Dealing with frustrating items as a new owner

[picassomcp]

I have recently closed on my second park. I have owned my first park for 8 years, and have dealt with issues there but have been able to get through them. This second park and the tenants in it are challenging me a bit. Both parks are located in the same small central MN town. The only 2 parks in this town.

First off, I am struggling to get all tenants to sign a lease with my manager at the new park. Many didn’t even have a lease with the prior owner. I don’t understand why a tenant would wanna be without a lease but my manager has heard many excuses. I have 6 tenants that won’t sign a lease (20% of the tenants, this park is 30 spaces)

Another issue that I am battling at this park is drainage. The water table is high in this town. Many tenants have mentioned that their home shifts (some of this is normal due to frost) and are complaining about their homes settling. Several have asked me to pay for a re-level of their home. I won’t be paying for a re-level, but would like to try to drain some groundwater here if possible to reduce the issue. I’m not exactly sure how I can even do this. I have had an excavator guy out to the park, he suggests raising the road as it appears to have sunk as well and is at a lower elevation than the tenants yards are. His bid is near $75,000. This may help my road issue, but I don’t see it helping the high water table issue. I really only have 1 ditch that I can drain surface water too and not much for slope leading to it. Also the ditch itself is only about a foot deep. The ditch does drain well though. I’m not real sure what I’m gonna do here with drainage, but I do need to do something as my tenants are complaining.

Also, my manager situation. I have to this point kept the manager that the prior owner had in this park. She knows what is going on in the park, but is a bit slow to do anything about the issues here and doesn’t seem to enforce rules or be very direct with the park tenants. She seems to try to calm any fires that come up, but doesn’t do much to prevent them. I’d like to think I could find a better manager, but I don’t want to lose her 6 years of experience at this park, so I am a bit frustrated with this situation. If I didn’t have other irons in the fire, I would try to self manage, and just might revert to this yet.

My manager has recently brought to my attention that a tenant in the park has a live in boyfriend that is not on the lease and has a felony conviction that is drug related. I would like to have him out of the park. He has not caused a problem yet, I’m thinking he has been there for a few years or so and probably won’t just leave on his own willingly. How should I approach this situation?

What is the best way to deal with these above issues? I want so bad to correct them, but am at a loss as how to deal with them. Its funny how my first park just runs all on its own, but this 2nd one has all these issues. Any help is appreciated.

[Noel_S]

My experience has been that you need to pick your battles carefully

Leases: You’ll want to confirm with an attorney, but I document delivery of the lease to each tenant who refuses to sign it. In some states the tenant is then bound by the lease by receiving a copy and choosing to remain on the premises.

Drainage: I’m not an engineer, but I’m skeptical there’s much you can do about high ground water other than live with it. If someone wants their home releveled I would offer to help coordinate with a professional to do the job and bill the tenant back for the cost on a payment plan. If they aren’t willing to pay $50 a month for it then it must not actually be a big deal.

Managers: I would interview a few other potential candidates inside the park or through a craigslist posting and see how they seem to compare to your current manager. If you see someone who looks like a great candidate maybe try them out. If you everyone seems mediocre, then maybe stick with your current.

Bad news boyfriend: if he’s been on the premises for a few years and caused no problems I’d just let things be. If he ever causes any problems or neighbors complain about his behavior I would drop the hammer and immediately threaten to kick out the entire household. Your mileage may vary.

Good luck.

[Greg]

Check with your state codes, you should already know them by heart after 8 years as a landlord. Generally whether a tenant signs or not the lease goes into effect. If this were not the case they would not be required to pay rent . Send them a notice to the effect that signed or not the lease is in effect.

The drainage may possibly be relieved by digging the ditch deeper and placing Big O around the homes if the tenant are willing to pay. I would defiantly not be paying to level homes.

I would be replacing the manager asap or self managing. A manager that is not enforcing the rules is not a manager…get rid of her if you want to turn things around.

If your new park rules state no convicted felons give your tenant a notice to move or have their lease not renewed. If you are going to have rules you must be prepared to inforce them. If you do not want to inforce rules, as in the case of your manager, you should rewrite your park rules and eliminate all rules you are not going to inforce. The rules are not there for your entertainment they are their to protect your business investment.
Make sure all tenants are on M2M leases.