Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog
I Think I Discovered a Fraudulent Tenant, What Can I do?
Drafted by Attorney Jennifer Hayden of Petrie + Pettit S.C. Identity theft or fraud for the purposes of renting an apartment is growing issue. We have heard there are social media pages dedicated to selling fraudulent identities to individuals specifically to rent apartments as well as sites that will produce fake paystubs, bank account information, credit reports and checks or money orders, along with the more traditional methods such as ...
GUEST POST: Wisconsin Rental Income Standards and Section 8 Rent Vouchers
Guest post from Tim Ballering - justalandlord.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From a Fair Housing perspective, you probably must account in some manner for the value of the Section 8 payment when calculating an income multiplier guideline.I’ve read of the argument made in other jurisdictions that if an owner is using a rent multiplier, that it should be on net rent to the tenant. This is probably not a workable answer for either tenant ...
HUD Issues New Guidelines On The Use of Criminal Records In The Rental Screening Process
On April 4, 2016 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) dropped a bombshell on owners and managers of residential rental properties in the U.S.HUD's Office of General Counsel published a 10 page guide entitled "Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records by Providers of Housing and Real-Estate Related Transactions." This guide essentially changes the rules as we ...
GUEST POST: The Benefits of Tenant Screening
This is a blog post drafted by the American Apartment Owners AssociationAlthough taking time to screen rental applicants thoroughly may not seem necessary, failing to do so may cost you considerable time and money later. If you just accept money from an applicant ready to put down the deposit today, it could backfire on you. If you simply approve a tenant after verifying his or her employment because you are ...
Screening Prospective Tenants Is a Must --- That Includes Commercial Tenants
Those of you that have attended my seminars or read prior blog posts of mine are well aware that in my opinion screening prospective tenants is the single most important part of landlording.These sentiments apply to commercial tenants as well as residential tenants. Just because your tenant is a corporation, LLC or some other business entity does not make make them legitimate.A corporate tenant can also fail to pay ...
New CCAP Bill Introduced
A new CCAP bill (Senate Bill 526) was introduced on January 30, 2014 by Senators Grothman, Taylor, Schultz, Harris, and Risser. A public hearing has already been held.Current law allows for any criminal charge to remain on CCAP even if the charge was dismissed.This new bill, if passed, would require the Director of CCAP to remove a case involving a misdemeanor or felony from CCAP within 120 days ...
CCAP Is Under Attack Again
When Senator Marlin Schneider lost re-election a few years ago, I thought that the attacks against Wisconsin's Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) would disappear. Well they did -- for a while. But Senator Lena Taylor along with Representatives Goyke, Sargent, Kessler, Hebl and Pope haven taken up the torch and are trying to prevent the public from accessing CCAP once again via Senate Bill 234/Assembly Bill 253.These two bills were ...
Top 10 Pitfalls That Landlords Should Avoid
Those of you that missed the last AASEW membership meeting on Monday, April 15, 2013, missed a great meeting and a great presentation. The featured presenter was John "Dr. Rent" Fischer, a Wausau-area landlord and rental property manager, who spoke to a packed house that Monday. John's presentation was dynamic, educational and at times pretty darn funny.With John's permission, I am providing you with a link to ...
East Side Landlord "Think Small" Seminar Event on March 13th
Make plans to attend the fourth East Side Landlord Think Small event hosted by UWM! This event is free and open to all interested landlords, with a special focus on Milwaukee's East Side.This spring's event promises to be very engaging with featured presenter Attorney Tristan Pettit, who focuses his practice on representing landlords and management companies in landlord-tenant law matters.Topics will include screening potential tenants and recent updates to landlord-tenant laws ...
HUD Issues New Rule On "Discriminatory Effect" a.k.a Disparate Impact
HUD has issued a new Fair Housing “disparate impact” rule that may cause problems for landlords during the screening process. The new rule creates a new provision entitled “Prohibiting Discriminatory Effects” which defines “discriminatory effect” as situations in which a facially neutral (i.e. not discriminatory) housing practice can become discriminatory if it actually or predictably has an effect on a group of persons that are members of a protected ...
CCAP Committee's Recommendation To Change Wisconsin's Expungment Laws Shot Down
Last year Wisconsin's Joint Legislative Council created a Special Committee On The Review of Records Access of Circuit Court Documents – what I affectionately referredto as the CCAP Committee. Landlords were very fortunate that in the end the committee made no recommendations to change or alter information on CCAP or limit its access by landlords or any other group. The committee's sole recommendation was to call for the ...
You Will Not Want To Miss AASEW's Fourth Annual Landlord Boot Camp on Saturday Feb. 25th
Landlording can be pretty complex, with a seemingly never ending myriad of paperwork, rules, landlord-tenant laws and simple mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars.The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's Fourth Annual “Landlord Boot Camp” can help you navigate these treacherous waters and teach you how to run your properties with greater profit and less hassles.I have given similar landlord-tenant law seminars to fellow attorneys, landlords, and property manager ...
Update on Landlord Pre-Emption Bill
It has been awhile since I updated everyone on the pro-landlord legislation that is being addressed in Madison. Senate Bill 107 (SB 107) -- referred to as the Landlord Pre-Emption Bill -- has been passed by the Wisconsin Senate and is currently being reviewed by the House this term (AB 155).You may recall that SB 107 prohibits any municipality from enacting any ordinance that limits a ...
Free Landlord-Tenant Law Seminar In West Allis on March 31, 2011
I will be presenting a seminar for the West Allis Landlord Training Program on Thursday, March 31, 2011 from 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm. This seminar is sponsored by the West Allis Police Department and is open to the public at no cost.I will be speaking on two specific areas:1. Rental Documents -- specifically what rental documents you should be using with your tenants to protect yourself such as:
Rejecting A Rental Applicant: The Do's and Dont's
UPDATE - APRIL 15, 2016 ---- Please review my April 15, 2016 blog post on HUD's new guidance regarding the consideration of a rental applicant's criminal history in the screening process as it may impact or alter the information in this blog post.Let's face it, most landlords would prefer to never have to reject a rental applicant. It would be great if every application that we received from ...
The Topic of CCAP Restriction Is Back!
As the followers of my blog well know, many of my posts have centered on State. Rep. Marlin Schneider's attempts to restrict CCAP access to the public. Restriction of CCAP will greatly affect landlords as CCAP is one of the best avenues to conduct background checks on prospective tenants. Here is a link to my prior posts on this topic.Well, Rep. Schneider and his Special Commottee On Review of ...
State Supreme Court To Jump Into The Debate Over Restricting Information on CCAP
The Journal Sentinel published an article on Saturday, March 13, 2010 entitled "Supreme Court Considers Limits To Online Court Records." It appears that while landlords have pretty much quashed Rep. Schneiders attempts to pass legislation on the restriction of infromation posted on CCAP, that the State Supreme Court will be reviewing the issue in the near future.Patrick Marley's article states that Rep. Schneider did not believe his CCAP ...
Rep. Marlin Schneider Amends AB-340 (CCAP Bill)
On December 2, 2009, Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids) made an amendment to AB-340. Referred to as Assembly Substitute Amendment 1 to 2009 AB 340, this revised bill essentially would create two versions of the CCAP database. Schneider's amendment appears to be -- based on its timing at least -- a partial response to the Apartment Association of SE Wisconsin's critical response to a memo that Schneider sent to other members of the Wisconsin ...
What Questions Should You Ask An Applicant's Current and/or Prior Landlord During The Screening Process
Screening applicants/potential tenants is the single most important element of landlording in my opinion. As I have mentioned in prior posts, if you properly screen your applicants you will have a better chance of finding a good tenant that pays rent on time and does not abuse your investment property.Landlords should require each adult person to completely fill out a written rental application. After you have all this good information about your applicant you now need to confirm that info. ...
How To Really "Read" A Person's Drivers License
I always enjoy learning information that will assist my clients and myself when screening potential new tenants. Based on my review of the Analytics for my blog, readers also appreciate this info because my post on the Social Security Number Validator consistently ranks as one of the most viewed posts each month.While co-presenting at the City of Milwaukee and UWM's Landlord Training Program this past October I learned that a person's drivers license ...