Sign Utah Terms of Use Agreement Secure

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all right we're going to be discussing the top three ways Utah landlords get sued and some of the things you can do to avoid them in attendance on this webinar or we've got real estate agents real estate investors self managing landlords and other rental owners you know that hire out the property management even those that are wanting to get into real estate investing many of you are joining us on the web or either either on the web or on the phone either way we welcome you expect this to be well worth your time so I'm Nate - president of current property management Salt Lake our team here helps investors find greater success through proven strategies defined by sell lease and manage real estate investments we offer full service solutions to those that are currently owned that currently owned properties and also turnkey solutions for those that are wanting to get into real estate investing I'm going to introduce our guests in here just a just a moment but with this webinar I'd like to help set just a few expectations first we'd like to invite you to ask questions let me encourage QA throughout this webinar we'd love to have that interaction and being able to answer your questions would be important and for the sake of everyone's sanity you you will be muted but if you have a question you're joining us through the webinar and not just calling in you can ask a question via the chat box or by using the raise hand option where we can then unmute you we'll do our best to address your questions throughout the webinar secondly we're planning on about 45 minutes for this webinar give or take a little depending on the amount of questions you ask that we have more questions we'll go up until the top of the hour of course and lastly if you're unable to attend the entire webinar that's okay it's being recorded we'll make it available to those that are attending so I'd like to introduce our guests today I'm joined by Col Moore jr. of the law offices of Kirk a coelom or and Kirk Cole Moore jr. is a graduate of Brigham Young University in the University of Oklahoma School of Law before working at the law office of Kirk a Coulomb or jus Kirk a coal Mark Kirk jr. practice in Oklahoma an area of federal Indian law including tribal business transactions gaming law organization and development of tribal policies and procedures and administrative law this practice in Oklahoma also included areas of general business and contract law landlord law evictions fair housing homeowners association and collections since being in Utah curse practice is focused on collections landlord law fair housing and property management Curt currently serves as the government affairs chair for the Utah Apartment Association welcome Kirk it's good to have you join us thank you nay I've known you for probably going on seven eight years now since you came from Oklahoma is that right that's right and we've we've been working with your law firm for years ever since we actually started our business over a decade ago and you've been instrumental in our ability to grow and scale and provide a great service to our investors as we rely heavily on some of your guidance in different situations thank you I appreciate that that's what we aim to do and I think with with our discussion today it's really top of mind for a lot of people as especially if they're landlording and they're self managing on their own what are some of the big pitfalls that they could potentially run into what are the situations that they need to try and avoid ultimately as property managers because we know anyone who is landlording or managing that property is the property manager so if you've got if you have an investor that hires a property management well that property manager is the landlord they need to know this stuff but if you're self managing this what we're talking about today will be critical to make sure that you're not getting yourselves into trouble of course there's more than just these three top points but we can't cover them all in 45 minutes to an hour of course but let's jump in to number one Kirk and of course if I miss anything in introduction you want to go there and clarify some things you'd like to share anything else about yourself or about what you guys do throughout the webinar feel free to do that and again just a reminder feel free to chat questions raise your hand and we'll get to those as best as we can let's jump right into it with number one which we have as issues with security deposits I'll let you take that away Kirk alright thanks Nate thanks for the introduction - and let me preface this by saying that we're gonna talk about issues where landlords find themselves getting sued but despite following the law despite doing everything per contract and and dotting your eyes and crossing your T's you're still gonna get sued sometimes landlords still get sued and so not only is this preventing lawsuits but it's also about having a good viable defense for when those lawsuits inevitably come sometimes so the first issue is with security deposits because at the end of most tendencies whether that end was necessitated by an addiction or whether they skipped midstream or whether you know they completed their lease term gave proper notice and vacated oftentimes there's going to be amounts due and owing or there's amount subtracted from the security deposit and issues inevitably rides there and so we see this a lot in our practice because we're asked to pursue collections for when tenants leave owing money obviously you guys are very familiar with when tenants dispute your analysis of the security deposit disposition and you know take issue with some of the charges you may have and so this is a this is a very common dispute and unfortunately oftentimes rises to the level of litigation so let's talk about what the landlord's obligations when it comes to security deposits first off in the state of Utah everybody is required to send out a security deposit disposition at the end of a tendency sometimes this is called a new about report you know final statement whatever whatever you call it if there is a security deposit involved with the lease then you must send out that autumn ization when does the timeframe begin to run so Utah state law and most contract state that you have to send it within 30 days after the tenancy when is that we generally advise our clients that that is after you get possession of the premises so if they skip and they turn in the keys mid midstream when you get those keys that's when the 30 days begins to run if they gave you proper notice once they turn in the keys and if you have victim once you've changed the locks the 30 days begins to run so the 30 days is you have to send out an itemization of how you use their security deposit and and also send a refund of any amounts that are due to them or let them know what what amount is outstanding where do you send that to we have to send that to the last-known address and so oftentimes that means we're sending it right back to the address our address or the address that they just left and they may or may not get that with the burden and the onus is on the tenant to either one update the post office with their forwarding address or even better give it to to you as the landlord let them you know there they should let you know where they're moving to so you can get that to them the biggest dispute is they claim they never saw the security deposit disposition and you know two years later when we're fighting about what may or may not be owed their biggest complaint is well I never knew about this and so just get in the habit of always sending it and then documenting where you sent it to and on what date you sent it to because that's going to be your best defense and under Utah State law there's actually a law that says if you do not send them the security deposit disposition you could be liable for additional damages you can be liable to return back the whole security deposit and potentially owe them fee a penalty of a hundred dollars and attorneys fees we changed that law about two years ago to where now for them to make use of that and be to hold you liable for the fee and attorneys fees they have to give you a five day notice saying that we don't think you complied with the law and if you don't comply within five days then we can bring lawsuit claiming that you're responsible for a refund of the full security deposit plus the hundred dollar penalty plus attorneys fees um hey Kurt can I yeah I've been real quick so we had we've had tenants who would say you know there was an issue with the mail or some situation where they didn't get a letter we also email it so they know something's coming but the law is it's got to be mailed we had it we had ten and tenon sent us a letter or bring it in basically saying okay it's been 32 days and we don't have our disposition of the deposit so now you have to according to state law now you have to pay us the full deposit and the hundred dollar fee and all that stuff and I think there's a lot of tenants that understand it as being okay if we miss that 30-day mark or they didn't receive it they're automatically entitled to the entire deposit and fee and so that that grace period of five days where they give you notice as a landlord can be that trigger of saying okay well maybe there's an issue at the mail I know I sent it out but okay here's five days I'm going to go ahead and send it so I'm in compliance with this notice and and everything's okay I think that was instrumental in making this process be fair and equitable yeah you're exactly right and there's still a lot of misunderstanding about the law and and I hear that from tenants a lot hey you didn't comply didn't get would get it within 30 days I'm entitled to everything and that's just not the case and even most attorneys out there representing tenants don't understand that still and so yeah that grace period is key as part of the notice they have to let you know where they're at now and so again that's that's going to be a viable defense it may not necessarily prevent them from bringing a lawsuit or a you know a meritless claim it's it's a nice cushion for landlords you know even if the tenant comes back to you two years after they vacate and say you owe me my full security deposit cuz I didn't get anything they still have to give you the five day notice at that point let me ask another question here and you guys feel free to chime in with questions if you like this disposition we've had tenants that said hey your disposition is not adequate because you're not providing receipts from your contractors or invoices from your contractors where you know we're not necessarily required to do that on the disposition but what's your take on that where you've had we've seen people say hire an attorney and the attorney pushes back saying you need to send all the original invoices and receipts and everything there what's your advice there yeah you're exactly right Nate it's not required under the law but it and so I wouldn't necessarily send that out until there is a dispute but it's nice to have that as backup because if they get an attorney involved or if they take in a small claims court or if they sue you you're likely gonna have to produce it at some point to substantiate those claims and so so how would that work if the landlord goes in there and does their own work on the property so that's always that's always a big question and that's up for debate when I've had to litigate this in district court and small claims court usually if you can demonstrate that the need for whatever it is the repair or the cleaning if you can demonstrate that they left the rental unit in a state of disrepair and you had to expend efforts on it you'll probably get some award for that but if you do the work yourself to the extent of how big that award is really comes into question at that point and so I've had some judges tell me flat-out that you know what this is your rental property and you put some sweat equity into this and that's that's the cost of being a landlord sometimes and so they'll they'll figure out whatever formula they see Justin Fit at that time based on whatever pictures they have but usually in my experience I've found that you're not going to get much above ten bucks an hour as an owner working on your own premises where if you had hired somebody to do it and they charge you 25 or 30 bucks an hour it's a little bit harder for a judge to diminish an actual invoice or actual receipt versus saying yeah I'm not gonna give you you know that this is your own property so I'll compensate you some but I'm not gonna give you you know a market value or something like that that's interesting thank you so yeah so that's that's an issue and that's where a lot of our clients will have move in move out forms right and so you always want to have that to to a document this the condition of the premises when they move in and then compare that from when they move about this is ideal that you have you have them go through it before and at the end of the tenancy obviously that doesn't happen with addictions and different scenarios but if you have that that's nice but a lot of our clients also have on that move out move in move out form or some form that they hand out contemporaneous with that it will have an autumn is a ssin of different charges that the tenant may be charged for various things not done you know if we need to repaint we charge you 150 bucks per you know for it for a hole for a two-bedroom unit or something like that or a whole home might be $500 or whatever but if you have those pre assigned charges and they sign off on that then if you have to do that oftentimes we can point to the court to the to the trier-of-fact and say hey they've already agreed to these specific charges now one thing I find that my clients tend to rely on that too much and they say well we had to clean it's $150 well if you still have to substantiate that that much cleaning was necessary and so that's that's not the end of the story just because they signed off on a pre-determined amount for particular damages or cleaning charges you're still gonna have to justify that it was necessary so but but I like those four some charges where you're probably not gonna hire a third party contractor to come in and do that to have some predetermined charges is oftentimes a good thing you know if you say just a general cleaning eighty bucks or whatever great that's easy to do if you have a carpet cleaning charge that you you have a predetermined amount that makes it nice to because you may have a contract you know a regular vendor that you use that comes in and does it at a set price or you come in and do with your own equipment but but it's nice to have that predetermined price for some things but but anything that's unusual or higher than normal it's much better to have an invoice or receipt versus saying you did it yourself and it cost four hundred dollars go ahead and Knight Duckett no no you so you were you're saying the the when one of the first issues is just not sending it out at all and and I think we covered that pretty well yeah so the next issue is and we've kind of addressed this but making sure that your charges are are legitimate and that you can substantiate it in today's day and age it's it's crazy that we don't have pictures for all of this I mean that a picture says a thousand words that's absolutely true when it comes to court small claims court or otherwise if you have a picture of the before and after that that says it all I win way more cases where you have actual photographic or video evidence of the damages and then if you have receipts to support that even even better but even when attorneys get involved or anything if I send them a picture of a trashed place there's not a lot they can say you know at that point you're just negotiating what the settlement should be and so that's that's always better than fighting it from the court yeah so not returning it and then disputes on the amount and then also gonna say so we got make sure you have the documentation make sure you can substantiate it oh and then make sure it's make sure it's reasonable I have some clients that they'll do an item of what's own and and they even have predetermine amounts for each thing but they may have 15 bucks to clean a toilet ten bucks to clean a sink five bucks to sweep the floor you know and they that's a little bit too much because at the end of the day sometimes I get a twenty five hundred dollar cleaning charge which you know you could hire three cleaners to come in and spend eight hours on it and you'd only pay them like 250 bucks and so really scrutinize your own security deposit disposition and think is this reasonable because the problem is the judge isn't just going to knock down a few of the unreasonable charges it puts your whole security deposit disposition under a cloud of suspicion and they start knocking down everything and so that becomes problematic if you're unreasonable on any one particular charge the other thing I was going to bring up is make sure that you appropriately prorate particular charges like flooring if you have to replace the carpet because they had animals that destroyed it you've got to prorate it and our general advice is that flooring is prorated on a seven-year scale because the IRS has a seven year depreciation schedule for for carpet for example so if they've lived there for three years and the carpet was put in two years before they lived there that's five year old carpet if you have to replace it because of them you should probably only be charging them two sevenths of the replacement cost you know I was going to add two you know HUD has a great depreciation schedule available that we that our team uses to kind of get an idea in an estimation of of cost of the materials labor of course you're probably about to say this labor of course can be charged that's that's something that was the need for the labor is created because of the issue I think one of the one of the challenges that we've had sometimes a client will say you know they put a little scratch in the front of the fridge it's a stainless fridge that scratch wasn't there when they moved in so I get a brand new fridge or you know we have some scratches here on the hardwood floor we have to replace everything here on the floor and and so when we when we talk about depreciated value as well as reasonable wear and tear you know that's that all has to be taken into consideration that that's a very valid point and that comes up a lot I mean probably five times a year I deal with single-family homes where the owner has an expectation that all of the hardwood flooring in the home has to be replaced because there are some significant scratches in one area and you just can't fix that and not match the entire flooring throughout the house and so now you have a ten thousand dollar charge and from the courts perspective what they're gonna say is absolutely that is not reasonable and guess guess how many times I have these issues in big apartment communities never because a unit that is designated to be a rental home is not going to have expensive hardwood flooring in there and so when and that's hard to understand when an owner converts his personal home or some other home that he buys into a rental unit it takes on a whole new characteristic and a whole new purpose as far as the courts are concerned when you're renting it out it is not your home anymore it's not your baby it's you know it's it's the rental home at this point and as a rental home there's gonna be reasonable wear and tear and so the courts expects you to expect that whether the owner plans on moving back in after their mission or whatever it doesn't matter for that time period it was converted into a rental home and it's not going to be treated like your baby like your single-family home like your residence and so that's that's something that's kind of hard to understand for some for some landlords sometimes and you know what a hardwood floor might get scratched in an area and it's really it's really going to be difficult to put a price tag on that to fix it to where that owner expects it should be if you don't mind I'll jump in just one more time here on this topic I I think that every investor every landlord they wants to they want to have their properties kept up and maintained to a certain standard so that they can see that their their property is going to appreciate if they end up liquidating that asset they can get you know for the most part top dollar for that property so I think it's a reasonable care and concern that a landlord would come in and say you know what I want to replace these 4s or I want I want these floors to get to be to be nice but at the same time realizing that this you know this is this is a business you know this is treated as a business and as long as we're treating as an investment where we're concerned about the you know the cash flow or the cash on cash return the rate of return notes will the end of the day having this investment performed for us having that be the foundation of our motivation rather than any emotional connection we might have with you know whatever type of flooring or whatever things are in the home that might get you know damaged over the course of time which is reasonable to expect yep anything else with security deposits you want to go into before we went on to the number two I don't think so just other than most of the time where I see lawsuits involving security deposits is a tenant I should say against landlords because we do it against tenants all the time in district court but against landlords this usually comes up in a small claims court the the good and bad thing about small claims court is it's resolved really fast you get a hearing you show up at that hearing you have your opportunity to present all your evidence and that's about it sometimes a bad thing is small claims courts are hit and miss like sometimes you get a really good judge sometimes you get a judge that's just fine by the seat of his pants and just does whatever sounds good to him that day and so you have to be ultra prepared small claims courts even more than district courts and anywhere else are going to hold you as the professional or as the landlord to a much higher standard than the tenant and so you need to go over and beyond to justify and substantiate each of the claims on a security deposit disposition particularly when it exceeds the security deposit because I don't care what court it is anytime I've actually gone to a trial over a security deposit issue the court or the judge will inevitably diminish the landlord's claim to some degree that's just human nature they want to split the baby whether the laws on the side or not there they're trying to they're gonna make you concede a little bit and so the more you have the less you're gonna have to concede and just know that going into this lawsuit if you think the 1000 is you $2,000 the judge is looking to diminish that it's very unlikely you're actually gonna get all $2,000 so just having a realist realistic expectation of what's happening and and if you understand that it may make sense a lot of times when a tenant contacts you and takes issue with that to negotiate a settled settlement with them at that time before you know a judge or courts get involved said you know what okay I understand you dispute this if you pay me 1,600 of the 2000 right now Oh we'll call it good yeah that's a good point you know and in the over a decade we've been doing this we've we've never gone to court for a tenant who is coming back on a security deposit for a number of reasons one we have you know a lot of good documentation and which can put it to bed early on but then if they want to file a claim let's say that you know they they're upset about a cleaning charge and they're really pushing it to go to court you know they may be happy just selling for 100 bucks and and is it going to be worth going to court over something so so frivolous like that so wick your battles right if we're talking thousands of dollars in course but pick your battles and wait it out try to settle I I agree with Curt hundred-percent on that yes all right number two alleged problems with the rental unit to premises issues so this has to do with the Utah Fit premesis Act which gives the tenants an avenue to either withhold rent to terminate the lease or repair something in deducted themselves and deducted out a rent for the for the next month there's three types of fit premises types issues under the law the first is an emergency an emergency type situation is something that could cause immediate risk of you know to health or safety of the tenants we're talking like exposed electrical wires gas leak stuff like that the other if you have issues like that you have to address it within 24 hours and I don't think there's any landlords that are not looking to address those any of these issues don't necessarily have to be resolved within the specific time frame they just have to be addressed so no longer poses a risk of health and safety but then you also have to spell out what your plan is to fully resolve this and so I don't see a lot of lawsuits over in the emergency situations because they because they do get resolved the next issue is habitability issues and this is where a tenant is claiming that his premises is not safe to live in or habitable because you can't lock the door or there's plumbing problems or it doesn't get cool enough in the summer or it doesn't get warm enough in the winter or any number of issues like that those have to be addressed within three days if they're not addressed within three days and the tenant gives you serves upon you proper notice then they can elect one of those remedies either to terminate the lease to repair it themselves and deduct it or to stop paying rent and tell you until you resolve it the the final issue is contractual issues and you have ten days to address that contractual issues in my mind mostly come back to appliance issues you know having your dishwasher broken does not necessarily make the place uninhabitable however if they signed a lease and there is a working dishwasher there it's reasonable for them to expect that the landlord will maintain that dishwasher all of these issues they can only rely on the remedies provided or potentially sue you if they did not cause the problem and so if they caused the problem we're not talking about the fit premises act anymore also if they are not current on the rent they cannot make use of the remedies that's that's provided under the law and so often times where we hear this is where we've begun a lawsuit for non-payment of rent or some other issue and then they allege there's something wrong with the premises well that's too convenient of a defense and so the legislature and their wisdom saw hey we're not going to allow that to be a defense to non-payment of rent you have to be current on your obligations before you seek to enforce any of these remedies under the you top that premises Act so really where you see these lawsuits is for the most part it's not the key renters it's not the property management companies of the world it's the it's the slumlords and so this is trying to protect tenants against the slumlords but with that said it still does not necessarily mean and like I said earlier it doesn't mean you're immune from lawsuits just because you're doing what you're supposed to and so the key again is documentation if they bring an issue to you that sounds like this is a habitability issue you will want to take that in writing and then you will want to respond to them in writing and tell them what you've done to inspect the issue what you've done to address the issue and how you expect to fully resolve the issue and if there is no legitimate issue you need to put that in writing as well say we've got your complaint or your notice about whatever we've inspected we have not found it to be an issue if anything else arises please let us know otherwise we deem this matter resolved communication and documentation that's going to be your best defense for these types of claims because it shows that you're addressing it and shows that you're complying with the act and with the contract any Kirke one one quick little mini store we here this past winter we had a tenant whose heat went out this is probably mid December so it's cold you know and it's it's cold you know we had a relatively warm or a pretty warm winter but in December was pretty cold at the time and so it was probably about 7:00 8:00 at night and our After Hours crew they took the call and said okay we can have someone there at 11 o'clock or is like 10:30 11 o'clock is they had other jobs they had to take care of first and he said well that's too late for me I'm sorry it'll have to wait the next morning he served us with this compliance notice that he printed off the state website saying that we were out of compliance with the premesis law and premises Act and it was just so interesting that okay well we tried to get out there that night and it's just the next morning and so there will be some residents yes this is to protect residents from slumlords right we've got to make sure we're taking care of things in a prompt manner but there will be those tenants that of course they are on a separate pedestal so to speak that that want to make sure that things are done according to their timeline and super or super quick we had it resolved in less than 24 hours but we got served literally the next morning was kind of funny but now we got it taken care of I had a conversation with him and just now made sure he was everything was okay and it was but you'll get some of those as well from time to time yeah and that that's the beauty of this act is just like we have to serve upon them a 3-day pay or vacate or complier vacate and we give them an opportunity to cure they have to do the same they they don't just send you a text they don't just put a maintenance request in your property management software if they're legitimate about this they have to serve a notice upon you and then give you an opportunity to cure so and just being able to demonstrate the steps that you took towards resolving that problem is usually going to be defense enough oh yeah yeah but we've also heard of the stories you know we've probably all heard of those where the tenants you know has a sewage backup and they're in their basement and then they can't get a hold of landlord for 2-3 weeks because they're out traveling and they don't have a property manager in place and they're trying to do it themselves and they they're not available and it goes on and on and on and that can be pretty dangerous and that's those sort of situations right that Utah's trying to you know get cleaned up and get taken care of yep yep and again communication is key because there may be legitimate times where you have a vendor like let's say you know it's about to get up to 100 degrees here and the AC goes out and you know their their rental unit is above 90 degrees I mean that's probably not gonna be deemed reasonable and but you may not be able to get somebody there for seven to ten days and so you want to be able to document what it is you're doing to help them you know maybe you maybe you go over there and provide fans or a window unit or or anything like that which mind you may or may not be necessary depending on the circumstances but feel free to call us if you have any questions but if you document this is what we did we scheduled it right away within the appropriate time frame the vendor just couldn't get out for X amount of days that that's going to be enough you know and and you know what sometimes stuff happens and that's why we either strongly encourage or require renters insurance for situations like that because the the courts will understand whether tenants understand this or not that stuff happens sometimes when in the places you're living whether you own a home or what whether you're renting a home stuff happens and there's only so much any one person can do and that's where insurance comes in where necessary and where we take whatever measures we can and move as timely as possible and that's all we can do yeah we have two of those situations going on right now where a tenant is going to be displaced because of a leak in a condo building that was from the upstairs nit above we do not manage that unit I believe an owner occupant lives there and you know they're renters insurance is what would have to put them in a hotel for temporary displacement as insurance is there to cover the damaged party or there they're insured not necessarily the homeowners insurance to cover the tenant so that's a good point always require renters insurance and and not just renters insurance but also rent landlord liability policy from the tenant that covers your your property up to you know hundred two hundred thousand or a hundred thousand dollars minimum in the event that they caused damage absolutely good deal anything else with supremacists are you ready to move on if there's no questions I'm ready to move on yeah we had we had someone's hand up for a minute but it wouldn't went back down so if you do want to ask your questions go right ahead and we'll get some questions go in here alright we'll go ahead and move on to number three this is issues of the abandoned property so this is the area where I probably see the most lawsuits and really where i see the most landlord exposure is dealing with abandoned premises and abandoned property so let's briefly briefly review the laws first on abandoned premises so when is it appropriate to deem a premises abandon there's two scenarios under the law one is when rent is not paid you inspect the unit and there's nothing in there if there is no personal property remaining in the premises and rent is not paid there's a presumption under the law that the place has been abandoned and you can then deem it abandon the second scenario is rent has not been paid for at least fifteen days because there is stuff in the property so if you post a three day pay or vacate notice on the fifth and you don't hear anything from them and it's now the eighth my office will usually advise well are you sure they're there before we file the eviction no point in filing and wasting your time and money and filing an eviction if they've actually already vacated so we'll advise you to at least look if you look in there and there's stuff in there okay now now we may be talking to management so we would we would request that you email them you text them you call them try to figure out where they are what's going on because you can only deem it abandon if rent has not been paid for at least 15 days so you're gonna have to wait until the 15th and you have no idea where they are if you get ahold of them and they're in Florida and they're there for a funeral and they're not coming back for three more weeks well we probably still know where they are and it's probably not appropriate to demon abandon that doesn't mean we can't move forward with the eviction it just means we can't deem it abandoned if you find out that they got arrested and they're in prison or Jenner what am I in prison yet if they're in jail then we know where they are and we cannot deem it abandoned so this is legitimately when we don't know where they are and rent has not been paid I keep saying when rent has not been paid because it's key to know that if rent has been paid it doesn't matter if the place is empty it doesn't matter if we don't know where they are if rent has been paid the premise is the premises is not abandoned and I highlight this because that's where a couple of the lawsuits that I've dealt with over the past couple years have arisen maybe it's the end of a lease term and the tenant tells you or the manager that they intend to vacate by the twentieth and you say great that gives me a few days to turn it before the end of your lease term and maybe I can get a rear-engine quicker or maybe they even negotiate to get out in the middle of their lease and you're saying you know what if you get out by this date that'll help me because I can get rear nted to mitigate your damages you know so you won't be liable for the rest of the lease if I get somebody in there and so they tell you they're gonna be out on the 20th but they've already paid for that month and so you send somebody over on the 21st to start turning the unit and that person goes in there and mostly everything's gone but there's a few things left in there you need to turn around and leave because inevitably they're going to claim that you messed with their stuff that you took their stuff or that some stuff is missing and because rent has been paid that place is not abandoned we don't have a right to that premises other than what we usually do as a management company to inspect and whatnot and so that's that's where I've had to deal with a couple lawsuits is maintenance guys or management going in and starting to turn a you know when there's a few things still in there because they assume maybe even rightly so by communication that the tenants have intended to bake ate and their stuff in there so be careful on that for one one example is I had that very scenario happen where a maintenance guy went in everything was out of the unit except for a bag of clothes that was on a balcony there was a you know a two drawer plastic filing cabinet in the front room that was full of different papers and then there was a curio cabinet a jewelry cabinet in the back master bedroom closet and a shotgun that's all that was in there although I wouldn't expect somebody to abandon the shotgun everything else you could have looked at and thought well maybe they abandoned it and so maintenance started working on on the premises started painting stuff didn't really report anything to management did about an hour and a half work that day left came back the next day to finish up some patchwork and some painting and the the shotgun was gone the cabinet the the jewelry cabinet was in the front room now next to the plastic filing cabinet and the bag of clothes was still in the balcony so now maintenance guy thinks okay well I guess they now they really have it then because they came in and took what they they wanted and that's that and so the jewelry cabinet got knocked over when it got knocked over for whatever Rena's and maintenance guy kicked it and broke it he threw the bag of clothes away off the balcony and this was still all before the end of the month so rent had still been paid a month later the tenants decided to sue the management company and said you compromised our identities because in that because in that filing cabinet was our social security numbers our birth certificates all that sort of stuff which we had no idea my client had no idea they said that they stole jewelry out of the jewelry case which is not true but they damage the jewelry case and they said that they threw away hundreds of dollars of clothes and so they were now getting sued for $5,000 and they got sued in small claims court and like I mentioned about small claims court earlier sometimes you don't know what's gonna happen and they ended up losing about $3,500 and really the basis for the court's decision was yeah you're a professional management company you know what the laws are you should have known better you know it wasn't even necessarily a finding that there was thirty five hundred dollars of damages it's just they alleged five thousand dollars of damages you guys screwed up I'm gonna give them 3,500 so that's that's the risk here's the bright side of the story as we appeal back to the district court and at the end of the day they ended up only winning about two hundred and fifty bucks for the broken cabinet the clothes that were thrown away but you know how much time and and hundreds of dollars of legal fees did it take to get to that point and so that's one of the risks so I talked about the two scenarios under state law where we can presume a place abandoned a new law just went into effect in Utah to where we get more than just a presumption abandonment we can legally demon abandon if we've met those two scenarios and then we post a 24-hour notice on the premises and then that puts a burden on the tenant to contact management or the landlord if it is not abandoned and if it is not abandoned then we obviously we let them back in but if it is abandoned and we've posted that notice now we get more than just the presumption of abandonment it's legally deemed abandoned and so there's there's just that extra safeguard in the law now I would recommend that you comply with that literally just went into effect yesterday and so we will be publishing forms about that on our website for management companies and landlords to use once a place is deemed abandoned if there's personal property in there you still have an obligation to that personal property you need to post and mail a notice of abandoned property at that point once you've secured the premises deemed the premises abandoned and there's still stuff in there if you post and mail a notice of abandoned property you have you have the obligation to store that stuff for at least 15 and and it needs to be secured if anything happens to that property within 15 days accepting criminal activity the landlord is liable for that and there's three exceptions to the 15 days as well if they give you notice of a death if they give you notice of an extended hospitalization or that there's allegations of domestic violence then you have to hang on to that property for 30 days and you'll be liable for it for the for the 30 days when there's personal property in there you've changed locks and now you've posted and mailed the notice take pictures of that because because you are responsible it's not uncommon for shady tenants to claim my heirloom went missing or this and that went missing it may and we may say that was never in there but if you can take pictures of what what is there even just general pictures around the around the rooms and stuff you can say we didn't disturb this this is all it was you don't necessarily have to store the stuff in the same place it was for 15 days you can move it if you're trying to turn the unit or or get things going but in the event that you do move it and put it in storage then I would document exactly what you move then take pictures again and again you don't have to be super specific you don't have to say one yellow shirt one white shirt you can just say bag of clothes or something like that but definitely document if you decide to move it and then still keep it secure for 15 days you know occurred one just to chime in real quick one thing that always surprises me is even when it's not say an eviction or an abandonment situation and tenants are just moving out it's just a routine move out they put in their notice they're moving out it's amazing how many tenants just leave so much stuff behind because you know rather than taking a DI run or you know Salvation Army run or something like that for some of the stuff that they don't want anymore they'll just leave it in the house because it's easier for them well yes they're going to pay for it but we have to store that or do something with it unless we have them sign off on it being okay to do that so what we've started doing is when they turn in keys we require that they turn in a key receipt where they sign off and say any personal belongings anything left in the house I'm deeming it you know okay to dispose of you know I have no personal interest in it whatever it says there's some legalese in there so that we we can then go to the property and if it's full of stuff we're okay and that's a conversation you and I had our or anyone on the on this webinar if they have something like that they have the tenant sign after they move out and they're giving up possession do you think most courts would say that's you know we're gonna honor that yeah I I like that process that procedure and I would recommend that I you know I haven't litigated your form specifically thank heavens for you but yes I've seen where even a text message or an email or says yeah I'm gone do whatever you want with the stuff in there you get something like that in writing particularly if they sign it on a form that you provided them that's that's pretty solid defense if they come back and try to claim you know that something was disposed of that shouldn't be because because we have had tenants in the past that moved out and said yeah I'm totally out totally out you know it's all good then we go in and there's quite a bit of stuff and that we can't get in touch with them and there's always this fear oh my goodness they could come back and and say that they left their you know whatever it is and we could have an issue so we've got a stored in the garage are we going to store it in the facility wait 215 days sometimes 30 days if requested and and what a hassle so we've started doing that it's helped a lot yeah yeah when you can't get a hold of them then you've got to follow the procedure and I have defended landlords in a few scenarios where they did follow the procedures but still the tenant decided to sue them and claim this or that and when we said you know what they left we post and mail the notes of Benton property we didn't hear from them for more than 15 days and in fact we tried to reach out to them to no avail and then we disposed of it after and here's what we did with this property we took it to the DI here's what we did with this we trashed it not that's it the law is pretty clear at that point and the landlord's have not been held liable under those circumstances so I would note this when it comes to abandoned property though if we're talking about abandoned property after an eviction treat that scenario a little bit differently because we've locked them out and even though the 15 days may begin to run the time we lock him out we post and mail that notice of abandoned property they may be in contact with my office or another attorney that you may be using or the management company and we may be holding some of their stuff as leverage to get them to resolve the case or to at least set up payment plans and so my my thought is if we didn't even give them access reasonable access to it for like seven or eight days because we're trying to negotiate with them then you know should that count towards the 15 days under the law yes as far as what the you know the equity in that and the reasonableness and fairness that a judge may look at they may not count that they may say yeah but they didn't really have access to it for seven or eight days and so we ask on any evictions that we did even once the 15 days has run that you talked to my office and clear it before you throw away anything because that's that's where you really can get yourself into trouble is throwing away stuff on the 16th day when we've been in communications and try and negotiate with them for the full 15 days with that said we understand how important it is for you to turn the unit to get their stuff out of there and so we're not we're not intentionally trying to delay things and we would you know we'll let them back in there sooner if that's what you want to do but but just know that we're using that time and it's not uncommon to use that time to try to negotiate a settlement with them and get get money for our client great anything else with abandoned property is it going to be valuable to share before we wrap up I'm again just just make sure you know the law and know that you stick to it because as landlords you are you're held to the hire you're held to a higher standard you know you've got a higher level and duty of care and so you know knowing the laws knowing that you've complied with the laws will will protect you very good so let's let's open it up again anyone have any final questions or any thoughts or any scenarios you'd like to run by Kirk here I mean we've got it we've got him held captive here and we can get his knowledge to shed some light on anything you might be going through all right we've got sandy Stewart who I'm gonna unmute here go ahead sandy let's see if I can figure this thing out here sandy can you alrighty there sandy all right can't hear sandy maybe she can type it in yeah maybe you can chat it in there to the chat feature all right let's get another one here amber Davis all right amber you there I am great thank you thanks for doing this um so going back to that that first one I came in a little bit late I apologize but you're talking sort of about he contractors and how it's sort of best to if you're doing any repairs on a property to basically hire it out when it comes down to that cleaning is that sort of the same thing you were talking about how you know putting prices on that cleaning them out if you have a cleaning deposit to be able to show hey I hired contract or contracted cleaning company and it was $200 is that sort of the same principle with cleaning as it is with like repairs yeah yeah absolutely what if I have an invoice from a cleaning company that says $200 it's harder for the court to look at that and say no I'm only gonna give you $100 as compared to when all I have is a ledger amount and the the owner themselves attributed 200 dollars of cost to their cleaning the judge is going to diminish they just are it just it just happens and so yeah an invoice is better and mind you I'm just telling you what I see in court that may not be best business practice for you it may be worth charging $200 of your own time to do it and if somebody contests it just being agreeable and say fine I'll only charge you a hundred or realizing that if you get to court that may get diminished so long as you understand that I'm not telling you you need to hire a cleaner each time I'm just trying to point out the realities of when it gets to court what merit what is more acceptable than others gotcha all right thanks amber sandy are you able to chime in here and you still have your hand up there I want to make sure we can get your question okay we've got a question here from Alan he's asking oh sorry he made a comment he was going to be sharing this or watching this later you missed a part of it so any other questions here for Kirk before you wrap up all right well I'd like to of course thank her kolja Moore jr. for joining us and thank you Kirk this has been very informative very helpful thanks for having me happy to do it this webinar is recorded again we're going to make it available to all those who have registered today and of course as always we wish you all the best in your investment endeavors and if you have any questions for myself feel free to reach out if you would like to get in touch with Kurt Coulomb or jr. reach out to me we'll see if we can make his contact information available for I don't have it here on the slide is that something you would you would mind sharing Kirk or do you prefer have them go through us for that oh absolutely you can you can find us on the web at colum or law comm or you can call us at 801 five seven one six six one one or email me at Kirk junior at Coulomb or net great well thanks again and best of luck to all you guys and we'll see you next time all right thanks Nate take care everybody