Trespassers, Licensees and Tenants in Probate and Inherited Property, with Daniel Bornstein

0:05 Okay we're gonna stop the music and stop the background noise and jump right into this welcome to Probate Weekly where we get together every Thursday at 4M Pacific time we also get together we and this is also National so we have 7 PM eastern time and then we live stream this on YouTube Facebook LinkedIn x a house I think people might want to watch it and I really appreciate you guys support I'm Bill Gross I'm a practitioner in Los Angeles California and I do this call this podcast video cast for three different reasons one is for me to learn about the business I get a chance to interview some of the best people in real estate some of the best people in probate real estate specifically number two obviously build my business by talking to more people and networking I encourage you if you're watching this live on YouTube or LinkedIn or Facebook go ahead and put your contact info in let's Network I do have the a Facebook group Probate Weekly where we can continue the conversation and network there as well with real estate agents and attorneys and vendors across the country and then three really it's about I think challenging ourselves to improve our skills and learn on a regular basis that I did this because I needed to be held accountable to get together on a regular basis to improve my business it's so easy I think for all of us we're busy we have things to do and actually spend the time to improve yourself and to learn new skills is important and so sometimes some of the guests I have are you know directly attributed to our business sometimes they're a little bit out of our Market but the ideas the principles are the same and so we'll get to that in just a bit a couple things just kind of some housekeeping this program is Probate Weekly and you go to Probate Weekly.com if you want to register and it says regular Zoom call we're going to change that because we've gone to a n non- zooom format now the reason we did that is we found that people weren't interacting as much live more texting so we can do that through YouTube or Facebook but we get

2:08 We don't get the watermark in the bottom right with zoom and we get high def instead of standard defa a little better video content especially since we more people watching this on replay so nowadays if you put the email in we'll send you reminders when we go live as well as we'll send you reminders when the video's up so you can watch it we love to have you do that and then if you scroll down we have a podcast version so it's audio on all those places you get that out apple and Spotify and Google podcast and such and also our YouTube channel you can subscribe there as well now you can get more information about me link tree link tr. Billg gross my name has everything that I'm doing and I just want to point out one thing I'm doing next week is I do a monthly real estate email Master Class you can click on it there and that Master Class is $97 I do one hour while go through how you can increase your interaction with your customer database not one time two times four times or 10 times but 16 times by doubling your database doubling your frequency doubling your interaction with people and doubling your platforms and then not only do you get the hour with me there but I do four follow-up sessions half hour each in small group format where we actually put into action what we talk about on that call so I'd love to have you do that it's $97 feel free to sign up there and really this is because I am constantly coaching agents in this topic I just decided that if I if I put it out there at least paid for my time I can make it worthwhile for people to do that it's a small group setting usually five to 10 people which is great and I think hopefully interactive but also we work together and get the work done to improve our business okay so and normally we do this event we do this via it's an interview format oops pull that out it's an interview format where I bring in people now a couple weeks ago I had on here one of the leading eviction attorneys in Southern California iink Kendall lot and she's a company that I've used numerous times for more complicated evictions and I came to her because I was looking for the Daniel Bornstein who's a leading EV attorney in

4:11 Northern California San Francisco He'll Be Our Guest today and so we'll have a chance to talk to him shortly so he jumps on the call I know he's finishing something up right now okay so last week I talked about 11 ways that you can build get listings as a real estate agent and we and what I wanted to get across there the point that was so important to me at least was to say that there's not just one way to do this business and build your business if you're Realtor® or investor or an attorney and so many companies will advertise that you should either buy data and cold call attorneys cold call petitioners or do Facebook ads to them really a cold methodology but what I laid out I think last week was 11 different ways that you could get listings and in fact each of those 11 ways in my opinion had what I would call sub nites so that those 11 ways really were hundreds of ways if it really broke it down as the ways that you could do business and so I thought I S today with would be an additional 11 ways that you can make money in the probate space whether you are a roasted agent or investor or wholesaler or an attorney or whatever you are the along the way there's multiple ways to and here's the key point I want to make here bring value to your customer and if you're bringing value to your customer then you have multiple ways to get paid now the key to this success in business I believe if you're going to add additional ways streams of income I think is the wrong term because that implies that all that matters the money you receive if you have multiple ways to bring value to your customer what I can assure you is when you're bring value to your customer you're going to get paid and so what I would challenge you to do is not to look for addition way to get Revenue but look for one of these ways that might be an additional way for you to bring value to customers so that they're benefited and in turn you're gonna get paid either you're gonna sell more houses or you're G to get more

6:14 Investments or one of these methods will pay you in income so we're gonna talk about them one by one today and let me see if I can get that stop the share go back add the new share and there we are oh that's not good I need to put this over here let's do that so we moove one second little technical difficulty here present screen present share and voila okay so in the course of being a real estate agent or let's not talk it's not talk about if you're investor but real estate AG on this one you should have a strategy for investing in holding properties if you're out talking to people who have property to sell regularly some of those should be opportunities that you might want to buy and invest in we should buy oops oh no there's our guest and he's saying he can't get in let me fix that problem hold on one second invite here's the link okay that's a problem not sure why that happened that way okay so what I want to say is that go back sorry about the delay here people you should buying investing holding property now I buy and have Investments I mean that's go right now for property not sure if I'm going to keep it not sure if I'm G to rent it not sure if I'm gonna develop it not sure if I'm going to flip it but this should be the mindset that part of your business and this came to me because I had a I had a friend who's a investor wholesaler called me and said I have this problem I had this in contract the buyer back out can you help me and he told me the deal he told me the numbers I said because I knew the market I knew this area really well that's why I'll buy it now I didn't

8:18 Have all the money together I have a I have more than that in cash but I'm not gonna buy it for cash but I know how to get financed I know how to get a hard money loan I know that if I like the deal I can bring other investors in so I know the market well enough to know I can make that deal and I put down the EMD and we're getting ready wave contingencies on a great deal I think the best investment of my career but the key is if you're not talking enough people you don't get these opportunities if you talk to more people you'll get those opportunities and that's the key so I just want to urge you that in part of your real estate practice if you're a wholesaler you should be thinking about how do you talk to enough people so that you have the opportunities for Investments to come up to you number one number two be flipping property and this kind of the opposite I'm probably more likely to do number two but there are times when all you're doing is buying a property and in my case I do lipstick flips I'll buy it clean it up I'll junk it out I'll send in Molly Maids and clean it up shoot it put MLS and sell the property this is common when somebody's selling it and just wants cash and the will and go off market and so you should have the strategy in place and you should be expecting to find at least for me A Deal a year and I'll tell you I didn't do one last year I was very busy last year personal stuff my wife was bounding cancer successfully new grandkid so as a result of all that we ended up I ended up not buying a property last year this year I'm in es already done one and I hope to do a couple so this should be part of your business as well number three do construction to generate business there are people who I know are real estate agents contractors and they focus on probate because many of those houses have been neglected for a long period of time and this is the chance for them to generate construction business get the property in Probate we'll do a rehab we'll fix it up we'll add a bedroom bathroom begin to Market and then you get paid on the construction work now I don't like that personally I'm not a contractor I'm not comfortable with all that part but I know people who do that do that successfully as part of the business okay let's see

10:26 Here I don't see hold it trying to bring in our guest there he is okay you know what I'm going to stop this part of the call and as I mentioned the beginning our a repeat I'm really excited to bring to you guys today because one of the key parts of my business is eting somebody could be a squatter could be a tenant could be a tenant at will it could be a lot of different things and while I don't use him as a client because I'm in Southern California he is in Northern California he is I believe the authority on representing landlords and evictions particularly in Northern California attorney Daniel BN Daniel thanks for coming back to our program my pleasure thanks for inviting me happy to be here and happy belated New Year and I'm glad things are doing well for you and please ask me any questions you have I'm happy to help fantastic so just a couple quick things obviously he's in a different geography and he's not giving us legal advice but we're going to talk about different scenarios and hopefully learn and then learn enough that if you have a situation that makes sense and you're in the arey services you can contact him use them professionally so let's start from the beginning Daniel what geography do you support as far as your legal practice generally throughout the Bay Area reaching up to Northern California but I have offices in San Francisco and Oakland we can radiate outward up to Sacramento and down as low as Santa Cruz but with the onset of different local jurisdictions having different rent control and just cause eviction ordinances it really demands a level of expertise locally in order to be able to handle all the different nuances of landlord genant law and I think that's a really important point you make that's true in Northern California and Southern which is that there's this layering of laws state level county level City level sometimes you have properties that are

12:27 In unincorporated County but the m addresses the city how does that get handled so it's really important when you contact an attorney with questions about a property or you know contract you know those questions you have the legal description you know what city it's in what jurisdiction is in and I think find a an attorney that is an expert in that area rather than just a generalist who can service anywhere in California as a paralegal basically oh absolutely and in fact the protocol that I would have to follow so if you would call me up first of all we all know hopefully that California has State rent control and state just cause eviction rules there are exemptions to that but then if a local jurisdiction has a more restrictive ordinance you follow the local ordinance and so what I often have to do when I do an intake is the first thing I do is I ask where the property is located I then have to ask when it was built then I have to ask is it a multi-unit property is it a single family home is it a single family home with an accessory dwelling unit and then I ask if it's a condo and only then am I able to go through the filtration process and figure out what laws I have to apply and so you want to be very careful you want to have an attorney who is operating in that jurisdiction because they're going to be more amenable and more understanding of the particular laws so if you're in Santa Monica you want an attorney who's handling Santa Monica landlord tenant issues as opposed to your cousin who's an attorney in maybe Palm Springs who's going to help you out because those attorneys are going to be particularly at a disadvantage and May in fact be dangerous because they don't know what they don't know which is part of the issue all the time you know I think that's one of the things so many times real estate agents will recommend an attorney they see do a presentation and there's some great attorneys who do a great job educating our Market which is

14:30 Important it's important role and their but their business in my experience the ones that do the bigger speeches and presentations are often serving really large landlords really large multifamilies is they're more of an eviction Mill and once the case comes to a litigate situation which is more and more they really turn you back and say good luck go find the TR you can help you and so as real estate agents and professionals our job is to vet the situation if a client just needs a eviction Mill that's one level of attorney but when you have heirs and family members that you know are going to fight or they've already contact attorney and executed that's when you need to have an expert in the eviction space in that area and that's where Daniel comes in Northern California and then again the key is to find an expert in those areas I would I would just say and I can add to that is when you ask an attorney hey you do landlord tenant law and you want a particular type of ter termination whether it's an owner move in termination whether it's removal of a squatter whether it's removal of a beneficiary you actually have to ask the attorney how many times do you handle this particular type of termination yeah because that gets down and drills down to whether the person is capable of doing it you want to hire an attorney who can see Over the Horizon of your dispute and be able to remedy it and feel comfortable that they have a comfort level on that t typical F pattern and I also think that we can make their time more valuable or efficient by pregiven information he gave you a whole list of things he asks as a Realtor® I've access to that in the public record information in the MLS there's no reason why I shouldn't have sent that to the attorney ahead of time and have in my hands when I'm on the phone with them to answer those questions when's it built what's the zoning what's the is a single found condo those are things that by working together we are more effective when we just throw out an attorney's name we kind of throw our customers kind back out in the wilderness and they're going to get Perhaps get a good attorney or perhaps get e by a lion

16:33 Along the way so I that analogy just didn't really work that well but I started with it okay so let's talk about you before I go in the details I really like just to ask you one of the things that fascinated me the last time we spoke was your hyperfocus which I think is your strength in this area I got to think when you started this process that was a little bit of a scary decision or did that process develop over time how is it that today you're so hyperfocused in this area I know you're probably too busy to take on other stuff but when you made a decision what was your thought process the thought process was that you could come out of law school and be a civil attorney and immediately help people in this space because there are so many disputes involving landlord tenant matters yeah and once you get comfortable in this area and you do good work the business keeps cascading and cascading and I will have I've been doing this for over 30 years I will have a client who in 20 years ago had a landlord tenant dispute I haven't heard from him in a decade and a half or 20 years and he pops back up and says Daniel you did good work for me at the beginning of 2020 or at the beginning of 2000 I'm coming back I have another H problem wow and the beauty of being a attorney for housing providers is that people come to you they have a thorn BN in their head which is they have a failed relationship that they thought was going to be in good faith a great relationship it failed and until you resolve it they can't really relax and so I'm very proud of being able to resolve disputes and allow people to function post the dispute healthy without that anxiety and then thereafter I'll see them in five years I'll see them in 10 years when they have another one but hopefully it's a long distance between each time you know use a key word that I wouldn't normally ascribe to your Niche which is relationships but I do know when I interviewed the top multifamily operator in the South Bay

18:38 Here in Southern California South Bay is like Torrance Redondo Beach they emphasize so much the vetting of the tenants the communication with the tenants before they move in you know pre-screening and then while the tenants are there relationships that they feel that's what keeps their disputes down their delinquencies down what got them through covid and I think so many times investors wrongly look at tenants as merely post office box checks that should come in and miss the part that if you have a bad relationship you're kind of more open to a legal problem true or false oh I agree the biggest decision is who you allow into your building and sometimes looking at a piece of paper and checking boxes and not actually having that dialogue with a person right is a foolish choice because once you put someone in it's very hard to get them out right and while they're in maintaining a great level of communication with them is really a reflection of treating people with dignity and when you do so you're more likely to get quality Communications quality Behavior because there's a sense of we are in the same boat with people who are interacting because you're providing housing and I want to be a good Citizen and my expectation is that you'll also be a good citizen and you know by and large 85% of the time that's how the experience is but there are fissure points in this relationship that create opportunities for disputes and that's where of course I'm available but my strong preference is to resolve disputes as quickly and as cheaply as possible and you know I will tell you there's two different types of attorney there's one type of attorney who likes disputes and it's like it gets a rise out of them and there's other attorneys who don't like disputes and want to resolve them as quickly as possible I find myself in that second category

20:43 Where I really want to get a dispute resolved so that the client can move on and usually it's good business practice to try to do so as efficiently as possible enlarging a dispute is not a good choice and I would imagine the best resolution of dispute is not to have a dispute in the first place if you can avoid it avoid it and avoiding it as you sort of for sort of intimated is quality relationships at all times especially with those people who are inside your building yeah and treating them with the level of dignity and respect that you would expect if you were in that building and when you do that you engender a environment that reduces the risk of conflict so we're going to get into some specifics here real quick but before we do some quick housekeeping if you're watching this on live stream feel free to put questions in if you're watching on YouTube I see we got a group there Facebook Linked In feel free to put questions there I'm going to catch them live and I'll feed them as and when appropriate as well as feel free to put your networking information there so we can all work together and generate some business I do want to say this is Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday at 4M Pacific time and if you want to sign up go to Probate Weekly.com register here for reminders if you scroll down there's the podcast Version audio version or you can subscribe on YouTube really excited to have a returning guest Daniel Bornstein law from Northern California I you know I will say he is the authority on evictions in Northern California and I' I followed him pretty closely and watch his blog and in the media and things he does he's just a fantastic resource I'm really excited to have him here again so it's Bornstein law.com if you want to reach out to him and we'll have other contact information in the description below when we're done today you can continue the conversation weekly.com on Facebook we have about 3,700 members if you're looking for referrals for agents or attorneys around the country great place to ask for it you're also welcome to post your own content Courtney Rollins we help him build his YouTube channel feel free to post your content here as well Kevin bmel as well does

22:45 That feel free to put your probate related content to help you build your business and then if you want more of what I do I'm at Linktree grub and I want to point out next week we're having our real estate email master class I get together and do this about once a month it's $97 is a full hour that lead in a small group and then we have four 30 minute follow-up sessions and the goal here is to increase your touching with your past client database people you know best 16 times not just 10 times like Brant Cardone says but 16 times and you have a money back guarantee on that so love to see that's actually next week on Wednesday the 21st is the next version of that okay so jel let to go through kind of different you know definitions of problems and maybe kind of get a little overview of what some of the options are so the one that the name that people use most often is and is probably overused for situations not appropriate is a squatter so legally what's a squatter and then what are the opportunities or options for a landlord to remove somebody who's squatting in their property yeah so the word squatter doesn't really tell me enough about that person for me to determine what you can and can't do if there's a burglar who broke into your unit or is a trespasser then you may be able to call the police and have them arrested however here's the problem if you call a local police officer and you say hey there's someone who's inside my unit who did not have permission to be there and the police officer shows up at the door rings the doorbell and the person says look I have I have writes here and shows them a bogus piece of paper that says that they have a landlord relationship the police officer is trained to treat that matter as a civil matter and suggest you hire an attorney to handle the llord tenant eviction and so that's really frustrating when you have a situation where someone did not have a landlord tenant relationship and just has camped into the unit because they took

24:48 Advantage of maybe the vacancy my general suggestion is if you have someone who broke into your unit call 911 and say hey there's an act of burglary going on someone broke into the unit and the squad cars will come it will be more of a scene but you're likely to get them removed as opposed to having the police officer say to you hey it's a civil matter right now if someone's been in your unit actively for five six months and you've done nothing about it then that may not be a trespasser anymore may be characterized somewhat differently and if they added their name to utility bills you got yourself a bigger Pro problem in that situation that Pro that person probably we would consider the person maybe a license someone who had de facto permission to be there and then you have to resend permission they're not a tenant they're a licy you resend permission by writing a formal letter resending the right to occupy and if they're still there after you res sended permission then you have to file a lawsuit and that's typically no different than family members who have a child who's not doing well an adult child and they offer them the use of a house that they own right not a tenant because there's no landlord tenant contract there's no lease agreement the person is because of your family relationship being given the opportunity to live in a house and that person never got their life together and they have been enjoying the benefit of that house without any sort of expectation of compensation and they continue to live there until you're so frustrated that you want them out in that situation they're not a tenant they don't have tenant rights they're a liced they had permission to be there and you have to resend permission and thereafter if after you sent them a recision of their right to occupy you they still are in the unit

26:54 Then you would file what's called a forcible detainer action or an unlawful detainer action and it's a different type of eviction but the process is pretty much the same so we have a trespasser we have someone who burglarized the place then we have people who have licens to occupy the premises who are not tenants and then we have tenants so let's go back a little bit okay we've identified that let's take a one time so the key on the trespasser is if you catch them day one and the police show up and they've broken in and there's crack pipes you know the typical scenario there's crack pipes maybe there's some blankets maybe there's utilities are off maybe there's a little hot plate or something in there the police are open to in La now postco removing them but if they've been there for five months and they're and they're living in the beds and they're living in it looks like somebody's living in the property that's the lense problem they're going to pretend they leny or they could pretend to be or they could pretend to have a lease and that so the key there is get them out and secure the property to keep them out would be how to deal with the squatters up front right yeah and in fact if you find someone who broke into the premises and you know it's someone broke into the premises you don't have to necessarily wait for the police you could basically wait for them to be out of the unit and then turn around and secure it up and keep people out it's just a cat Mouse game right and I also have a property management company I'm overseeing a couple buildings that are vacant and it is continuously a problem with having to board up a place and police it and if you don't police your property you're going to have people who are going to find a way in and therein lies the difficulty and that's why we do want to you know make sure that if you have a vacant unit you're intermittently responsible for making sure that it doesn't become a place of habitation for people and I had this in a commercial

28:57 Property where people broke in and called the police they got them out they came back the next night and they were systematically removing copper and different valuable material from the proper it was a large commercial property the property went down in value from about $3 million to 1.4 Because by the time they're done the electrical shot the plumbing shot and also a buyer is concerned about you know getting them out and them coming back or retribution or whatever so again the key is if you can get them out up front but you got to secure the property not so simple you know we boarded up we put fences up gates up we had security companies you have to really jump on it early my client in this case just was too slow each level we kept we kept kind of following the intensity so okay so that's the typical we think of as a squad or some you breaks in or comes in illegally now the licensing you mentioned is very common and probate right because parents have one son one daughter never launched never left may have been the caregiver for the parent and that then adds to their sense of entitlement right I took care of Mom took care of dad for decades therefore I'm entitled to live here for free forever I gave up my career to do this and there's two or three other heirs who might be entitled to say well no the house is onethird mine or two-thirds ours and we want to sell it without you so do you get involved in those cases and what's that process you mentioned the leny you're sending the license and then you have a lawful detainer process what's the process like to get them removed so I do handle this quite a bit and I have a great deal of resources of probate attorneys trust and state attorneys who will come to me and say Daniel I've got a I've got a beneficiary in a unit right the other family members would like to sell it the beneficiary is going to receive the acred benefit of the sale but the bigger issue for that beneficiary is they don't need they don't have a place to leave to go and they've had a good run so they don't want to cooperate in that situation the administrator of the estate can hire me and I will send the beneficiary a letter

31:01 Saying you need to leave your right to occupy has rescinded and if they don't leave then we file a lawsuit and that's usually a 60 I would say two to four month process after the lawsuit's filed generally it results in the person vacating and usually if they're a beneficiary I try to explain to them that you are shooting yourself in the foot by camping in this building you're actually impeding your ability to maximize value out of the estate and two you do this long enough you may end up losing some cred some aspect of your beneficial interest because of what you've done to the estate so I'm usually able to finesse something to get a vacancy yeah and just to elaborate a little bit on what you just said so what you're saying is potentially while they would benefit from wi through to sale the property in some cases they might be liable for all the expense of getting them removed and all any losses and any marketing losses because the property and as a result of that's to come out of their side they're going to pay much more than they would otherwise have to pay if they moved out and helped support a timely sale yeah and it's a real tense situation where you have family members and one brother is letting the family down because you're at this point where they need to be cooperative and make a move and the family believes that they've already spent a great deal of resources of the family by living there for free and they still don't want to cooperate it's ugly but you know generally speaking you're able to recover possession of the premises and if you're not and the family decides to sell with the brother in there then that's an opportunity for an investor because they can buy the property cheaper and then hire me to resend the right to occupy because the person's not a tenant and I do that quite a bit as well where family members don't want to address the issue and they sell the property at a reduced price point classic movie where this comes up every time I watch the movie One my

33:05 Favorites all time is being there with Peter Sellers and he plays the part of a of a butler for a very wealthy man in New York and it's a funny movie worth watching classic but there's a scene where the probe attorneys come into the house because they know that seeden passed and they didn't know he was there and they ask him what's intentions are and he basically because he's just not smart he just walks out the door I'm thinking the attorneys must have celebrated the I just walked out the door without cash for keys no negotiations no money that doesn't really happen in real life in real life that guy's getting somebody telling them hey you can get 10 20 $20,000 $50,000 this was a you know an estate home it could have got you who knows how much but anyhow worth watching that moment in time where the TR look at each other and are high-fiving each other but let me also bring up this nuance the decision to treat someone as a lense is a fork in the road because if you choose to call them a licy and say that they're not a tenant you've got to be very careful because if you choose that route and you're wrong and they prove that they're a tenant you lose your case and oftentimes we think of a tency as someone who has a written lease paid a security deposit pays monthly rent but that's not always the case the definition of a tenant under certain jurisdictions is in exchange for the right to occupy the premises it can be work for hire it can be paying utility bills it can be very low threshold and so oftentimes you can get into a dispute as to whether the person has a tency or whether they have a leny it's easier to transition someone who is a leny out of a premises than a tenant and also a beneficiary of an estate can also be a tenant if they have a written lease and they're paying rent they are both a beneficiary and a tenant and they have a lot of control especially if you're dealing with a just cause eviction

35:08 Jurisdiction such as Santa Monica San Francisco Berkeley Oakland or what have you so you really need the Consulting of an attorney to figure out what their status is right and once you make that leap of faith if you're proven wrong then you've got to start the process over so the those are the more common cases and then there are more common niches and then the standard case would be a tenant and you know somebody inherits a property and there's a tenant who might be in violation maybe they're not paying rent they stopped paying rent for three months or six months because they know the owner died and they feel like they that's their free ride or whatever and they'll say the owner hasn't taken care of the property and I had to take care of it so what are some of the common problems and solutions when you do have a Bonafide tenant with a real rent agreement in the property yet they're trying to take advantage situation and not pay well I having done this for 30 years have seen everything but every once in a while I get surprised the Lost lease agreement when there's a transition is often very helpful for a tenant who casually doesn't have a lease and there's a new owner and the Tenant starts sending you reduced the rent payments and there's no history of what the rent payments are one thing I will say one solution that I often suggest to people is when you're purchasing a property and there's rent debt that has accumulated before you became the owner is part of the purchase escrow have the seller assign you the right to collect the debt that has accumulated because if you have that debt and you know it's five months of rent debt at $2,000 a month you become the owner you write them a letter say be advised I'm an asse of the femon debt that you haven't paid please honor

37:12 Before the 15th of H March please pay the $10,000 if not I'll formally demand it and then you can formally demand it and you recoup that fund so as a buyer you want to always have the assignment of the rent debt that has accumulated that hasn't been paid if it's discernable and knowable one of the common practices in selling property that's rented is tiptoeing around the tenant and so we talked in the beginning about the importance of relationship but now you're buying a property with somebody pre-existing and so you can ask for copies of the agreements and the rent history and the expenses but it seems to me if you don't talk to the tenant you don't really or somebody hasn't talk to the tenant you don't really know you're getting so would you advise in the case of somebody who's buying a property maybe a two or three threx fourplex with a couple T in already what would you advise them as the best procedures to protect themselves by buying the property great question I mean buying a property without knowing who's in there and really getting a feel for the person is a leap of faith yeah because you know people who are not sophisticated can end up having misery in their life because they bought a property and they didn't realize they have a outlier of a personality who's going to make themselves miserable and they're not ready for that right generally speaking you want to have a lease agreement you want to have a completed ten and a stopple you want to have clarity about whether there are any existing disputes and you know you're welcome to do social media and find out about the person if you're really uncomfortable hire a private investigator to do a database search a public record database search you can find a lot of information about it what you have to understand is this a seller who wants to sell a property may try to mute the tension that has existed between the seller and the Tenant because if they know that this is going to be an acrimonious relationship that's going to scare buyers away right and so oftentimes you don't know how bad it is

39:17 Until after the fact because the seller is not going to disclose it because will affect marketability and value of that property because a property value is not just replacement it's rent roll cash flow and also who you have inside there and how much misery they're going to cause or how wonderful they're going to be because that is a variable that you have to consider excuse me Diana asks is this being recorded yes this is on YouTube you can go to episodes. Probate Weekly.com you can see all the episodes including this one on recording and Cass is asking what does licensed title mean I don't think I heard you say that phrase LIC I didn't say title I said license a license agreement a license is where someone has permission to be in the premises and by virtue of you giving them permission you can always resend permission to occupy that's distinctly different than if they have a legal tency where they have a contract and they're paying rent and it's a formal agreement that's a tenant so we have different categories we have the trespasser we have a licensed and we have a tenant and knowing what you have is vital to knowing what you can and can't do and what hamstrings you have in how you handle that post-p purchase relationship and I think the way I try to think remind myself those three statuses is the there's people who don't have permission to be in the property at all but are there people who had who had permission but that permission may have expired or you can terminate it and they people have a legal contract establishes their permission and you need to kind of work within the form of that contract as well correct and it can get very complicated and very cumbersome right one simple example is a resident manager right a resident manager who has given the right of occupancy as part of their employment relationship is a ly and typically in the employment relationship if you

41:22 Terminate the employment relationship you can ask them to leave because their only lenses however if the resident manager as part of their resident manager position was paying rent when you terminate them they go back to their tency and that's where it can be cumbersome wow so it can be really complicated suffice it to say when you're in a situation where you're trying to discern what the status of the person is go and talk to an attorney who has comfort in this area and they can ask you the right questions and then you make a choice of what category and then you act accordingly one of the I think common Mis misperceptions of landlords they don't ever read the contract that they signed to their tenant and oftentimes those contracts give them the right to do periodic inspections of a property and or show the property and I see the default conditions I see are giving notice 24 hours in advance not sitting an appointment or getting permission and so I think this obviously gets down to the relationship right if you're if you're the owner and you have a good relationship with the tenant they're going to work with you a little bit if you have no relationship it's hard to enforce your rights like you can say all you want I have the right to come to the property and inspect it but that right might cost you and particularly in a probate where you have maybe an owner who's deceased and has been vacant for months so how do you advise owners of property when they're buying as far as those rights you have the right to see the property the right to inspect the property obviously you're going to recommend they see all of them if they can and how about and also enforcing those rights when you're an owner of a property maybe you've inherited it how do you go about and how important are those rights to maintain very important to maintain I'm dealing with all sorts of issues of access if a owner doesn't have keys how to handle not being able to access the building in an Emer

43:27 Owners who are buying post forclosure properties with occupants who they don't know are in there but they got what they believe to be a good price but they haven't seen the inside I have different approaches generally you do have per California law as an owner the right to access a unit upon 24 hours notice as long as you post it and as long as you're not using it to harass but here you can post a notice if you don't have keys and the Tenant is not going to let you in you got yourself a pickle and I have people saywell I'll get a locksmith to open up the door I'm like I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with you getting a locksmith to break open a door simply because you don't have a key what I recommend is a different approach so for instance let's assume you bought a property and you don't have keys and you've asked a tenant for keys and they still won't give you keys and you don't have a written lease agreement well under California law you have the right to enter but if you can't enter Because tenant is not allowing you to enter then what do you do what I recommend you do is as follows go to a locksmith and have them pre-cut keys to a new lock deliver the pre-cut keys with a letter to the tenant saying we are delivering you pre-cut keys to a lock that will be installed in 72 hours be advised we're entitled to make an alteration to the premises we own and we're entitled to do so because in an emergency we want to have access to the proper property and we are not doing anything to harass but other than simply have keys to a building that we own you give them the keys first then you change the locks and therefore you cannot be accused of a lockout because you preg gave them the keys W that's one approach now if you have a recel citrin tenant who's looking for a fight there isas a solution is after you install the new lock they turn around and replace it with their old lock or they drill out the cylinder but that cat and mouse gem is always available to people but the solution of

45:32 Delivering keys that are already pre-cut for a new lock is what generally serves the purpose of you gaining access and remember you post a proper 24hour notice you're allowed to go in you don't have to wait for the tenant to give you permission right but as you indicated before we want to have great relationships with people right we want to come into a unit because we want to inspect it because we have to keep the place in habitable condition we're not there to spy we're not there to do anything except for make sure it's a safe wonderful space for a tenant to flourish and if it needs repairs we need to do it if we need to make sure carbon monoxide detector smoke detectors are functioning we go in we don't do it once a month I like to do it at least twice a year or I like to do it if there's a need for repair other than that I want people to enjoy themselves and only enter the unit when it's necessary I had a buyer once who when he was investig the property determine that particular tenant with low rates longterm service had like an accumulated a family about eight people living in a two-bedroom apartment which was by city code unlawful right there's limits how many people can live in a property from a health point of view because there's only so much plumbing and water and those kinds of things and so his strategy was to buy the property and to verify that there are more people living there and then to file a complaint and use that as a way to kind of Leverage them out and I said you know you're really you're just really cruising for bruising there because just like you can start with legal Warfare so can they and it just seems to me by coincidence perhaps in probate court on the same floor as most the probate departments in LA county is unlawful detainer courts like it's like across the hallway at the far end but it just seems there I see constantly attorney from attorneys from nonprofits or social action organizations it seems like any tenant who goes to court is

47:35 Gonna be approached by an attorney who for free is going to serve them and you're really going to end up in war so how even if you have the legal right to file how much should a an owner be prepared if they think they're just G to bully somebody legally how much should they be prepared to face resistance that's equal to a stronger well in Northern California by and large tenants get access to free legal representation and a sharp landlord practice will create risk for you and remember it's not a mass problem not two plus two equals four and therefore you win the case and therefore you recover possession in a situation where you have overcrowding well you also have tennis rights to be part of an integrated family right and instead of believing that law is like a math problem where there's only one answer remember there are competing narratives yes it could be overcrowded on the other hand if they're all family members are you really likely to displace a family who has five kids and two adults when they're struggling in a town that's Progressive It's Tricky and so oftentimes I'm having to caution people that what you think is going to happen isn't in fact how it's going to happen which is avoid the dispute if you bought this building because a seller didn't know what to do with an overcrowded unit and you bought the building for a quarter million dollars less than what it would be worth vacant take $25,000 and offer it to that family to transition them out and you've avoided the risk of them going to an attorney and you've got habitability issues you've got warrant you've got leaks you've got rodent infestation you've got what have you're smart you're using money to make money you're not using money to have a dispute and when you find an attorney who's looking to make your life easier by maximizing value out of your real estate

49:37 Investments by being smart and not you know not looking for the dispute but avoiding it that's where you have a good relationship and you know as you see in Southern California with people having free representation it becomes very expensive very timec consuming and you wish sometimes you hadn't got into that dispute because you don't know how to get out of it right and it's you buy a building that's overcrowded and all of a sudden you go very aggressive with one family and all of a sudden a nonprofit attorney finds out that there's actually an unpermitted unit that's been you've been collecting $2,000 a month on they called the department of building inspections and now you lost a unit because it's not legal or you have to now displace the people temporarily to legalize the unit which is going to cost you a couple hundred, so in your decision to be aggressive you actually created a target for yourself you know I'm a affiliate member of the of the bar nationally and then a couple local jurisdictions just to read and understand attorneys because typically they're my clients and I'll say this after reading chat rooms and the American Bar Association magazine you would never want to have to go in front of a judge and be judged assuming and be judged ferly as the owner of property it just I'm sure it happens and I'm not a pessimist by my nature I'm one though to eliminate risk the last thing you would want to do is be in Los Angeles or San Francisco in front of a judge even if you're right even if you have all the paperwork the last thing you want to be is that the owner of the property trying to get a judge to agree with you against some tenant because it's just the wave of the ocean is moving against you just it just is well the Optics of displacement of people in housing during postco and during a housing crisis that we have in California it's really suggestive that you try to

51:40 Resolve your case and out of a 100 cases I will have maybe two will end up in a trial 98% will resolve and the goal is to accomplish the goal which is usually recovery of possession of the unit voluntarily and using money to accomplish that is good business for you because otherwise you're using the money to go to trial and you don't know how it's going to play out now as a probate focused real estate agent you know most of the business is residential but increasingly more and more is commercial industrial retail space multif family so how is the different laws of evictions obviously we can't get into all the laws and all the details but just kind of as an overview how difficult is it to remove let's say tenants who aren't complying aren't paying rent in a commercial space versus residential but generally speaking there's less protections for businesses that aren't paying their rent than tenants who aren't paying their rent because residential tenants have habitability warranty of habitability protections whereas res commercial tenants typically do not and so it is generally easier to recover possession for a month-to-month termination of a commercial tenant than a termination of a residential tenant however I want to caution you when a commercial tenant has a viable business in their space and you try to recover possession and they know that's going to destroy their business they will fight and fight to preserve their business because it's not simply about the commercial space it's about destroying their livelihood right and so you have to be smart about that as well and also you have to tuck in your pride because sometimes keeping someone in a unit despite the fact that you have

53:45 Friction is good business because you have cash flow coming and for commercial businesses right now where a tenant is hard to come by in certain parts of California with the collapse of office space with the retail collapse with restaurants going out of business if a tenant who's paying you $112,000 a month comes to you and asks you for a rent reduction to 8,000 so they can keep their business going and you say no and they give you back the keys only for you to have 12 months of a vacancy and then you're new tenant is now paying you 7,000 because you couldn't find a market rate tenant anymore you would have you've worked with that tenant so there's more working with tenants in a business component right you've got to be smart not aggressive I had a case where it was happening probate as well where it was a vacant lot that was being used for commercial purposes and it was a hazard it was wood pallets it was a fire hazard been tagged the area and my client want to get rid of them to sell the property and they had a very low income and I try to explain to my client the problem is that it's cheaper for him to pay attorney's fees to fight in an unwinable case than it is to move and Pay Market rent he was paying like 1,500 a month and the market rent was 6,000 and so obviously the tenant figured well I'll just pay the attorney 3,000 a month and just tell as long as you can keep me here I rather pay you $3,000 because if I move I'm gonna have to pay you know 6,000 and it's just you're so right it's a business decision you have to look at this and oftentimes the relationship can keep you from making a business mistake that's going to bite you back in this case we worked with him we gave him time to find his space he found a space we were lucky because it was a it was a hazard these pallets were legally a fire hazard so we had the city was not going to be sympathetic they were going to force them out one way the other but absent that I think that guy would stay there forever I think as long as he pays legal fees and you have a sharp attorney versus a not sharp attorney they could

55:49 Be there forever perhaps so okay well look Daniel I always learned so when I have you I really appreciate on beh of everybody in the call and he's going to watch this I appreciate taking time with us sharing with us I also you know watch your blog post and I've seen you on YouTube and I know you're an advocate for property rights or advocate for owners but I think also an advocate to do it in a professional standard way and try to raise the standards rather than just bully people out so thank you so much for time today I really appreciate you being with us no problem my pleasure and anytime invite me and I'll be here it's a privilege to be able to share my ideas and Thoughts with you and my experience so thank you very much thank you and again it's Bornstein law is the firm Bornstein doaw is the website and he has all his information picture him and his staff members and such he has a lot of great content if you're interested in following what's happening in the market with evictions in property particularly nor California click on his YouTube when you're done with mine and he has some great information that's how I found him initially was I was really looking for a voice of expertise in this area rather than just somebody who was going to talk about it and just a reminder again this is Probate Weekly you can continue the conversation on Facebook the group is Probate Weekly with 3700 members feel free to post your content there you can send up for reminders at Probate Weekly.com it take you to this landing page your email address in we'll send your reminders and links to the YouTube regularly or the weekly podcast via audio if you prefer Spotify or apple whatever and you can find me at link tree link. Billg gross love to have you continue to work together there and one of the things I have going on next week is my real estate email Master Class where I help agents and small business build their database of email to reach out to people and increase their contacts by 16 times so thank you so much for being on this is Probate Weekly we do this every Thursday 4M Pacific Time 7M Eastern you can watch the episodes at episodes. Youtube.com I'm sorry episodes. Probate Weekly.com thank you so much again

57:52 Daniel and everybody the call today and make today your Best Day Ever thanks so much