system covers the dayto-day operations of multi-family properties, including issuing rent stabilized leases, billing tenants, including late fees, and providing accounts receivable reports.
Tennet has special authority in dealing with rent regulations, having provided data processing for the Rent Stabilization Association for 30 years. “We think we have a little niche in the New York regulatory environment,” says Haas. The system is updated whenever the DHCR issues new guidelines and new leases and renewals are calculated automatically.
Step-by-step tutorial videos are presented on the site and subscribers have access to free telephone and email support. “

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TENNET Rent Bill Remittance enhancement

The development team at TENNET continues to welcome suggestions about how to make the work of our users easier and more efficient.  As a result of requests from you, our valued client base, we have completed an enhancement to the printed address on the remittance portion of the rent bill to effectively show through a standard size #9 window envelope.

We have designed the rent bill to fit with standard size #9 or #10 2-window envelope (Left side) outgoing to the tenant, and the remittance to fit a standard size #9 1-window envelope (Left side) to receive the rent check back from the tenant.  If you use the #10 to send the rent bills, you now have the option to include the #9 inside with the rent bill for the tenant to use to remit their payment back to you.

The Office Depot regular Item numbers for these envelopes are as follows;

#10 2-Window (Left side) – Item #634-016 (4 1/8 in. x 9 1/2 in.)

# 9 1-Window (Left side) – Item #475-725 (3 7/8 in. x 8 7/8 in.)

Once again we appreciate your suggestions, and please visit our website at www.tennetsoft.com or to the email below with more new ideas and we will do our best to address them in future enhancements.

 

Thank you and have a happy, healthy and successful year in 2014 and beyond.

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Introduction to TENNET reports

The following is a summary of the available standard reports with a description of functionality and content.  In each case the Building must be selected from the Portfolio Display and Individual Tenants selected if necessary for the purpose of the report.  Once generated, a PDF file is produced that can be displayed and/or printed when convenient.

1. Accounts Receivable Report – This provides a current listing of all Tenants (Active, Inactive or Both), or just those tenants with an outstanding balance at the time the report is run. The reason for including zero balances is to also show an accurate total cash receipts for the current processing month.  If a tenant has paid and gone to a zero balance and only Tenants with Balances is selected, their payment amount will not be included in the report total of payments collected.  If the purpose of the report is to just show the outstanding balances due for the building, then that option can and should be selected.

2. Tenant AR History – This will produce a report containing the detailed AR transactions for All Tenants in the building or for just an Individual Tenant.  Options include detailed AR transactions from Current Processing Month only, All detailed transactions from the Last End Of Month Zero Balance, All AR transaction From a particular month/year To a particular month/year, or a Complete AR history for the entire Tenant occupancy.

3. Rent Roll Report – This will produce a report containing the occupancy status of the building at the time the report is generated.  The units will show in Numerical sequence showing the Tenant Name, Type (Stabilized, Controlled, Deregulated, or Free Market), Bedrooms/Baths-Square Footage, Move In/Out date, Lease Dates, Security Deposit Required/Received and Monthly Recurring Charges for each unit.  Active, Inactive or Both can be included, although Active only would be the usual selection.  The end of the report shows a Recap of the Monthly Active Totals of each Recurring Charge for all Occupied and Vacant Units.

 4. Unit/Tenant Report – This report combines the Rent Roll and AR Balance information in the same format as the Rent Roll report, both by individual Tenant/Unit and the Totals for the building.

 5. Tenant Bills – This will produce a rent bill for all Tenants in the building or for a Selected Tenant only.  Optional AR transactions shown on the Bill include the Current Processing Month only, Prior and Current month only, from the last Zero Balance at the End of the Month, or From a specific Month/Year to a specific Month/Year.

 This is the basic report platform in the initial version of TENNET, with enhancements to follow in the coming months.  As always we invite and look forward to our invaluable User feedback as these enhancement decisions are discussed and implemented. 

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6. Future Dated Transactions

6.1 Process Future Dated Transactions
If there are any previously scheduled FDT’s ready for update, you will receive a Warning message upon Login that there are pending FDT’s ready to be updated. To see a display of all FDT’s click on the Future Dated Transactions tab shown in Red. Only the FDT’s that are ready to be updated will display the Process tab in Green, and all pending FDT’s will have the option of the Delete tab in Red to remove them. The Property, Unit/Tenant, Date, Type, which shows what action is pending for each FDT displayed, Category description and Amount. To execute the FDT update simply click on the Process tab to post the transaction or the Delete tab to remove the transaction. Once prompted, answer the verification message to complete the update. Any FDT’s that are ready to be updated that have not been acted upon will be automatically updated during the End of Month procedure after one final Warning message that these actions will occur.

6.2 FDT Move In/Move Out
If there are any previously scheduled FDT’s ready for update, you will receive a Warning message upon Login that there are pending FDT’s ready to be updated. To see the display of all FDT’s click on the Future Dated Transactions tab shown in Red. Only the FDT’s that are ready to be updated will display the Process tab in Green, and all FDT Move In’s will have a Red arrow to the right, with the option of the Delete tab in Red. The Move Outs will have a Green arrow to the left and the option of the Cancel tab in Yellow. If the FDT Move Out is canceled and there is a FDT Move In pending for the same unit, the FDT Move In must also be deleted. To execute the FDT update simply click on the Process tab to update or Delete/Cancel tab to remove the update. Once prompted, answer the verification message to complete the update. Any FDT Move In’s or Move Outs that are ready to be updated that have not been acted upon will be automatically selected during the End of Month procedure after one final Warning message that these actions will occur.

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