I was contacted directly by the tenant’s brother telling me that his family owned a house in a great neighborhood that had been bought for his younger sister and her kids, two of whom had learning difficulties, but for which she was receiving state assistance to help with the rent and costs of looking after the house and kids.
Their father had died overseas and the house had been in probate. It needed to be sold in
order to split the inheritance between the remaining family members, spread out around the
globe.
With this in mind the family needed to sell, but there was a problem.
The sister, Cristina, that was living in the house would not let any real estate agents into the house, nor any potential buyers.
This is common when you’re an investor and buying a tenanted property, as you probably know.
You buy a property with a tenant and if necessary you calculate the cost to evict the tenant along with the time it may take in that particular jurisdiction.
At the end of the day we can buy houses at a discount from the MLS values based on things like this.
Plus, eventually an eviction will take place, you can get your rehab crew in and sell the house for a profit.
So I made a business decision based on the discount they were offering me to take the property off their hands so the brothers and sisters could split the inheritance.
All I needed to do was to take on Cristina and her kids and carry out the eviction process because the family felt they could not do this to their own sister.
I guess when it came to the money they were fine if they left it to me to be the villain, but that’s another story.
So I bought the house, I did get a great discount and from the property preservation drive by
inspection I knew I’d bought a great family home in a suburban neighborhood that would be an
easy fix and flip.
I just had to go through the process of eviction.
Now, bear in mind that this woman had been receiving welfare payments but had stopped paying the rent to the family – but for me, I knew it was just a cost of holding until I could get my guys in and get the house listed and sold.
Fast forward eighteen long months and the day had finally come to go before the judge and make the case for eviction.
The house had been sold with the sister in it, but she had not allowed access and paid no rent in several years.
The attorney who was there to represent me was highly experienced. She’d been in foreclosure court and evictions for years.
“There’s nothing I haven’t seen,” she assured me confidently while we waited our turn for the judge.
“This case is a slam dunk.”
I shouldn’t have believed her.
We went in to sit before the judge. We know that courts don’t like wholesalers, flippers and even landlords, but the law is the law, right? So we were confident it was just a rubber stamp exercise…
Especially when the judge asked if anyone from the other side was representing, and there was
silence and two empty chairs.
The judge said it was a formality as no one had turned up to defend.
He ran through the papers, the attorney nodding at me sagely, almost saying, “We’re about to win.”
The judge had his court stamp in his hand ready to seal the order, and…
Suddenly the door to the courtroom burst open and in stepped a woman who of course had to be the sister along with an attorney from some anti-eviction charity (that I will not name so as not to give them credence here or tip off other tenants that they exist!).
“Just a minute Your Honor,” said the attorney. “I am here to represent the defense in this
eviction.”