Well, just experienced last night for the very first time in my "second phase" real estate career a Tenant finishing their Lease and moving out properly. It was a pleasure.
We'd picked up the dodgy property back in mid '05 and went about clearing out the dregs. There was two sitting Tenants, both of them absolutely horrific.
One was a drunk Irish woman who'd been there 14 years running a furniture making operation. There was 14 years worth of rubbish and cr@p over the joint, and she flatly refused to acknowledge me as the Landlord or enter into a Lease with me. She said she'd signed a bit of paper 25 years ago when she married her abusive husband and hasn't signed a piece of paper since. Great - now what ??
We tried all of the poncy lawyer stuff with letters etc. Didn't work at all, as she was illiterate and just screwed and ripped the letters up in our face, stood there with her hands on her hips and said "what else ya got ?" We had to learn to speak her language. Locks were changed at 8pm on Xmas Eve (no lovely carols by the fireside with the family that year !!) and the next 3 days were spent with trusty trolley / broom / rake and shovel moving 14 years worth of her stuff onto the road verge. The morning of the 28th she rolled up with her husband and their jaws hit the floor. We had everything padlocked up and their cr@p everywhere out the front.
They quickly ran away to re-group. I got a phone call about 20 mins later from the Small Business Owners Advocacy group councillor. He was explaining that I was being very harsh and needed to give them a second chance. I replied that they had been in my property for 7 months and hadn't paid a cent, they'd been issued with 2 notices to leave and been given the appropriate timeframes. All they needed to do was shut up, stop whinging and bring a couple of big lads with a truck to get their cr@p off my front verge.
There comes a point in the battle when they concede defeat and just get on with it. We had reached that point. Within 2 hours, a truck backed up, the husband and one other guy jumped out and started loading stuff on. Dad and I sat down and watched them whilst having a cuppa behind the locked fence. When they came back for the subsequent loads, and it was clear they were definitely not going to resist, we chipped in and helped them load it all on. By the end of day, we were all getting along fine, they left and we had our warehouse back clear and clean.
The other Tenant was in the process of being dragged through the Supreme Court for refusing to pay rent, and refusing to shift out. That had been going for over 6 months with the previous Owners. Fortunately we came in just at the tail end of that nonsense. The slippery guy tried to pay me a month of rent, which would have started the process all over again, but the wily old Owner who I'd bought it off had previously warned me about this tactic, and so I told him to get stuffed.
It was difficult shifting this guy out, cos he had really big stuff that needed machinery to move, and vehicles that cannot be moved. Police we discovered are absolutely useless when trying to shift vehicles off your property when they are owned by other people. Enter my bestest ever friend - my mate with a tilt tray truck. What a joyous piece of machinery that is. Clears up unwanted cr@p in no time flat. One day we started at 8am, and I roped in a few young lads from next door, one who had a forklift, and with a few phone calls, ended up with no less than 15 of his mates in there taking stuff left right and centre. It was so productive, I put on KFC for everyone and we ended up working round the clock 'til dawn to get the stuff out and gone. Vamoos. Working against the clock charges the adrenaline up and before the dodgy brother could do anything legally, all of his stuff was gone and I had a clear warehouse ready to Lease out. "Nah mate - dunno what you are talking about.....nothing here....talk to my lawyer mate....sorry we are busy. Go away" Home free at last.
Only took a few weeks to attract a Tenant. I wrote the Lease myself, modifying a 20 page solicitor's format that was pathetic. Beefed it up to about 42 pages. (Looking back there was still massive holes everywhere throughout the document, which have subsequently all been tightened up, we are now on version 15 of the Lease). This document is now worth millions to us.
My new Tenants slipped in there exactly 4 years ago, promising to do all these wonderful things to the property. Foolishly, none of it was in writing and so of course noneof it was done and I couldn't enforce it. They conducted their business, paid their rent and paid the outgoings. Importantly for me they didn't whinge and just got on with it. Well - that's not strictly true - they had two bleats a couple of years ago, one about the plumbing being stuffed and one about the garage roller door being stuck and it was a safety hazard. I quickly pointed out they were responsible for both. They fixed the plumbing and they replaced the roller door with a brand new one. I didn't hear from them after that.
Had a meeting with them 4 months ago, to see if they wished to take up their 2 year option period. They asked me what rent I would charge them. I said double, maybe triple, depends how many 100's of thousands of dollars they were going to pour into the place to improve it. They said they would stay if the rent stayed the same, and they weren't going to do anything to it. I said tata.
They've just spent the last 2 months finding a new warehouse and shifting out. The head duck of the Tenant admitted to me that if he'd known how much disruption it was to his business shifting, he would of gladly paid me double the rent to stay. Stiff. Jobs done now. They replaced all of the carpets with brand new. Freshly painted everything. All of the fire extinguishers are now fully charged and inspected. All interiors of the warehouse have been pressure cleaned. Exterior looks fantastic. Septics and drains have all been pumped clean. White ant inspection report submitted. All lights have been repaired and functional. 3 x new roller doors installed, each 4m wide by 5m tall. All aircons fully serviced.
So, keys were handed back yesterday, the old place is empty again, and is back on the market looking for a new Tenant. The place has quadrupled since the tenant moved in 4 years ago, but I reckon I'll be struggling to have the rent double. The growth we've experienced from this one property is more than my entire residential property, so it owes me nothing and will always be a favourite.
I'd dearly love to smash the whole thing down, along with the sheds we own next door as well, and build a whopping great office block and install an entire Govt dept for the next 30 years......but that might have to wait a few years. Til then, I'll paddle along with the poxy sheds.
Anyone looking for a shed to rent ?? I'm a nice Landlord - trust me.
We'd picked up the dodgy property back in mid '05 and went about clearing out the dregs. There was two sitting Tenants, both of them absolutely horrific.
One was a drunk Irish woman who'd been there 14 years running a furniture making operation. There was 14 years worth of rubbish and cr@p over the joint, and she flatly refused to acknowledge me as the Landlord or enter into a Lease with me. She said she'd signed a bit of paper 25 years ago when she married her abusive husband and hasn't signed a piece of paper since. Great - now what ??
We tried all of the poncy lawyer stuff with letters etc. Didn't work at all, as she was illiterate and just screwed and ripped the letters up in our face, stood there with her hands on her hips and said "what else ya got ?" We had to learn to speak her language. Locks were changed at 8pm on Xmas Eve (no lovely carols by the fireside with the family that year !!) and the next 3 days were spent with trusty trolley / broom / rake and shovel moving 14 years worth of her stuff onto the road verge. The morning of the 28th she rolled up with her husband and their jaws hit the floor. We had everything padlocked up and their cr@p everywhere out the front.
They quickly ran away to re-group. I got a phone call about 20 mins later from the Small Business Owners Advocacy group councillor. He was explaining that I was being very harsh and needed to give them a second chance. I replied that they had been in my property for 7 months and hadn't paid a cent, they'd been issued with 2 notices to leave and been given the appropriate timeframes. All they needed to do was shut up, stop whinging and bring a couple of big lads with a truck to get their cr@p off my front verge.
There comes a point in the battle when they concede defeat and just get on with it. We had reached that point. Within 2 hours, a truck backed up, the husband and one other guy jumped out and started loading stuff on. Dad and I sat down and watched them whilst having a cuppa behind the locked fence. When they came back for the subsequent loads, and it was clear they were definitely not going to resist, we chipped in and helped them load it all on. By the end of day, we were all getting along fine, they left and we had our warehouse back clear and clean.
The other Tenant was in the process of being dragged through the Supreme Court for refusing to pay rent, and refusing to shift out. That had been going for over 6 months with the previous Owners. Fortunately we came in just at the tail end of that nonsense. The slippery guy tried to pay me a month of rent, which would have started the process all over again, but the wily old Owner who I'd bought it off had previously warned me about this tactic, and so I told him to get stuffed.
It was difficult shifting this guy out, cos he had really big stuff that needed machinery to move, and vehicles that cannot be moved. Police we discovered are absolutely useless when trying to shift vehicles off your property when they are owned by other people. Enter my bestest ever friend - my mate with a tilt tray truck. What a joyous piece of machinery that is. Clears up unwanted cr@p in no time flat. One day we started at 8am, and I roped in a few young lads from next door, one who had a forklift, and with a few phone calls, ended up with no less than 15 of his mates in there taking stuff left right and centre. It was so productive, I put on KFC for everyone and we ended up working round the clock 'til dawn to get the stuff out and gone. Vamoos. Working against the clock charges the adrenaline up and before the dodgy brother could do anything legally, all of his stuff was gone and I had a clear warehouse ready to Lease out. "Nah mate - dunno what you are talking about.....nothing here....talk to my lawyer mate....sorry we are busy. Go away" Home free at last.
Only took a few weeks to attract a Tenant. I wrote the Lease myself, modifying a 20 page solicitor's format that was pathetic. Beefed it up to about 42 pages. (Looking back there was still massive holes everywhere throughout the document, which have subsequently all been tightened up, we are now on version 15 of the Lease). This document is now worth millions to us.
My new Tenants slipped in there exactly 4 years ago, promising to do all these wonderful things to the property. Foolishly, none of it was in writing and so of course noneof it was done and I couldn't enforce it. They conducted their business, paid their rent and paid the outgoings. Importantly for me they didn't whinge and just got on with it. Well - that's not strictly true - they had two bleats a couple of years ago, one about the plumbing being stuffed and one about the garage roller door being stuck and it was a safety hazard. I quickly pointed out they were responsible for both. They fixed the plumbing and they replaced the roller door with a brand new one. I didn't hear from them after that.
Had a meeting with them 4 months ago, to see if they wished to take up their 2 year option period. They asked me what rent I would charge them. I said double, maybe triple, depends how many 100's of thousands of dollars they were going to pour into the place to improve it. They said they would stay if the rent stayed the same, and they weren't going to do anything to it. I said tata.
They've just spent the last 2 months finding a new warehouse and shifting out. The head duck of the Tenant admitted to me that if he'd known how much disruption it was to his business shifting, he would of gladly paid me double the rent to stay. Stiff. Jobs done now. They replaced all of the carpets with brand new. Freshly painted everything. All of the fire extinguishers are now fully charged and inspected. All interiors of the warehouse have been pressure cleaned. Exterior looks fantastic. Septics and drains have all been pumped clean. White ant inspection report submitted. All lights have been repaired and functional. 3 x new roller doors installed, each 4m wide by 5m tall. All aircons fully serviced.
So, keys were handed back yesterday, the old place is empty again, and is back on the market looking for a new Tenant. The place has quadrupled since the tenant moved in 4 years ago, but I reckon I'll be struggling to have the rent double. The growth we've experienced from this one property is more than my entire residential property, so it owes me nothing and will always be a favourite.
I'd dearly love to smash the whole thing down, along with the sheds we own next door as well, and build a whopping great office block and install an entire Govt dept for the next 30 years......but that might have to wait a few years. Til then, I'll paddle along with the poxy sheds.
Anyone looking for a shed to rent ?? I'm a nice Landlord - trust me.
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