our home

[inkspot12]

my fiance and i own a house in sanford, florida. we had a property management company renting and managing it for us. as of yesterday (3-16-01) they told us they no longer want to manage our property for us, and quit. we are now stuck with tenants in our house that haven't paid rent on time for the last 3 months and are not keeping up with the property in several ways. now that the company quit managing for us, what sort of legalities are enforced with the lease, their security deposit,and collecting rent and so forth?

thank you for your time,
[email protected]

 

[LL]

Only those "legalities" which you actually go out and successfully enforce.

Without meaning to be rude, it seems that you have no idea of how to be a landlord. You made a bad choice of a management company, because it seems that they quit on you when they realized that they haven't been doing their job, and might get into trouble. Also, if rent hasn't been paid for 3 months, why didn't YOU take any action?

You should make a formal complaint against the management company's license, both to the professional group (maybe board of realtors) and also Fl State Dept of Real Estate. I don't know anything about FL, but I expect that both kinds of groups exist.

Next, since you don't know anything about being a landlord, you should hire another, and more responsible, management company right away to get the tenants out and try to recover whatever you can. Maybe you should hire an attorney to do this part, but get a better management company to manage your house in the future.

Finally, I would advise that you start learning about how the rental business works, yourself, if for no other reason than to know what to expect from the house, the tenants, the management company and how to enforce your rights.



[Edited by LL on 03-17-2001 at 12:29 PM]