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Renting a House Today? How to Check Out Your New Landlord So You Don’t End Up Out on the Curb!

There was a time when all you needed to care about when you rented a home was location and amenities. Today things just ain’t that simple.

Your landlord could be about to lose the house putting you out on the street or he may not REALLY be the landlord. In either case, the big loser could be you and it is easy to protect yourself.

With a five minute search of a couple of sites on the Internet can give you an awfully good idea of just what is going on. It is free and you do not need to be a Lawyer or a meteorologist to see what way the wind is blowing.

The problem I hear about most when people call me looking for a good place to live is that the Landlord is in foreclosure and he did not tell the folks about that before they gave him first, last and security. Sometimes, he seems to forget to tell them until the Sheriff is knocking on the door with a 24 hours notice to vacate.

In the world of law where foreclosures are spawned like hurricanes off the west coast of Africa nothing happens rapidly. And it is as easy to follow the path of a foreclosure as it is to tune to the weather report to keep an eye on a pending hurricane.

Lis Pendens is the phrase you will see in Florida to indicate that a foreclosure has begun. After than there will be a variety of legal activity showing the progress of the action to kick your Landlord out of the house and you with him.

In other parts of the country a Lis Pendens goes by the name Notice of Default. Either means that an action is pending against that particular property.

To start your real estate detective work Google the words tax collector and the name of the county where the home you are considering renting is located.

Tax collector web sites deal with real estate and other property. So once on the site look for real estate search, be prepared to accept the terms of service and once you get to the real estate search section enter the street address of the property in the blank asking for address and click send, or search to find the name of the owner.

In most cases the house will be in the name of a person and will include their address as well, the address where the tax bill is sent. Write down the name and address. You might want to see if the taxes are paid as well. Do not be concerned if the taxes are one to two years delinquent. It is not nearly as bad an indicator as finding the Lis Pendens.

Many veteran real estate investors will not pay their taxes for the last year or sometimes even the last two years. In Florida, if the taxes are not paid, the county will sell the tax certificates to individual investors who will then pay the taxes and collect interest from the property owner when the owner finally pays the taxes.

This used to be a great deal with interest rates of 18 per cent a year and even higher in other states. However, when this great investment became more generally known, an investing army descended on the tax collectors and in their frenzy, they drove down the interest rate on the tax certificates and in many cases not paying your real estate taxes on time is the cheapest money you can borrow.

Of course, it does require knowledge and discipline, but many a savvy investor has unpaid taxes for one or two years in Florida. Other states will vary and if the taxes are not paid by the final dead line you again have the risk of losing a house. We are not advocating not paying taxes for a year or two, but saying do not be unduly alarmed if the house you are looking to rent has taxes that are delinquent for a year or so. Check your local laws.

Of far greater concern is the potential for foreclosure. This is a legal action a lender takes if the person who borrowed the money has pledged a property against the loan and has failed to pay the lender as promised.

While there will be private correspondence between the borrower and lender prior to any legal action (normally) once the lender files his lawsuit in court it becomes a matter of public record. Here is how you find what is happening.

Go to the website of the clerk of court in the county where the property is located and look for the law suits that have been filed in civil court.

Once you are in the clerk’s website look for the listing of civil actions. Then enter the last name and first name of the landlord as they appeared on the website of the tax collector. If nothing comes up, you are probably safe. Check to make sure you spelled the name exactly as it appeared in the tax collector’s website.

If there is a foreclosure action against the landlord you will see the date of Lis Pendens filed and a number of entries after that. Suffice it to say the more stuff entered the closer it is to the day that the sheriff will be knocking on the door. Some of these foreclosures can go on for years, but I suggest you not take that risk.

It is possible that there is no foreclosure against the landlord, but he may be the defendant in some other sort of action. If he is being suit for failure to pay other bills, a foreclosure may not be too far away.

Look for your landlord’s name as a plaintiff. This will let you know if he is business like about filing eviction and law suit to collect money owed.

Some homes in the tax collectors website will be listed as being owned by a trust or corporation and we will tell you how to check them out in the next article in this series.

George Beardsley has written extensively about finance and business starting as a financial reporter for the Chicago Tribune, covering commodity futures, stocks, bonds, banking and other financial news. He was an editor for the financial publishing firm Dow-Jones, Irwin. He has been a real estate investor in Florida for the last two decades and has just written 911forLandlords.com on how to rent houses faster for more money. Visit his web at www.1gr8deal.com.

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