This past week we had a home broken into in our park. A gun was stolen, along with prescription medications. Turns out the perpetrator was the (juvenile?) son of a resident of mine who is purchasing her home from the park’s former owners.
I would not allow a tenant with a son like this into the park if she were applying for residency, and I think my standards should be the same for residents already in the park.
But I’ve not been able to 100% conclusively establish that it was this juvenile who committed the crimes. Everyone in the park says it was this particular kid, but the police refuse to tell me anything(!) citing ‘privacy reasons.’ The police have cited similar ‘privacy reasons’ in the past regarding a situation with an adult in my park as well.
So, my questions are:
Has anyone had similar experiences with the police refusing to tell you what is going on on your own property?!?
Can/should I confront this juvenile’s mother about this issue? Is it legal for me to evict based on ‘what everyone says’ rather than an official police report? I suppose I could evict her ‘for no reason…’ and just terminate the rental agreement.
We have had an occasion where the police refused to tell us what was going on at our own property - and with yellow police tape all over the place!
We found out that there was an issue because a neighbor (this was a SFH) called us to tell us our tenant had committed suicide at the house. We immediately went there but could find out NOTHING except for what the neighbors knew! It was a Sunday and the police department was actually closed.
On Monday I started making phone calls to the city police department and the Sheriff’s office. They actually told me that they could not release any information to me, even though we owned the property. It was up to the family of the deceased to tell us what happened. We later learned that the woman had put a dresser against the bedroom door, exited the house through the window and hanged herself in the shed in the backyard.
This pretty much shook us. Who would ever expect to have this happen at your property? The story actually continues, since we decided soon after to sell this particular property. Another investor bought it from us, and we went there the day before closing (also a Sunday) to make sure everything was ok. Upon entering the house we found a man living in it!
This man told us he was the “boyfriend” of the woman who had died, and he had been also living there. (We found out that was untrue.) There was no way we could get him out until the police performed an “investigation”. He told us he had no money. Our solution was to go back to the home and offer him $200 cash if he and his possessions were out of the house by 5 pm. He quickly agreed to this. We went to the ATM, got $200 out of our checking account, went to Lowe’s and bought new locks, and returned to have him waiting for his $200. We gave him his cash, Jim put new locks on the doors so he could not get back in, and we closed on the house the next day.
There is no end to investing stories, whether it be mobile homes or SFHs!
I’ve had success contacting the police station (not the actual person who handled the situation) asking for a copy of the police report under the public records act. There is usually a small fee to pay but I have then used the report to issue the appropriate statutory notice to evict. I’m sure things differ from place to place and I know there are “exceptions” in the case of an ongoing investigation or possibly because the person involved was a juvenile. Many times you can Google the public records act for your state online to get a better idea if this may help.
This is how it reads in FL:
119.105 Protection of victims of crimes or accidents.–Police reports are public records except as otherwise made exempt or confidential. Every person is allowed to examine nonexempt or nonconfidential police reports. A person who comes into possession of exempt or confidential information contained in police reports may not use that information for any commercial solicitation of the victims or relatives of the victims of the reported crimes or accidents and may not knowingly disclose such information to any third party for the purpose of such solicitation during the period of time that information remains exempt or confidential. This section does not prohibit the publication of such information to the general public by any news media legally entitled to possess that information or the use of such information for any other data collection or analysis purposes by those entitled to possess that information.
I get the police reports so that I have documentation if I need to use it later to evict a tenant.
You will need the date approx time the event happened. The address of the property and the closest cross streets. The
police reports are some times listed as the cross streets only.
So give them the closest cross streets and closest major cross streets.
The way it works in Long Beach CA is you call a particular number that has the archives of the police reports. You give them the date time address and cross streets. They search the data bank and give you a number. They will many times read to you what the report says. You go to this record department. Usually close to your city hall. You give them the report number and you pay a fee for the report.
If you want to evict for no reason then do so. Personally I will not
base my decisions on hear-say alone. I must have concrete information from a reliable/verifiable source. A police report meets my criteria.
No sorry. I own sticks apartments /multi buildings at the moment.
I always keep my eyes open to opportunity.
I would think that around Hemet, out in that area you could find land to put your mobile on. Which is what I would prefer. I haven’t looked into it tho yet.