7/12/20: Seg 2 - Political Rant - Eviction Notices Can Now Get You Sued!

0 (3s):
You were personal coach and trusted attorney. Andrew Lieb help you get started in building your real estate empire. Grow your self confidence. Find your grit and get the skills needed to dominate the real estate world. This is real estate investing with Andrew Lieb. Hey there. How you all doing? We're back. We're back. We're back. We're back. We're back before the break. I was talking about one Oh five us adults move due to COVID-19 or know someone who did this is the story of our lifetime right now.

Lauren Lieb (39s):
Well, what's interesting is that was from the Pew research center. There was a survey done in June and they did close to 10,000 us adults all over the country. And they found that one out of five people moved or know somebody that moved. I think that number greatly went up because I don't know if you all know this, but I know a handful of people who are moving right now.

Andrew Lieb (60s):
I only know a handful. I know so many more Lauren, I got on a call earlier today with a guy. He has multiple people trying to buy his house out in the Hamptons and he has a tenant. He just put in it and the tenant won't let anyone in. And he's like, I'm getting offers like I've never seen before. It's time. It's time. It's time.

Lauren Lieb (1m 16s):
There is bidding Wars everywhere. There's bidding Wars in Westchester. There's bidding Wars in Connecticut and New Jersey on long Island in the Hamptons. We're talking about people at full ask, if not higher and cash, that is what's going on right now, everywhere.

Andrew Lieb (1m 30s):
According to Pew, they're saying there's a bunch of reasons why this is happening. I would say first and foremost, people want to reduce risk of contracting the virus. And I would say that when you're in the city and you're living in close proximity, you have a much higher risk. So what are we saying? I was actually talking to a broker last night who said that condos and cops in long Island, aren't doing as well. But if you have a yard, people with a family are saying, if we have a second wave in New York and the schools are shut down, at least in September, October, November, before it's freezing. I want my kids outside.

Andrew Lieb (2m 0s):
I want to have some space. I want to be able to do things. And then here's another one college campuses are closed. Did you see even Harvard? Do you see what they're doing this undergrad? They're not letting people they're doing online. And you know what? People are getting lonely. We're saying that's a big one.

Lauren Lieb (2m 15s):
What I read was that a lot of people are moving in with family members.

Andrew Lieb (2m 17s):
Well, that's what I'm saying. They're so sick of just being alone because you know, one of the things you can do is you can quarantine with others. As long as everyone is safe, you do this 14 day thing, or you go get the test, which by the way, why are there any rapid tests you could get anywhere? And don't tell me, there are, we've called every single place

Lauren Lieb (2m 33s):
In city MD. They used to be able to get a test in two days. Now it's set five to seven days because they're so everybody's getting a test. So the labs are backed up, backed up. But I've seen in Israel there's companies that have a breathalyzer test, like come on, come to the United States, where are these tests?

Andrew Lieb (2m 48s):
And so some other reasons, financially there's job losses, or they just need more space to work from home. Lauren. I was seeing this cool thing. I'm going to tell you this cool thing, because a lot of people are trying to move to have more space. There was, you know, how they have mini houses. I was on, I was on, I think it was business insider. And they were showing how she can buy was $28,000 for a miniature house to put in your backyard as your at home office. That's interesting. Isn't that cool. So instead of moving, maybe you want to put on an extent expansion or have things like that. I will point out to you though. You better read your town or village or city code before you do that, because it's very likely you're going to need permits.

Andrew Lieb (3m 23s):
And when you don't have permits, you're going to be very, very sorry when you go end up getting a ticket for it. So what we're seeing though is everyone's relocating. We have family that are out right now looking for housing houses that were sitting on the market for two years, two years, multiple full ask cash off

Lauren Lieb (3m 40s):
In the past week. That's what's so fascinating is that this survey was in June and we're talking about we're in July right now. And I think now everybody's saying September's coming, school is coming. I need to figure out what I'm going to do. So, you know, I would say in the last two weeks has been the real start of the bidding Wars.

Andrew Lieb (3m 56s):
And that probably has to do with the fact that empty Manhattan apartments are everywhere. According to CNBC there, it's just, landlords are slashing rent that can't get anyone to fill an apartment in Manhattan. It's just the whole city is emptying out all over. What was the learn? 10,000 apartment.

Lauren Lieb (4m 11s):
Oh, and I think it was 85%. More than last year were vacant rentals.

Andrew Lieb (4m 17s):
Yeah. 10,000 in June 10,000 vacant apartments. There's like a mass Exodus coming from New York city. All the people from New York city are going to New Jersey, Connecticut Westchester, long Island. The brokers can't keep up with the traffic right now,

Lauren Lieb (4m 32s):
Or even, even go to the West coast right now. They're going to Colorado and California. And I'm seeing a lot of people just completely leave the East coast.

Andrew Lieb (4m 41s):
You know what, though? I am a new Yorker. I'm not going nowhere. There are so many great places to come here. I know people that keep going, you got to go to the Carolinas. You got to go out West. They're so mad. There is the Democrats. This, you see this everywhere. They're very Cuomo and de Blasio. Politicians are temporary. No matter who you believe you like or dislike, it will change. You should pick an area because your family's there. You should pick an area because your friends are there because your job is there because you like SaltLife and you go to the beach every day.

Andrew Lieb (5m 18s):
You should pick an area. That's good for you. I'm not telling you not to move to Colorado, but move there because you like snowboarding. Don't move there because you don't like the politician here right now. They will change. Vote for who you like. I'm a big proponent of voting. And what you should do is register to vote. If you have not done that yet, because you have to make your voice heard because otherwise you're going to see some crazy cracking down from government. I want to talk about one of those crazy cracking downs. I was reading in the real deal. You read this paper once in a while, that attorney general of New York state Leticia James is going after law firms.

Andrew Lieb (5m 53s):
She went after this law firm. This is what I read for sending notices against that. Weren't paying crazy talk. You see, I will tell you, I acknowledged there is a moratorium. There's a way that you can evict people. There is. So we went after a law firm for representing a client who wasn't getting paid. Yeah. So they, they, so here's what happened. Writing Leticia. James is the New York state attorney general. And she put out this guidance in April. You could go read it. It's on her website. Here's what says, let me be clear. So I guess she's being clear.

Andrew Lieb (6m 23s):
She gave you a warning. Let me be clear. That's how she started off. She goes, it is illegal for landlords to threaten eviction for tenants who are unable to pay rent due to the impact of COVID-19. And I think we've know if you've been listening to me for a while. Now that New York state has moratoriums. There's some federal moratoriums more term means you can't do it. There's some stoppages, evicting people. It's really hard to evict people right now. I want to be clear for nonpayment. What does that mean? There's two reasons to evict someone.

Andrew Lieb (6m 54s):
One is called a holdover. The other one is called non payment. These rules that are protecting tenants or almost all about nonpayment, not holdover. Now don't misunderstand. There's an administrative order from the chief administrative justice of New York state court. You don't need to know that, but there's an administrative order that says that they're not going to do the hearing in the eviction and blah, blah, blah, but it's nothing wrong with you. Starting a holdover proceeding. Let's start that off. So there's a hold over me. Lauren was supposed to leave on June 1st.

Andrew Lieb (7m 25s):
It's now July. She still there. And this is happening everywhere, happening everywhere. She's just, we call it a squatter. When we're not lawyers, lawyers call that a hold over a squatter would mean someone who entered without permission in the first place. Do you understand the distinction? There? A holdover means someone who stayed longer than they were supposed to. You could also be a holder to hold over, just to be clear. If Lauren was supposed to do something, Lauren's the tenant. And Lauren was supposed to allow me access on two hours. Notice I gave her two hours notice she changed the locks I can't get in. So you know what I could do.

Andrew Lieb (7m 55s):
I can send her a notice that says, Hey, you violate the terms of the, at least the material terminals. And based on your violation of this material term of the lease, I'm now terminating the lease. And if you stay after this date, then you're holding over on the lease. And that's a grounds to evict someone because when you terminate a lease and someone stays after you can evict them. But what the laws say are what attorney general Leticia James was saying. And she's right, is that you can't threaten to evict a tenant who are unable to pay. Notice how there's a difference between unable to pay and breaking the rules of the lease or staying longer.

Andrew Lieb (8m 29s):
We discussed it last week. There was this big case from the Southern district of New York that said nothing about any of this has anything to do with the fact that the tenant owes you money and you can Sue the tenant for the money and you could get a judgment for 20 years, wham, bam, as they say, thank you ma'am. But the thing is, the thing is what this law firm was doing is in the state of New York, you have to do, what's called predicate notices. You can't just evict someone for nonpayment. You first have to process server, send them a notice that says, you owe me X, Y, Z amount of money.

Andrew Lieb (8m 59s):
And if you don't pay me by this date, I'm going to evict. It's, it's a case called KFC. You don't need to know it. You go do this. And it was unclear for attorneys, whether you could do this predicate notice. So there was big debates on the listserv from the bar association and a law firm in the city was doing it. And apparently the attorney general went after them. And they have a settlement now where they had to send notices to all these people. They sent it to that said, Hey, you could stay. You could stay, but I'm gonna tell you what's interesting about it. It's an interesting thing.

Andrew Lieb (9m 29s):
The attorney general said that it was a deceptive practice to send a predicate notice telling someone you were going to evict them when you can't evict them. And the general business law of the state of New York, it's section three 49, there's something called the deceptive practices act. And it provides for our private right of action. When someone is a victim of a deceptive practice, they could Sue for attorney's fees, statutory penalties. So what do I see this attorney general thing going to do? It's going to open a flood gate for any tenant who gets a notice, a product get notice that says that they are not paying and they're going to have to get evicted in there.

Andrew Lieb (10m 4s):
It threatens them that they're going to have to leave. They're now going to be armoring up with an attorney and suing under general business law, three 49 against landlords. And it's going to compound the effect of the crazy, I guess what I'm trying to say is this. We were talking about politicians and we were talking about don't leave New York just because you hate the DeBlasio. First of all, we're not in New York city. So I don't, I don't know why you care, but, or Cuomo, I have coffee with out. So it's not real, but on the TV, when he does his thing, I have my coffee. I like coffee. So here's the thing.

Andrew Lieb (10m 35s):
If you don't like these people, I told you there was once Pataki was in charge and he was a Republican, like it's not a big deal. Like they change who's in charge all the time, but I wouldn't leave for that reason. But then I was saying, you know what? The politicians do need to be in check because I think what Latisha James, the attorney general did is going to open the flood Gates for these tenants that are already beating up the landlord. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's not fair to the landlord. They still have to pay their mortgage. And if they don't have a mortgage, they at least have to pay their taxes. And I don't remember the tax guy saying I don't have to pay my taxes and I still have to pay all the utilities and all that other jazz and fix things when things break and you know why I'm a landlord, not because I'm a nice person, but because I'm hoping to generate income off of the property to feed my family.

Andrew Lieb (11m 16s):
So these landlords are already getting nothing, holding out with no money, potentially suing, having trouble evicting people. And now Leticia James, the New York attorney general is opening up the flood Gates because by this settlement, it's now triggered or queued every tenant that they could Sue for deceptive practice act claim against any landlord that sends them a predicate notice that says you didn't pay and I'm going to evict you. We're going to talk more about this after the break, stay with us.

2 (11m 41s):
Have you ever dreamed of owning a rental property? Flipping our whole opening? A successful business is real estate investing with Andrew Lieb.