If I Had Done This Where I Work, I Would Have Been Fired

I would like to tell you I make this stuff up. But, I can't.

So, Mrs. Martin's lease is up at the end of March. I am not renewing it for a myriad of reasons, including the mortgage is owned by the same bank that is foreclosing on another property. They have threatened to attach a lien to one of our homes for the foreclosure. They can only do that if the mortgage is with them.

We bought at the wrong time. We are selling at a time undesirable for us. The home has a two and a half year old roof and a 6 month old HVAC system. The tenant is clean. I would like to tell you she pays on time but, no. I would have let her stay, despite being late, because she didn't want to move and I didn't want to deal with an empty house. But even if she did leave, the house rents easily and I make a profit.

Anyway, because I have to sell the house, it certainly would be ideal to sell it to the tenant. At least that's my line of thinking. And, it would save me some extra fees because I would only have to pay the property management company for their portion (3%). My contract with the property management company is set up so they can sell the house to the tenant if I so desire. And, until about 10 a.m. today, I desired.

I sent an e-mail to Ms. Amy. She works at the property management company. I like her well enough and find her to be responsive when I call. I am told I have an official contact at the office, but that person--who is in charge of managing a gazillion minus two homes--has never once contacted me. So, currently Ms. Amy is my only contact and for the past few weeks she is my current source of stress. But, that is for another, completely unrelated blog.

Back to this nonsense. So, I wrote an e-mail to Ms. Amy and asked her to forward it to the tenant. I offered the home to the tenant for sale at a complete fire-sale price, even if I add in what I would owe the property management company.  I said I would like the sale to be completed by April 15 and we can part friends. For this to happen she would need to provide a prequalification letter no later than Feb. 29, 2016 and at that time Legal Owl or a representative from the property management company would write up the agreement. I also put in the e-mail if she wanted representation, I would not pay for it. But, if she wasn't interested in buying, then she needed to get her stuff out by the end of next month.

After I sent this e-mail I heard nothing back. I e-mailed Ms. Amy, who gave me some weird song and dance about how someone else is handling this particular tenant. But didn't answer my question: was my offer delivered to the tenant? I sent a second e-mail to Ms. Amy. This time she wrote me back. She said as a licensed real estate agent I should know better than to "work around" the property management company I am contracted with. So, no. She did not offer it for sale.

Let's get this straight: I have the tenant's email address and phone number. Heck, I even have the tenant's physical address. If I were going to "work around" the property management company, I WOULDN'T HAVE ASKED THE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY TO OFFER THE HOME FOR SALE TO THE TENANT ON MY BEHALF.

Instead of pointing out the logic to Ms. Amy, bless her heart, I just told her I would be taking the home out of management April 1st or whenever the tenant moved out. Which ever came first. I would have a representative pick up the keys. And then I turned around and sent my conversation with Ms. Amy to Luigi--so he can see what his employees are doing. All I wrote was, "For the record, I gave your company first rights to sell this house."