The Troubleshooter 5-1-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ripped new need advice, so you don't have come a
run in.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Just as fast as we can.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Shooter's gonna help coming.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
This is the Troubleshooter Show now, Tom Martine.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Hey, good morning. This is John Fuller again hosting for
Tom Martino on the Troubleshooter Network. I am a personal
injury attorney here in Denver, have been for twenty three
and some odd years or so according to last count,
and I am filling in yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so

(00:46):
we've got three full days of stuff that we can
talk about. Today is a gonna be a little bit
different than yesterday. Yesterday we had Dan Mahoney on with
the insurance group in Denver that we talked about everything
insurance related that we could think of in a four
hour period, which covered a lot of ground. And I

(01:08):
think that was great. I think it gave us an
opportunity to really see things from two different perspectives. But
today we have something equally interesting. We have Brad O'Brien
in the house today. Brad is another attorney, so you
get two attorneys today for the same price. And Brad, welcome.
I appreciate you joining us today. Brad is primarily if

(01:32):
I understand a real estate practice you owned, is that correct?

Speaker 5 (01:35):
That is right, John, I am a real estate attorney.
I do both transactions and disputes involving real estate. So
on the transactions I help people buy and sell both
residential and commercial real estate. And I also do landlord
tenant work for both the landlord and the tenant. And
when it comes to disputes, you know, if there's any
kind of dispute between a purchase contract or between the

(01:57):
landlord and the tenant, or a mechanics lean or a foreclosure,
I do that as well. So not a lot of
real estate attorneys will do both sides, both transactions and litigation,
but I do cool.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
So that kind of sets the stage for today. So
your role is to pick up the phone and give
us a call. Our telephone number here is three oh
three seven one three eight two five five. We are
here to help. If you've been scammed, if you've been tricked,
if you've been deceived by somebody. We are here to

(02:28):
solve problems, take complaints, answer questions. We are here to
help you, and that could be with a vehicle, your home,
your job, your house, your real estate, your car accidents,
just about anything and everything that comes up. We're gonna
cover a lot of ground today. So if you have
a question that might be particularly suited for Brad, definitely
get on the line and give us a call today

(02:50):
because we're gonna we're gonna go through a number of
real estate issues, but we would like to focus on
your immediate needs as much as we can. We also,
yesterday a tiptoed into a couple cases with Dimitri and
we're going to follow up on both of those today,
one of which was dealing with a restraining order for

(03:12):
a young lady that had an apartment in Denver, and
we're gonna we're gonna do a deep dive into that.
We're also going to have a revisit on our Lukukaracha
issue a little later in the morning as well. Most
of you guys heard that we had an infestation of
cockroaches in an apartment that a young lady called us about.
We've got to follow up on that as well. Right now,

(03:34):
we're going to start out by going immediately to the phones.
We've got Billy waiting. Billy, what's going on. You've got
a warranty issue on your truck?

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Yes, sir, I sure do.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Tell us about it.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
So in January of this year, I bought into endurance warranty.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
What is an endurance warranty?

Speaker 6 (03:55):
So it's an aftermarket automotive warranty service, okay, urinety for
breakdowns and whatever. They cover certain parts of the drive
train and other components.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Okay, Now, how did you How did you decide to
buy that warranty? Was that just a solicitation you received
or did you look them up? Or how did you
come with it?

Speaker 6 (04:19):
I was a customer with them previously, okay, So I
decided to go back with them because my first round
with them I had no problems.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Okay, So tell me about what's going on.

Speaker 7 (04:35):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (04:35):
So I bought into this contract back in January. I
just purchased a well it knew to me twenty eleven
one fifty okay. So I bought into it to protect
my investment and in back on the eighteenth of this month,
I suffered a catastrophic failure of an engine component that

(04:58):
was covered under the warrant.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Okay? Which component?

Speaker 6 (05:03):
It was a terrible So the turbo blew up and
it sent metal fragments into the intake menifold, which in
turn gets down to the engine, chose up bearings, it rings,
all kinds of bands destroys the engine. But when I
filed my claim, they denied.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
My claim for the.

Speaker 6 (05:25):
Coverage for a technicality that they had didn't take any
steps to rectify on their behalf.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
What was the technicality?

Speaker 6 (05:37):
So when I signed for the contract, they asked me
what the mileage well of the vehicle was, and at
the time I didn't have the actual miles because I
didn't I hadn't taken delivery of the truck yet. So
I gave him the best estimate of what I remember,
and I was only five hundred and fifty three miles.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
High or low of the low, okay.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
So they gave me a one hundred thousand mile warranty which
covered me to I think it was only two hundred
and ninety six thousand miles, so I'm below that to
ninety six. But they denied my claim because they said
I didn't call back in the alloted amount of time

(06:26):
with the actual miles, and with that being said, nobody
ever contacting me within that thirty days to say we're
missing information. If you want to keep the contract.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Billy, do you have the contract where it says you
have to follow up and call them back.

Speaker 6 (06:47):
I don't right in front of me.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Did they point out to you what provision they were
relying on to catch Not.

Speaker 6 (06:53):
That I remember with the initial conversation.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
So, just to recap, you bought a truck that had
one hundred and ninety six thousand miles on it as
a twenty eleven f one fifty. And how many miles
have you put on it since you bought it?

Speaker 6 (07:07):
So it's got about two hundred and four thousand on
it now.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Okay, so not that many new miles and the turbo
takes a dump on you.

Speaker 8 (07:16):
Yes, sir, Billy.

Speaker 9 (07:18):
Did you buy this warranty through the dealer where you
bought the truck or just a completely unrelated transaction?

Speaker 6 (07:25):
No, it was a third party dealer. Yeah, so I
purchased the truck, called the company signed up for it.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Again, how much did you the warranty, Billy?

Speaker 6 (07:38):
So? I believe it was like one hundred and fifty
seven one hundred and fifty eight dollars a month?

Speaker 4 (07:44):
A month?

Speaker 9 (07:45):
Yes, and when did you What was the month and
year you bought the warranty?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
January of twenty five.

Speaker 9 (07:52):
Hey, uh, I've read a bunch of these now. And
some of these warranties have a certain period where you
can cancel the warranty. If you look through your contract
to see if there's a cancelation provision, uh that that
that you can at least use to escape your your
ongoing monthly obligation under this warrancy.

Speaker 6 (08:15):
Well, yeah there is, and I have taken steps to
cancel them, but he doesn't want to as of this
month because they had no intentions. So my complaint is
that they continue to take my money right or a
contract that they knew was void.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
Well, I think you've got a lot of issues going
on here.

Speaker 7 (08:40):
Why was it void?

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Because this particular no, they're saying that he voided the
contract by not calling back with the actual okay, the
whole thing. But I would suggest that they waive that
that you know, objection by continuing to take the payments
on it. You know, I mean, as a hypertechnical excuse, Listen,
here's the deal on all these warranties and and you

(09:04):
know your things like oh, I can't even think of
the word right now, but you're the thing that pays
off your balance if you get in an accident. All
the gap insured gap insurance all that kind of stuff.
We deal with that all the time. Here's here's the
reality of these contracts. They want you to never be

(09:25):
able to follow a claim successfully. That's their goal. I
mean they set out with that in mind. There's no
part of their business model that is really built around
paying claims that the payment of a claim is an anomaly.
So if they can get you on a technicality, and
for gap insurance, one of the ones that we run
into all the time is like you didn't strictly follow

(09:47):
the rules to put us on notice following the accident.
You know, you've only got X number of days to
call in and fax in with three copies of this,
and you know, and sometimes are clients have cars that
are in tow yards and the papers are wadded up
in an envelope and they're in the glove box and
they don't have access to it, or it gets totaled

(10:09):
and it's sitting on you know, coparts or something up
in Brighton and they can't get access to the paperwork,
so they don't even know what the steps are to
comply with it. And personally, I think those things are
just almost criminal. I mean, the number of times we
hear about people that successfully have something major paid for,
like a warranty on a turbo that dumps your entire engine.

(10:33):
I mean, is your whole engine needing to be replaced
or rebuilt? Yes, sir, yeah, I mean, now you know,
three hundred thousand mile forward is you know, nearing the
end of life anyway and most people's eyes, but that's
still going to be a huge repair for you. And

(10:54):
so really the answer to your question, Billy is going
to come down to taking a very hard look at
that contract and what provisions they're relying upon, and if
they don't have it spelled out in there, that you
have an absolute duty to call them back and give
them the actual knowledge or some kind of milage certification
after a certain point. I mean, it's going to take

(11:16):
some hard looking at that contract and also some hard
legal research to really see if them continuing to take
your money is going to be considered a waiver of
that or if there's any way to enforce the contract.
What do you think about it, Brad, Yeah, I do.

Speaker 5 (11:35):
Pardon me, I do see that warranty issue is putting
a lot of conditions. For example, we have a car
in our family that had a rap put on it,
but as a condition of the warranty, for the continued
durability of the rap, you had to go and have
it inspected by them once a year. I mean, that's
just a little unrealistic, and nobody's going to do that.
So when it comes time to actually make a claim,

(11:56):
you know, they're going to point to that kind of
ridiculous condition.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
Oh my god, if you had just complied with the deal,
we would have found the problem in this never would
have happened, you know. So these kind of.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
Things may be disputable in a court as a matter
of law. You know, perhaps the black and white language
of the warranty agreement is not enforceable as written so
strictly in favor of the warranty issuer. So but you
don't know until you look at the case law on
that topic and get in front of a judge sometimes right.

Speaker 9 (12:27):
Well, not only that, but I have even more bad
news for Brad. I've read a fair number of these
extended warranties for used cars now everything, and by the way,
no one has ever gotten paid a dollar, which is
why I read these contracts, and every single one of
them has a mandatory arbitration provision, so he won't even
be able to take them to court. And as you know,

(12:49):
arbitration is going to be not only tremendously expensive compared
to what it costs to sue somebody in court, but
the arbitrator is hired by the defendant and they are
betrayeder nose that if he wants, if he wants to
continue to receive these cases, he or she better not
rule too many times against the respondent.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, hey, Billy, I'm gonna put you on hold and
see if Kelly can get your information. I'd like you
to try to get that contract to us so that
we can take a look. And we're happy to look
it over and see if there's any you know, anything
there that that we think is newsworthy or something in
an effort to try to help you out. Okay, we're
going to thank you. We're going to go to a

(13:29):
break right now, and we'll be right back.

Speaker 10 (13:36):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison,
call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies. Find Out Now three O three seven
seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer

(13:57):
when you choose Frank durand the real estate man to
list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine
two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
Good morning, this is John Fuller with the Troubleshooter Network.
We are back and moving along here. Hopefully we get
that contract in here. You know, Dimitri brought up a
really good point, and that's that most of these consumer
contracts have you know, arbitration provisions, and those are just
horrible from the consumer standpoint. But there's so little negotiability

(14:38):
that you have in those. And the reason why they're
bad and the reason why you should always be, you know,
worried about arbitration provisions and contracts. It's not truly designed
to be a less costly, more efficient way to get
to dispute resolution. What it is is designed to be
an impediment to you airing your grievance. Okay, if they

(15:02):
make the cost of entry too expensive, if you have
to hire an American arbitration association you know neutral or
mediator or arbitrator or whatever the person is called, and
that person is ten thousand dollars to hear your dispute
over a one thousand dollars warranty. You're not gonna do it.
And that's exactly the point of putting that provision in there.

(15:23):
It's not at all to help you. It's to be
an impediment to you having any avenue to go and
air your grievance.

Speaker 7 (15:30):
Hey, John, not only that one. Is it one arbira
or a panel of three?

Speaker 4 (15:35):
It work, It could go either way. Sometimes they'll just
say to a single arbiter, it's all contract. So it's
what's in the contract, okay. And so I've seen them
where they say we'll do it to a single arbiter.
I've seen it to where they say we'll do it
to a panel of three, where we pick one, you
pick one, and then those two will pick the third,
which I mean then you're paying for three of them.

(15:57):
It really gets expensive because these aren't judges. You know,
you think about going down to court and following a
small claims matter for fifty bucks or whatever whatever the
cost is of doing that, and you get a jury
for free in court, and you know it's this is
pay court, this is you know this is court for money,

(16:18):
and you have to pay to get in the door,
and then you know, and then if you really just
knock one out of the park many times, at the
end of arbitration, you then seek to enforce that award
and you've got to almost relitigate the whole dang thing
in court all over again.

Speaker 7 (16:34):
And John, does the winner get to have his costs
reimbursed by the losers?

Speaker 9 (16:41):
Sometimes every one of these contracts that I've read has
the arbitration provision, and each of those provisions has a
cost shifting provision, every single one. Right, So if our
caller here loses, which he probably will based on inexperience, yeah,
he's going to get stuck with god knows how many

(17:02):
thousands of dollars of the insurance comp or the warranty
company's costs.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
So just think about it. Maybe the cost of that
new engine is what ten grand, fifteen grand? Maybe I
don't know what the cost is. I didn't get enough detail.
It maybe a diesel and it's more money, but I
mean it's not cheap. Let's call it ten grand. If
you go into that and just getting in the door
and representing yourself and all that stuff, you've probably got

(17:28):
another ten or fifteen thousand dollars of paying the arbitrators
to get up to be able to even air your grievance.
If you know that at the end of the day,
if you lose, you've got to pay. You've already paid
your ten to fifteen for the arbitration process. You're already
out ten to fifteen on your truck that's sitting in
the backyard dead because you can't afford to fix it.

(17:51):
And now you've got an award of the other guy's cost.
You know, you're out forty forty five thousand dollars on
this warranty all because you didn't call them with the
accurate knowledge within five hundred miles of You know, that
is absolutely ridiculous on a truck that had one hundred
and ninety six thousand miles on it. I mean, I

(18:13):
can't even believe that, you know, really and truly, is
anybody truly trying to warrant a truck with two hundred
thousand miles on it? They sold that without ever having
any intention of paying a claim ever, and you know
they'll never call.

Speaker 7 (18:27):
You can't prove that, right, You can't prove that.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
But you know that the character shows that, you know,
let's see all these claims that you've paid, and they're like, well,
we paid for a battery for Joe, and it's like, well, yes,
but when the three thousand dollars turbo took a crap
and it shelled his entire motor. You can't line up
a whole list of witnesses here that say, yeah, I've

(18:50):
got a brand new engine out in the parking lot
right now that Endurance or whoever paid for. I mean,
you know, maybe once in a blue moon, somebody's their
feet just perfectly held to the fire, and they can
force them to do that, but the reality is that
their business model is set up with no intention of
paying those claims. So we've got a couple of callers

(19:12):
lined up. We're going to take another quick break and
then we'll be right back. Meryl, you're up next. We'll
be right back on the Troubleshooter Network.

Speaker 10 (19:23):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel Roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (19:27):
You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Speaker 10 (19:32):
Time for an insurance checkup, free no obligation comparison call
Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
insurance companies find out now three O three seven to
seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
when you choose Frank durand the real estate man dot
Com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three
nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
All right, welcome back, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network.
We are moving right along here. The way to get
a hold of us in the studio here is to
give us a call at three oho three seven one
three eighty two five five. We encourage you to do that.
This is a show where we're here to help you.
So if you've been scammed, you've been the victim of

(20:24):
any of these crazy things that are going on out
there in the world, or you've got a contractor or
an employment issue, anything like that that we can help
you with, give us a call. We're here to help
you today. In the studio, we have a full house.
We have myself and Brad O'Brien, both attorneys here in
the community here to help out. And we also have
a full assortment of deputies including Deputy Bo, Deputy Doc

(20:47):
and Deputy Dimitri. So we have a full house. And
when you combine the experience of all you know, five
of the people in here. You're talking a lot of
years of experience in a lot of different areas that
we can bring to the table in helping you work
through these issues.

Speaker 7 (21:03):
Can say something John, yea, not only.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
I have more years of experience than others, what would.

Speaker 7 (21:10):
Really help you?

Speaker 12 (21:11):
Know?

Speaker 7 (21:12):
We encourage people to call before the problem arises. If
you're going into a contract, if you're going to hire somebody,
if you have any lingering doubts about what's going to happen,
call us before so that we can give you some
advice on how to prevent the issue rather than solving
it after the fact. And we do a big service

(21:33):
by that.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
And with Doc in particular, you can talk about the
pregnancy before you actually get pregnant. So that has the
added benefit of being able to kind of, you know,
foresee what the future might.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
Hold any sex questions. I'm happy to.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Help our resident expert, Merrill. You've been holding with an
issue on car insurance. What's going on, Meryl?

Speaker 13 (21:54):
Hi? So I have been I've been insured with Skycoper
sixteen years.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
For my car and we canceled.

Speaker 13 (22:04):
The insurance on December twenty fourth of twenty.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Twenty five, and I went with all State so that
I could bundle my home and my car because Geico
became cost prohibitive. It was underwritten by Travelers. And then
I went on and was with USAA. So my issue,
John is Gico has never canceled my policy.

Speaker 13 (22:35):
And they kept sending me a deck page insurance cards,
and right before they were going to take.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Out over seven hundred dollars on.

Speaker 13 (22:46):
April twenty six, I.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Caught that and my agent at all State, we did
a three way call with them.

Speaker 13 (22:56):
And they said, sorry, we can only back cancel thirty days.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I'm not using the correct verbage, but we.

Speaker 13 (23:05):
Can only backdate the cancelation thirty days to the twenty
fourth of March.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Meryl, when you originally canceled that back in December. Did
you do that in writing?

Speaker 13 (23:18):
We did it on the phone.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
But I had a confirmation number because.

Speaker 13 (23:23):
I just be court reporter. I'm kind of a note taker,
and I said I need a confirmation number. So they
said the confirmation number is your policy number and today's
date twelve twenty four.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
But it never got canceled, and the right hand never
knew what the left hand was doing.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
And is that confirmation number not give you some point
of reference that you did the cancelation?

Speaker 13 (23:51):
We just have emails.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
I mean, that's what I'm saying. Are they claiming that
you didn't cancel it? And you say, oh, but I
have a cancelation confirmation and right, what's going on there?

Speaker 13 (24:01):
So I said, let me talk to your boss?

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well may I talked to your boss's boss.

Speaker 13 (24:06):
And so Michael Bays is my agent.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
With b YS with All State, And as.

Speaker 13 (24:15):
Of yesterday, I finally said, Okay, I guess I'm going
to walk away unless I you know, or go to
the insurance Commission. I loved GLICO, but I just can't
seem to extricate myself from them. And there's there's something
wrong with this.

Speaker 7 (24:32):
GARYL.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
Meryl.

Speaker 9 (24:33):
Here's something I don't understand about what you told us.
Do they deny that you canceled in December?

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yes?

Speaker 9 (24:41):
And did you give them the cancelation confirmation number?

Speaker 13 (24:46):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (24:46):
I did?

Speaker 9 (24:46):
And what was their response to that cancelation confirmation numbers?

Speaker 13 (24:50):
Responses You're going to have to talk to one of
our higher ups in management because we can only go
back thirty days from today, which.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
The day that we were talking to them.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
Was the twenty fourth, So are they billing you seven
hundred a month or how what is the payment frequency?

Speaker 13 (25:11):
They said, we will give you back seven dollars and
fifty cents.

Speaker 9 (25:16):
Wait, what about that payment? That was the seven hundred
dollars payment you just mentioned. What was that all about?
Did they already would draw that payment from your accountant?

Speaker 13 (25:25):
That was them saying a second, I'm looking at my
I'm looking at my phone. The email that came in
yesterday from my agent.

Speaker 9 (25:36):
Well, wait a minute, your agent works for an entirely
different company.

Speaker 13 (25:39):
Your agent truly has for All State, and we've had
three way calls with them, with his assistant, and when
we spoke to Geico, they always say, okay, we understand,
but we can only go back thirty days. And we're
saying she canceled.

Speaker 6 (25:57):
It on Christmas Eve, right, So.

Speaker 13 (26:03):
It's a confusing story.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
Back. So here's here's a couple of here's a couple
of points. Okay. Number one, I always hate when people
say I call my agent and my agent said this,
and my agent said that, especially when it comes to
problems and claims and stuff like that. Agents, You know,
agents are just that, they're just an agent. They are

(26:28):
a better word really usually a salesperson, and and that's
their job is to sell you new products and and
to keep to keep selling you new products, and to
make you happy with what you bought. But when it
comes to the use of that policy things that are
actually important, like claims, they're really not involved in the process.
Even when they tell you all we were there with you,

(26:50):
we're going to help you there, they're no more help
than your neighbor really calling in. I mean, they may
be a little better than your neighbor, depending on who
your neighbor is, But but they don't have any control
over the process. They don't have any influence over the
adjuster's decisions. They certainly don't have any impact on how
third party claims and stuff are handled. Like certainly an

(27:13):
agent would never be able to call up and say,
don't pay a claim, or you know, you can't deny
this claim, you need to approve it and all of
a sudden get an insurance company to change course and
go in a different direction. That's just not something an
agent has the power to do. So with that being said,
I appreciate that your agent is trying to help, but
I don't know that they're going to help you really

(27:34):
be able to resolve this, or at least they're not
going to have any credibility in this conversation. With respect
to Geico, You've got two things going on. You do
have a confirmation number, and you do have a series
of emails, and that becomes important. And you said the
key words. I think that hold the solution, and that's
going to be the insurance Commission because whether Geico can
go back thirty days or not, if we've got an

(27:56):
issue of them overcharging you and claiming some proceed hurdle
that prohibits them from giving you back money, that is
something that the consumer, you know, the Insurance Commissioner of
Colorado is uniquely you know, sensitive to and I think
in particular, if you've got the documentation and the ability

(28:17):
to go back and say I documented, I have confirmation,
this is what happened and on this date and everything else,
it doesn't matter who your new agent is, you're going
to find that the insurance commission is very open to
that complaint and very open to trying to help you out.
So that would be my suggestion.

Speaker 14 (28:35):
I do have a.

Speaker 13 (28:36):
Paper trail, you know, I value thought it was important.
But is that the Colorado What is the name of
the commission?

Speaker 4 (28:45):
What's the insurance Commission? I think you can find them
under the.

Speaker 7 (28:50):
If you just go it's the Colorado of dot gov.

Speaker 15 (28:52):
Ye.

Speaker 7 (28:52):
There should be a list of places to go to.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Right. The DORA, I think is the overall umbrella agency,
the Department of Regulatory Agencies, But they fall under DORA
and they're their own independent commission and they have a
consumer hotline number that that you can bring this issue to.
And whenever we've had issues like that in the past
where we've actually had to, you know, hold a client's
hand and go speak to the Insurance Commission, they have

(29:19):
been very open to helping and very influential. Their calls
seem to get returned from the insurance companies, sometimes better
than even my calls, if you can imagine that.

Speaker 15 (29:30):
But that would be amazing.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
It is to me as well. But Meryl, that would
be my suggestion, Brad, anything else that you can think
of on your end.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
No, I mean my own experience, can you okay my
own experience. I wouldn't expect calling to retroactively cancel insurance
to have any any retroactive effect at all. Usually in
my experience, they just cancel it as of that day, right,
So going back a month seems to be you know,
I'd be a good thing if you can even go
back that far.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
Yeah, But her issue is she canceled it at on
Christmas and just noticed the other day that they were
fixing a take of payment. And they're saying, well, we
never got the cancelation.

Speaker 13 (30:14):
And so I showed a since then before they were
going to take out a draft. They've sent me another
deck page. They've sent me cards a recent email, which
I'm not going to do from All States and just
send them a copy of your deck page from all State. Obviously,
I can't deal.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
With Geico because it's impossible, so I will go to
the insurance Commission.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I think when you do that, I think the deck
page from all State is helpful in the sense that
it shows that you went out purchased insurance, you know,
for that insurable interest with a different company. I mean,
why would anybody.

Speaker 13 (30:52):
And I was able to extricate myself from USAA because
I switched from USAA and Guyico to All States. No
problem with USAA whatsoever. Cannot extricate myself from guy Code.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
They don't want to let me go, Carolyn.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think you've got enough of a paper trail that
you're going to be This is going to be a
pretty easy issue for you. You to get squared away.
So thank you very much for the call. We'll be
right back. This is the Troubleshooter Network. Thank you.

Speaker 10 (31:20):
Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (31:24):
You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Speaker 10 (31:29):
Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation in comparison,
call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three O three seven
to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man
dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
You don't have.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Running just as fast as we can shoot. It's gonna help.
Come man.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
This is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martine.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Hey, good afternoon. John Fuller here filling in for Tom
Martino and the Troubleshooter Network. We are rocking and rolling here.
So here's the Troubleshooter Network. We are We're here for you.
We're here to solve problems, take complaints, answer questions. We
can only do that when you pick up the phone
and give us a call at three O three seven

(32:35):
one three eight two five five. We have in the
house today three of our illustrious deputies. We have Deputy Bow,
Deputy Doc and Deputy Dimitri Uh. They are here ready
for deployment UH to help with your problems. So give
us a call and we will get them dutifully assigned
to your case so that we can we can fix

(32:56):
your problems and help you out with your issues. And
you know, we're also here to get advice and so
if you have problems that are related to insurance, or
accidents or real estate. Today we're lucky enough to have
Brad O'Brien in the house. And Brad is a real
estate attorney here in town and he is a veritable
expert on all things with contracting, anything to do with

(33:17):
real estate easement. You know, landlord tenant situations, contracts a
whole nine yards. So you know, hey, he's here for you.
Give us a call. We'd be happy to take your
issue on and see what we can get accomplished. We
have a couple of follow up issues that we wanted
to get into today, both of which were discussed yesterday.

(33:39):
One in particular we're going to start with is the
young lady that called in with a cockroach situation, and
Dimitri was the lucky recipient of that case, and we
gave her some advice and Dimitri, I'll turn it over
to you. What's the follow up?

Speaker 9 (33:58):
Well, John, you may recall that yesterday Lisa called Lisa.
Her name is Lisa with a Y, and she said
that she recently signed a lease to rent an apartment
and for her and her little baby daughter, whom we
heard in the background, and before moving in, she entered
the apartment and she observed two cockroaches, one of which

(34:19):
was dead. That was very alarming, as it would be
for me. And she discussed the matter with some of
the other tenets, and it turns out the apartment complex
is allegedly overrun with cockroaches and the apartment complex praised
for cockroaches every couple of weeks. But understandably, Lisa would
like to get out of this lease without incurring any
penalties for actually breaking the lease. And what was even

(34:41):
more interesting is shortly after that call, we had a
cockroach expert call in yes, and he said something I
didn't expect, which is, in addition to these being revolting,
filthy creatures, he said that both their droppings and their
molted skin, when little baby children are exposed to these
two products of cockroaches, they actually could develop asthma, which

(35:05):
sounds like a very serious lifelong condition. So that just
added even more weight to Lisa's desire to get the
heck out of there without being penalized for it. So
the way we left it is we did not mention
the name of the apartment complex, and we left it
as Lisa is going to contact them again while they're
mulling over her request to cancel the Lise and say, hey, look,

(35:28):
I need to call back to the Tom Martino Troubleshooter
show tomorrow to give them an update on this matter,
and they can do it with or without mentioning your
apartment complex name. So Lisa emailed me early this morning
and here's what she says. She said, Hey, after that,
they did give me my money back every dime I paid.
I just wanted to give you guys an update from
yesterday and I didn't have to negotiate any further so anyway,

(35:52):
so it sounds like the Looku Karasha problem turned out
pretty well for Lisa. But man, this is the second
cockroach called we've had in about three and a half weeks. John,
they're out there.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
That's fantastic, Glad, I mean, that's just awesome that that
just makes you know, it just makes sense because and
I'm glad Brad's here because we wanted to talk about this,
but I mean it almost just goes right down the
list under the warranty of habitability. I mean, what, really,
what rights does a tenant have when they you know,

(36:23):
clearly you don't know that you're going to have a
cockroach infestation as you're signing the leaves and as you're
paying over your money and they talk to the keys
and you go walk in for the first time and
oh my god, we have this problem. And that's the
first time you're put on notice of a vermin problem.
I mean, yes, the warranty of habitability, you know, talks

(36:45):
about reasonable efforts to mitigate things like that, but maybe
you can just talk to that a little bit. What
are the landlord's responsibilities and what rights do tenants have
under that circumstance.

Speaker 5 (36:56):
Well, cockroaches and other vermin passed or insects do fall
under the warrantyef habitability, And the warranty of habitability doesn't
say that these cannot exist, right. What it says is
that the landlord has to take reasonable, appropriate extermination measures
in response to a complaint of these things. So the
landlord under the statute has seventy two hours to commence

(37:19):
remedial measures in response to a notice of cockroaches, and
so that would be starting to spray and exterminate and
to continued with reasonable extermination measures until it's resolved.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
So in the law, one of the things we always
deal with is this debate about what's reasonable. So this
young lady said that they were spraying like every two weeks,
and yet the entire building was just infested with these things.
They're in the televisions and the refrigerators, in the cabinets,
thousands and thousands of these stupid roads. Just like, at

(38:01):
what point does you know, at what point do the
tenants get to say your efforts aren't reasonable.

Speaker 5 (38:08):
Yeah, the statute does not provide a hard deadline for
when the problem has to be fixed. The warranty habitability problem.
It's a question of fact to be determined by ultimately
a judge. But if you can convince a judge that
all these reasonable measures have been taken, or the measures
haven't been reasonable, then at some point a judge will

(38:29):
grant a termination of the lease. And so you can
use that statute, that warranty of habitability statute, to get
an early termination of your lease.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So if you were advising a landlord that owned a
property and this was kind of going on, I mean,
is there some risk that if one tenant successfully goes
to court and receives an order in validating your lease,
that you could have a mass exodus from all of
your tenants. That would make you advise that landlord that

(38:58):
he needs to let this person out before it goes
that far. That's common sense that a.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
Landlord ought to get the problem fixed because they're in
practically speaking a lot of trouble financially from lost rent
and from having to be in court by not resolving
the underlying cockrutch problem.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
So then you know, so your advice would be, this
is the kind of situation that needs to get made
to go away. I mean that that's good advice, but
at the same time, it doesn't really rectify the situation.
I mean, I think the point that we took from
this expert that called yesterday is that there are really
really effective means that we know about today that can

(39:43):
eliminate this problem. What in two weeks did he say?

Speaker 9 (39:46):
I think he said several months, they spray a couple
of things.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
One well it was it was bait stationed. It wasn't spray,
it was bait stations that he said in a couple
of weeks could have an enormous effect, and within a
couple months would have because the problem knocked out John.

Speaker 9 (40:02):
He said that you would observe the cockroaches began to
die out and mass with, you know, after a couple
of weeks, and it will be several months until they're
gone because there's another chemical he applies which sterilizes. It's
like birth control for cockroaches, right.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
Right, So I guess the question is and we'll pick
it up on the other side of the break, But
the question is, like, as from your perspective as a
guy that's advising these landlords, like when they're contemplating, you know,
good solution that's going to cost a lot more money
and solution that may just barely qualify as something reasonable

(40:37):
under the statute. How do you sometimes, you know, thread
that needle with your clients to help inspire landlords to
make a good decision. So we'll address that right when
we get back on the other side of the break.
So hang on, we'll be right back.

Speaker 10 (40:55):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (40:59):
You don't pay us, seton until you're content.

Speaker 10 (41:04):
Time for an insurance check up free no obligation comparison
call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
to seven to one.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
Help.

Speaker 10 (41:15):
You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero sixteen
twenty two.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
All right, all right, all right, John Fuller coming back
on the Troubleshooter Network. It is we're moving rapidly forward. Here.
We have in the house today Brad O'Brien. Brad's a
real estate attorney, and we left the last segment talking
about a landlord tenant situation where a caller called in
and we had a cockroach infestation and we were happy

(41:55):
to report that we were able to help the young
lady get out of her lease. And that kind of
rolled over into a conversation about, you know, in Brad's
role as an advisor to landlords, you know, we had
an expert that called in and said, look, there is
a way to get rid of this problem once and
for all, and and and it's more expensive than repeatedly spraying.

(42:18):
That spraying is just the cheapest way out. And so
my question was, you know, where do you draw the
line and how do you advise a landlord between paying
a little more and actually solving the problem and paying
less but being able to maybe minimally establish that they
made reasonable efforts on a on a situation like that.

Speaker 5 (42:39):
Well, for good business practice, I think a landlord really
wants to get their property in habitable condition, free of
cockroaches another vermin, and paying a little bit more in
extermination is probably the way to go, because if they
land in court on a warranty of habitability claim in
defending that the cost of being in court is so
much more than what we're talking key about as far

(43:01):
as a better and more effective extermination. So I you know,
I try to keep my clients out of court, and
so I think this has a practical resolution more than
a legal resolution, which is just fix the underlying problem
so that the place is habitable and you have a
good reputation.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
Yeah, I think that's always good advice, but it's not always.
You know, let's say, the ones that we hear about
are the ones where people are not behaving properly and
problems are not being taken care of. We don't ever
get calls. It's like, I just want to tell you
that my landlord is the best guy in the world,
and I have the best situation and the best apartment.

(43:42):
I mean, those are not the ones that we hear about.
So but anyway, we do appreciate Lissa's you know, landlord
addressing the issuation or the situation and letting her out
of it. And you know, as always, we appreciate that call.
You were going to follow up.

Speaker 5 (43:59):
Yeah, the are required to provide alternative housing for up
to sixty days until the habitability condition is rectified, and
that would get expensive.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
That's a hotel. It has to be within a certain distance. Now,
what can invoke that.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
If the place is uninhabitable, then landlord is required under
this statute to provide alternative housing. That's roughly and it's
got to have a kitchen too.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
But does that have to get decided by a court
or I mean who decides if it's uninhabitable.

Speaker 5 (44:28):
If the landlord doesn't offer it, then they can get
taken to court, and if they lose on that, they'll
have to pay attorney fees.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
But I mean practically, if I go into my landlord's
office and say, hey, I think i've got item number
three here, whatever it may be that makes it uninhabitable,
the warranty of habitability says, you know that that's not acceptable.
I want you to put me up in a hotel.
I mean, at some point there's got to be a

(44:57):
reasonableness standard applied to that too. A tenant just can't
walk in and say I want a hotel, right right.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
It's if a condition makes it uninhabitable for health and safety.
For example, if they're going to exterminate and it is
something where people should not be around, and maybe that's
a twenty four hour where you no habitation, Okay, that's
what's one night hotel for example.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Now if it's if it's something like.

Speaker 5 (45:20):
Mold where you've got to be ripping out walls and
taking out the flooring, okay, and that's a three week project.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Okay, that's three weeks at hotel. I guess my issue
is like, who decides that it's it actually is a
habitability issue.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
Well, if the parties don't figure it out themselves, then
then it goes to court and that's where.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
The court will decide.

Speaker 5 (45:42):
And somebody's going to win big and somebody's going to
lose big, and so it's not doesn't make sense to
let the court decide it.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
How long would it take somebody to get into a
court if they had I mean, let's say you go
in and say, look, the heat's not working, right, I
mean that that would be an obvious breach of the
warranty of habitability. It's it's right there on the deal
and the landlord says, yeah, I think it is working. Okay,
so we have a dispute. If that tenant wanted to
take that landlord to court over that issue, how long

(46:10):
would it take and what would that process look like?
It's not quick.

Speaker 5 (46:13):
It's not like there's an expedited procedure just for this
type of a case, so it could be three to
six weeks to get that resolved in court.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Right, So in the meantime, you know, you could be
sitting there without heat for right.

Speaker 5 (46:26):
But if it's when I get calls about mold or
something that's a health and safety concern, you know, my
first response is, you know, this is more than the
legal issue. Is the health and safety issue. And if
they have a you know, children or babies, you know,
maybe they shouldn't be in there. It's what I'll tell them,
Maybe you need to get out of there for your

(46:47):
health and try to recover the money on the back
end for when you when you had to be in
a hotel.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
Gotcha?

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Right?

Speaker 7 (46:53):
Do you tell them to put the rented s crow
so that they when they go to court, they can say, look,
I had the money, I wasn't trying to it. That'd
be a good idea.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Habitability complaints are totally separate from the rent obligation. Tenants
have to continue paying rent during the duration of the
habitability remediation. The only exception is if you gave a
landlord plenty of written notice and that the steps are
in the statute and they didn't respond at all, then
you can go out and get an estimate to do
the corrective work, whatever that is, from a professional, and

(47:24):
give that and then give that estimate to the landlord,
and if they still don't do the work, then you
can then self help applies. You can the tenant can
withhold the same amount of amount that the that the
repair is going to cost from that estimate, and then
the tenant can do the work and withhold that amount.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
That's a very limited ability to hold back rent. Brad,
We've got a caller with a landlord tenant question for you,
So we're going to go to EVA. Now, Eva, what's
going on with you?

Speaker 16 (47:56):
Oh?

Speaker 13 (47:58):
You guys are real estate attorneys? Could you give an
update over the radio about what the rule new rules are?
I have to resign a lease and are there new
leases available? And I never took a damage deposit their
security deposit from any of them, and I am below market.

(48:22):
The main thing is can I raise what amount? Can
I raise the rent? I am under market on the properties?
Does it go by market value and then a percentage
or is it a percentage of what I'm charging under market?

Speaker 5 (48:40):
Well, I would say that is a very loaded question.
It could take hours to respond to all that. What
I would say is that the land obviously.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
You're a landlord.

Speaker 5 (48:49):
The landlords laws have changed drastically in the last five years.
There's a lot of updates. I would I would I
think it's practical for a landlord once a year uh
to have an attorney review their their lease form and
make sure it's up to date with the law. I
will say there is no such thing in Colorado as
a standard lease form. So that's one of your questions.

(49:12):
As far as raising the rent, you know, you can
raise it to whatever the market is. The only limitations
are that a lendlor cannot raise the rent more than
once in any rolling twelve month period. But it's not
like you know in New York City where they're where
they're I don't know if there still are but rent caps.

(49:32):
We don't have rent caps in rent well, unless it's
a rent, unless it's a income restricted property. But that's
that's a totally separate thing.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
I'm talking.

Speaker 5 (49:44):
We're just talking at market rentals here. There's no no
rental caps. Now, you cannot rent. You cannot raise the
rent on somebody in retaliation for like a habitability complaint
that they made. You know, if somebody's at two thousand
a month, and then they complained about cock croaches. You
can't jack up to four thousand. That's re retaliation. That
will get you in trouble and you'll lose and have

(50:04):
to be attorney fews on.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
That got it, all, right, Eva? Anything else from.

Speaker 13 (50:09):
You, not that I could think of, But so, yeah,
I thought there might be a standard new lease with
the new rules, but he's saying there's not.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
Yeah, Unfortunately there's not a set standard form out there.
So hey, Eva, we appreciate the call. Good luck. If
you need to get a hold of Brad O'Brien and
ask more direct questions, you can do so at olslaw
dot com or seven two oh three seven oh seven
three eight eight. We are going to go to a
break right now. We'll be right back. Charles is up

(50:42):
on the line and we'll we'll keep rocking along.

Speaker 10 (50:49):
Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until your content
time for an insurance check up. No obligation in comparison,
call compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer

(51:10):
when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all
three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Hey, good afternoon, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network.
So we are rocking and rolling here with Brad O'Brien
in the house, and we're talking about real estate law
and its applicability to all sorts of circumstances like landlord,
tenant and real estate contracts and stuff like that. So
if you have an issue like that, now would be
a really good time to get on the phone and

(51:46):
give us a call and get some advice from a
true expert in that field. The way to contact us
is best on the phone at three O three seven
one three eight two five five. And we're here for
every other kind of problem that you have as well.
So if you've been ripped off, cheated, taking advantage of
by somebody, we are here to help, So give us

(52:07):
a call. We've got a couple open lines right now.
We're going to go to Charles on the line, who
has an issue about renting rooms out in his home. Charles,
how you doing today?

Speaker 14 (52:18):
Pretty good?

Speaker 4 (52:19):
Not too bad? Thank you. So what do you got
going on? You're thinking about renting out part of your
house or yeah?

Speaker 16 (52:24):
With all the property chactes going up in Middleton, yeah,
I need little help, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (52:32):
So do you have just rooms in your house or
do you got a part?

Speaker 16 (52:36):
I got a I love them Loandon. It's real, real
large house, but it's there's a room, you know. Yeah,
I'm gonna h on the other side of the house,
like the bath in a room just rented out and
find out if I had to getting a professional type

(52:58):
of leaf contract.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Okay, so this would be in your home while you're
living there. Really just the kind of a roommate situation, right.

Speaker 16 (53:06):
Kind of right along, Really, get have of a friend
here all the time. Out want somebody that works, you know,
I don't want a companion that do you know works
something ow you know?

Speaker 4 (53:23):
Yeah, I understand, Brad. What advice would you give Charles
here about things to look out for and problems to avoid?

Speaker 5 (53:30):
Well, I've definitely helped people who are landlords by defaults.
You know, they're not in the business, but they want
to rent out a room in their house.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Hey, Charles, can you do me a favor and turn
that radio down in the background.

Speaker 16 (53:44):
There's no radio room.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Do you have us on a speaker or something or
okay better, yes, sir, much better, Thank you? Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 5 (53:55):
And when you're renting out rooms in the house that
you live in, your lease is gonna go into some
things that normally you wouldn't have in the lease, like
specifically what rooms in the house are they allowed to
use to live in, Where can they keep their things
for storage? Practically speaking, how are you going to share
the kitchen that sort of thing, you know, And and

(54:18):
you're gonna.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
Have some rules too.

Speaker 5 (54:20):
Sometimes we that's where most landlers don't have to give rules.
But if you're gonna have a co habitation situation, you're
probably gonna want attached to your lease some some just
basic rules like okay.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
We're smoking, is going to be outside, where you're.

Speaker 5 (54:33):
Gonna park your car, those kind of things that are
not at the level of the lease itself, but just
co living type of.

Speaker 16 (54:39):
There's plenty of room around here park your car. There's
no problems there.

Speaker 9 (54:43):
How about like you know, prohibition or at least the
limit on animals.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
Yes, most leases.

Speaker 16 (54:50):
I have a few and that's enough.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Yeah, I mean right, you should have something in there
about pats and how many. Now, the nice thing if
you're a landlord and you're renting out your own home,
then there are then you get some relief from some
of the tenant protections that are out there. So for example,
emotional support animals. You can actually, to my understanding, deny

(55:15):
that if if you live there, you know, because maybe
you have an allergy to pets. And so if you're
a small landlord, I think it's under four units, then
you don't have to you don't have to comply with that,
you know, allowing your tenant to have an emotional support animal,
bread animals.

Speaker 9 (55:35):
What about background checks? You know, especially in a situation
where somebody is going to rent the room that's going
to be a low price situation. There might be a
reason that the person needs a low priced housing opportunity.
And how does our call or protect themselves from moving
in with a with a convicted violent felon, or a
sex offender, or a drug dealer, or just some general

(55:58):
scumbag who's going to be make the landlord's life miserable.

Speaker 5 (56:01):
Well, I do recommend that landlords screen their prospective tenants,
and there are services out there.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
You just pay a certain.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Amount of money, maybe it's forty dollars to have a
background checked on them, and that should include a criminal check.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Now the law has changed, you cannot.

Speaker 5 (56:15):
Use their credit score against them, and you probably shouldn't
even check their credit because then then you'll have it
and they might accuse you of having use it against them.

Speaker 16 (56:25):
And what.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
You As far as as far as income contract.

Speaker 16 (56:32):
Do you have a lead section in your office?

Speaker 5 (56:35):
All my leases that I prepare for landlords are customed
to their situations. I don't have one, just a handout,
And there's no such thing in Colorado's as a custom
lease form. I was gonna say, when you're looking at
their income, the law changed very recently, so you can
only verify they have double the amount of the monthly
rent as income. You can't say you got to have
five times in the month monthly rent is income.

Speaker 4 (56:57):
No, you can only look at and verify that they
have double.

Speaker 16 (57:00):
Yeah, I'm afraid to have attle squatter, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 4 (57:05):
Yeah? For sure. Hey, Charles, how long has it been
since how long has it been since you had somebody
living in the house? With you.

Speaker 16 (57:14):
I bought the house back in three years ago.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
Okay, just me, just you, okay, yeah.

Speaker 16 (57:21):
Well you know it's a four bedroom house because some
of these bedrooms are a little small. The one. There's
two large ones, you know, the one I would rent out.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
Be careful, hey, Brad comes up with the lease. If
he just starts with like a lease you find on
the internet or something, and then comes to you, do
you take those and kind of custom tailor them to
his needs? Is that something he could reach out to
you about.

Speaker 5 (57:49):
Yes, many times, I actually don't give a landlord a
new lease. I take theirs that they're already using or
that they recently found, and just make sure that it
meets the standards.

Speaker 16 (58:00):
Like in the library. Can I get one? Perhaps somebody
told me that.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
I mean, you can google and find standard lease forms
out there, not standard, but least forms from various services
out there, but they may or may not be tailored
to Colorado because we have specific requirements here, so I.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
Can look at it. I think the point is, Charles,
that you know, there's a lot of places you can
find sample leases out there, Okay, and they'll give you
a start. But we're telling you that most of those samples,
you know, there's probably some aspect of it that is
not good or really not in your favor, and that
you know, somebody like Brad can look at and say, well,

(58:41):
here's something to think about, Charles. Maybe we could add
this or take this out and better protect you and stuff.
And that small amount of money that you would have
to pay to get that would give you the protection
that would pay dividends down the road.

Speaker 16 (58:53):
And so do you have a phone number? I could
call you out?

Speaker 4 (58:56):
You bet. His number is seven to two oh three
seven zero three seven zero seven three eight eight eight, Yes, sir,
you can also again his name is Brad O'Brien.

Speaker 16 (59:11):
And I was gonna say, uh, yeah, it's kind of
hard to find a roommate old disease staff in the classified.
That's all gone.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
Yeah, that's that's kind of gone by the wayside. So
all right, Charles, I'll.

Speaker 16 (59:28):
Have to check it out and call you man there
get get a you know, generic lease.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
All right, Well, best of luck to you, Charles. We
appreciate you calling in today to definitely give Brad a
call and get a good lease for your purposes. All right,
have a good day. We're gonna go to another break
here and then coming back from the break, we're gonna
we're gonna shift gears a little bit. We are going
to revisit a an existing case with Dimitri here, and
then we've got a couple of other things on the horizon. Uh,

(59:57):
we're gonna go to break.

Speaker 10 (01:00:03):
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Speaker 11 (01:00:07):
You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Speaker 10 (01:00:12):
Time for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison call
Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
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to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three
nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Hey, good afternoon, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network.
We are sneaking up on the twelve o'clock hour. We're
here talking today with Brad O'Brien, Brad to real estate
attorney and and longtime supporter of the show, and we've
talked about some different landlord tenant issues and stuff you know,
just addressing the caller that was just on the line

(01:01:03):
and stuff. I mean, you know, really and truly, the
idea of an elderly person opening up their home to
a roommate or tenant, no matter the property tax situation,
that is really really risky for you to do. And
you don't have to look too far to see all
the horror stories that can come as a result of

(01:01:26):
letting somebody in. There are literally people that study just
how to take advantage of people in these situations and
how to move in, and the horror stories are just terrible.
And so you know, I really I appreciate the caller,
you know, the desire to offset some of the increased
property taxes, I get it, but man, that really needs

(01:01:48):
to be just your last, you know, the last thing
that you do to kind of offset that, because the
risk is really really great that something bad can happen
from that. So I'd encourage the caller to be very
very careful, you know, maybe get somebody else to help
you in the screening process. Definitely check every reference that

(01:02:09):
you can possibly check on the person to just make
sure that you're not taking undue risk and you don't
end up with one of those bad situations, and even
then it still can happen. So it's dangerous. Would you
agree or yes?

Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
Whenever you're going to let somebody rent a room in
your house that you live in, there's a security risk there.
You know, they could get into your financial information, right,
go go in parts of the house, and they're not
supposed to. It's almost safer to move out, get it
and then rent out the former home all but the
whole home, right, just so they're not living with them.
And I would say that it is so expensive to

(01:02:44):
be a landlord now that if you're renting out a
room for five hundred dollars a month, the yeah, and
they don't pay the rent. Okay, the first time you
go into court, you could have five thousand attorney fees
if you hire an attorney to collect on them or
to evict.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
So it's us a whole year's worth of potential rent
gets sucked up in one incident of having to go
to court and try to enforce that deal, and then
there's no really coming back from that. I mean, it's
not like the court just waves its magic wand and
everybody goes home and it's just koumbai.

Speaker 6 (01:03:17):
Ay.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
After that that becomes a toxic environment and almost never
is over at that point.

Speaker 5 (01:03:22):
So Penny Lisas say that if you win against the
tenant in court, then well, actually, if it's usually a
two way attorney attorney feed provision that whoever wins gets
their attorney fees paid by the loser.

Speaker 10 (01:03:33):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (01:03:37):
You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Speaker 10 (01:03:42):
Time for an insurance check up free no obligation comparison
call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three O three seven
to seven to one.

Speaker 6 (01:03:52):
Help.

Speaker 10 (01:03:53):
You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
home with Remax Aliance three all three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Yeah, d new neat advice.

Speaker 13 (01:04:12):
Who you don't have?

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Come running just as fast as we can. Shooter's gonna help.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Come man, It's the Troubleshooter Show Now, Tom Martino, Good afternoon.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
This is John Fuller filling in for Tom Martino and
the Troubleshooter Network. We are here rocking and rolling this
afternoon dealing with your problems, taking complaint, solving problems, answering questions.
We are here for you. Our telephone number is three
three seven one three eight two five five. Would encourage
you to call with any issues you have. If you've

(01:04:50):
been cheated, you've been taking advantage of UH. We handle
just about everything that you could come up with today.
In particular, we have an expert in how house with
mister Brad O'Brien. Brad is a real estate attorney. He
is with his own O'Brien Legal services. You can reach
them at olslaw dot com. On the telephone, that number

(01:05:12):
is seven two oh three seven oh seven three eight
eight and we're here for you, so give us a call.
We've got a couple of open lines and we'd be
happy to go to your call right away. The reason
I brought up that the bad guys were looking for
me or I got this scam text and stuff, is
because there are so many scams out there right now.

(01:05:34):
There are so many scams. It's unbelievable that we have this,
just this onslaught of people trying to cheat people every
single day. And so I heard on the news this
morning that in Colorado the scammers stole two hundred and
forty three million dollars from Colorado residents alone last year.

Speaker 9 (01:05:59):
And that's that's just what we know of, because I
think that many people are too embarrassed to admit that
they got scammed, so they don't report, they don't tell anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
They just live with that shame.

Speaker 6 (01:06:10):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
I think you're absolutely right, John.

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
If you look on YouTube occasionally, you can see somebody
that send the picture of one of these scam rooms
in India, and it's literally one hundred people sitting in
the desk of the computer in their little booths that
do nothing but try and scam Americans. I mean literally
one hundred plus people doing nothing. But that's only one site.

(01:06:35):
It's incredible how large it is. But let me say
something since I do a lot of this stuff. Yeah,
Number one, most companies will not send you an email
if they want to get in touch with you. They
first of any government agency does not use emails or calls.
They will send you a letter in the mail.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
On letterhead, including an express too, including.

Speaker 7 (01:07:00):
Express told especially for you. But seriously, if you get
a call from the I R, S, FBI, Medicare, social Security,
it's a fake. They want to get in touch with you,
they will mail you it in a letter that's that's secure.
And the second thing is when you look at the
I R L if you have, they call it on

(01:07:21):
where the email is coming from. If it doesn't say
company dot com or if there's anything that's different, if
it's a company one two three dot com or company
X dot com or company with W at the end,
it's a fake.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
Yeah, But you can't even really rely on that dot
because like this express toole one that I'm looking at,
the website that's on this text is h T T
P S slash slash expresstole dot com. I'm just being
they spoof these real websites and put this little, you know,
garbage on the end that takes you to a different place.

(01:07:59):
But if you're not savvy and you look at it,
you're like, well, I mean, if it said, you know,
we're ascammer dot com, I maybe wouldn't go to it.
But this one says express toole all right.

Speaker 7 (01:08:10):
I'm not saying that's so, I'm just saying if it
has an extra leteral number, right, you know, it's a fake. Yeah,
it doesn't think they're the ones that are normal.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
I think the rule is, like you said, nobody's going
to text you for this stuff. You're just not going
to get a text. But I get calls. I mean
at my office we get calls daily. I'm sure Brad
you get the same calls and stuff. But I mean
they call up and it's like, yeah, i'd like to, uh,
you know, there's new savings to be had for blah

(01:08:39):
blah blah. You know, can I get your birthdate? It's like, hell, no, no,
you can't get the birthdate. But clearly somebody's given up
their private information or it sounds too enticing, they wouldn't
do it. So maybe I'm smart enough not to do it.
But somebody is a lot of people.

Speaker 6 (01:08:57):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
The message to the callers out there or to the listeners,
it's just listen. You've got to protect yourself. You have
to just assume that anybody that contacts you is most
likely a scammer. If it's your bank contacting you saying well,
we've had fraud in house and we're doing an investigation
and we're gonna need you to go buy a gift

(01:09:21):
card or some crap like that and open up another account.
I mean We've had callers where that exactly has happened.

Speaker 7 (01:09:27):
What you need what you need to do is if
you think there's any legitimate thing, you hang you you
go to their to their legitimate site, to the customer
service section or says contact us, and you contact them
and you say did you send this to me?

Speaker 6 (01:09:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Call your bank say hey, well, I know what's the
worst case you You know, you mess up the FBI's
fraud investigation. Oh darn, you know that's tough.

Speaker 7 (01:09:55):
I get pull stuff all the time because my son
uses my other car and it pays. The damn bill
gets sent to me, and I know it's legitimate because
they send it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
No, they send it to me an he on your son.

Speaker 7 (01:10:07):
No, but they don't text me about it. If they
send me a letter in the mail that I owe
the toll, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
I think they'll do. You know. I get calls all
the time about Medicare, and I am many many many
moons away from medicare, many many moons away from Medicare,
But I get calls all the time, and I think
it's because in my practice, we deal with Medicare all
the time, and so there's some way that they see
that we're at least a representative of people, and we're

(01:10:35):
I don't know where they get this information, but I
mean it's it's not there's never a week that goes
by that I don't get calls about my Medicare eligibility
and and whatever.

Speaker 7 (01:10:46):
And now they look at you and look and you
look like you're sixty five.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
Maybe that's they're like, if he's not all Medicare, he
should be. You know, he looks like a guy who
needs some medicare going on here. So so it's just crazy.
You know, what do you guys think is the most
common scam out there? I mean it's tech scams.

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
There's no question that ninety percent of it are people
getting things that there's a glitch in your computer. We
found a bug. Well from we're from Microsoft Support or
from Amazon support, that something that's wrong with your computer.
There's a bug and if you help, if you let
us into your computer, we'll get rid of the bug.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
Yeah. I would say to the listeners out there, call
us if you've you know, if you've seen these things,
I want to hear about the most creative scam that
you've that you've either avoided or you've heard of somebody
falling for at least you'll help somebody else recognize that
you're not alone in getting these and that they are
truly scams. The number one most financially impactful scam in

(01:11:49):
Colorado is investment scams. Really believe that how does that work?
It's everything from buying gold to bitcoin to you know,
all of these different things, and people people get lured in.
They get a phone call saying I've got a screaming
deal on on gold today. You said you got you know,
you get calls like that, you go sue them, but

(01:12:10):
other people get get scammed on them. But the FBI
received nearly eight hundred and sixty thousand complaints about investment
fraud last year. You believe that that's.

Speaker 7 (01:12:21):
Why you guess that romance scam would be number two.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
Well, tell us about romance scams there, doc, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:12:31):
There are a lot of scams where people have they
have no self awareness. Right, let me tell the audience.
If you're fifty or sixty years old man or woman,
there is no thirty year old model or all rigged
or special or eight Navy seal that wants to date you.

Speaker 4 (01:12:50):
Now wait a second, Okay, hold on there. Just a minute,
big guy, I'll send you a picture of my girlfriend.
Don ask me mister Belichick about that. He can he
can get you on the right path. So so tell
me more about this doctor you have him knocking down
your doors or you.

Speaker 7 (01:13:09):
Get a lot of that on the AARP line where
you get people who get contacted by somebody on Facebook
or on one of these sites, and they pretend to
be interested in dating you or falling in love with you,
and they always ask for money. They never will face
some of you, they'll never talk to you. There's always

(01:13:30):
an impediment to what they're getting together. And there's always
somebody who is out of the country on or rig
or in the military, and they will they will never
ever reveal themselves because it's some twenty year old kid
in Legos or in the Calcutta that's pretending to be
the other person.

Speaker 4 (01:13:50):
Just crazy. Hang on a second, we'll be right back.

Speaker 10 (01:13:52):
Guys, go with a thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (01:14:03):
You don't pay a cent until you're content, wait.

Speaker 10 (01:14:08):
Time for an insurance checkup, free no obligation comparison call
Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
insurance companies.

Speaker 11 (01:14:16):
Find out now three all three seven seven one help.

Speaker 10 (01:14:19):
You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
Right should afternoon, John Fuller coming back at you on
the Troubleshooter Network. We are here to help you solve problems,
take complaints, answer questions, all of that kind of fun stuff.
And it all starts with you picking up the phone
and giving us a call at three three seven one
three eight two five five. We are here for you.
So in the studio TODA Day, we have Brad O'Brien.

(01:15:01):
Brad as a real estate attorney. He is available when
he's not in the studio at OLS Law that's o
lslaw dot com or seven two oh three seven O
seven three eight eight. Give Brad a call for all
of your real estate needs. We've got Eva on the
line that still has a question here. We're going to
go back to Eva. Eva. Are you still there?

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
I am R What is going on?

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
Eva?

Speaker 13 (01:15:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:15:27):
I forgot to ask before there is a renter that
I have that I never had a lease with Uh huh,
can you explain the how to handle that?

Speaker 4 (01:15:39):
Sure? Is that a relative or a non relative?

Speaker 13 (01:15:44):
Uh? No, not non relative?

Speaker 5 (01:15:46):
Okay, Well, you're not required to have a lease in
writing with a tenant. It makes a whole lot of
sense to have one. But if they if you don't
have something in writing, then their tendency, whether it's month
to month or year to year, is typically deemed to
be how often they pay the rent. So if they
pay the rent once every month, you might have a
month to month tennancy. If they pay once a week,

(01:16:07):
you might have a week to week tendancy. And those
have different termination requirements.

Speaker 13 (01:16:13):
What about a month to month.

Speaker 5 (01:16:15):
Well, if you have an unwritten month to month lease
and you want to terminate that, you can on twenty
one days advance written notice. So if rent is due
on the first of the month, then you have to
terminate twenty one days prior to the end of a month,
so by the tenth of the month, if it's thirty
one day month. Now, unfortunately, well the laws changed last year.

(01:16:36):
As soon as they've been there for one year, then
you have to give them ninety days notice of terminating
their tenancy, and you have to have a specific reason
what's called a just cause, like you want to sell
or you want to convert it to something else. But actually,
do you live in the same house or no? Okay,
if you lived in the same house and you're renting
out a room, then that ninety day thing doesn't apply.

Speaker 14 (01:17:00):
But it's ninety days even if they never.

Speaker 13 (01:17:02):
Had a leave. Yes, and you have to have just costs.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
Okay, why do you want to evictim eva?

Speaker 17 (01:17:12):
Because they have They've been paying half the price or
less of what I could get for that house and
are non negotiable.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
They're non negotiable, right, meaning they just say no when
you tell them you want to raise the rent.

Speaker 16 (01:17:33):
Correct So you can raise.

Speaker 5 (01:17:36):
The rent on them with the sixty days advanced notice,
So sixty days before the first of some month where
you want to raise the rent, give them that notice
that the rent's going up by this amount and it
will and if they don't pay it, then.

Speaker 4 (01:17:48):
You can start an eviction proceeding with a ten day
notice how.

Speaker 13 (01:17:54):
Much notice if they don't pay the correct amount.

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
If a tenant doesn't pay the rent, then by the deadline,
if you're lead, well, if there's no lease, and it's
doing the first is doing the first. But some leases
say there's a five day grace period. If there was
a grace period, you would wait until that grace period
is over, and then you would give them.

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
A ten day notice.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
After the end of the ten days, if they haven't
paid the past due rent, then you can file a
court action for eviction.

Speaker 4 (01:18:20):
So for either if they've been there more than a year.
But it's an unwritten month to month lease and she
wants to raise the rent, she's got to give them
sixty days notice for that or ninety days notice with
just cause to just terminate the lease. Is that right? Complicated?

Speaker 5 (01:18:40):
I actually have to confirm one of those deadlines. The
most of that is correct.

Speaker 4 (01:18:46):
I need to look up something real quick. Is there
another question? While I look at the story of my life?
Mostly correct? Was there something else? So explain to me
how that they're non negotiable on this idea of raising
the rent. Did they just say no, no, thanks, We're
not going to do that. Fly a kite? I mean,
tell me how that you're you're the landlord right.

Speaker 9 (01:19:08):
Right?

Speaker 13 (01:19:09):
I'm too too kind, I guess, And you know I
like to work with people. If they can't afford it.
But with everything raising in you know, real estate taxes
and everything going up, I can't afford to have them

(01:19:29):
ranking that place. That's such a low amount.

Speaker 12 (01:19:32):
And they are ruining it as far as not taking
care of the outside. And I believe they are also
taking in tennis.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
Oh oh no, we can't have that. So is this
a freestanding like single family home?

Speaker 13 (01:19:48):
It is?

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Okay? What are you charging?

Speaker 13 (01:19:53):
Oh? Just about a thousand?

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Oh wow? Where is this house like that? Neighbors? Are
we talking about? How many rooms?

Speaker 13 (01:20:00):
Import collins bedroom?

Speaker 9 (01:20:02):
Oh that's a nice town and a price.

Speaker 4 (01:20:06):
How long have you been charging them a thousand dollars? Eva?

Speaker 13 (01:20:09):
Well, only a couple of years before that, it was
in the nine hundreds.

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
They're probably making money by sub by sub lessons.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Probably are, Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 13 (01:20:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:20:20):
I guarantee you they're renting those rooms out for nine
hundred bucks a month in a college town.

Speaker 6 (01:20:24):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
And also everything you said a minute ago was correct.

Speaker 5 (01:20:28):
Sixty days notice to increase the rent when there's no
written lease, got it, nailed it?

Speaker 18 (01:20:32):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:20:34):
All right? So does that answer your questions?

Speaker 14 (01:20:35):
Eva?

Speaker 4 (01:20:36):
I mean, you just got to toughen up a little
bit here, and I know you know you can get
a lot more to rent that place, and you just
need to put your feet down and give them notice
and writing that the that the rent is going to
go up to the market rate, looking figure out what
market is and and just inform them that you're going
to raise that rate up and they can either accept

(01:20:58):
it or get out on their own. And if not,
you have the ability to initiate the eviction proceedings. And so, uh,
let us know how that works out for you, okay, Eva, Oh,
thank you Eva.

Speaker 7 (01:21:10):
This is both I have a suggestion.

Speaker 19 (01:21:12):
I know'll being a landlord myself, sometimes it's kind of
tough to communicate with people maybe that you've known for
a long time. You may want to give Brad O'Brien
a call and have him draft the letter for the
rent increase, who would have a lot more teeth if
he will coming from an attorney rather than you meet
telling the tenant that you mean business, that you're going

(01:21:34):
to be raising the rent or hav an eventual move out.

Speaker 4 (01:21:39):
Do you do that kind of stuff?

Speaker 7 (01:21:40):
Ray?

Speaker 4 (01:21:40):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (01:21:41):
And I think that in particular, if if your end
goal is to get them out, and you think you're
probably going to be going to court anyway, then have
me start drafting all these notices because they will be
exhibiting in the court case. Right, what haven't done done correctly?

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
In great advice? Notice the rent increase needs to be
in writing as well. So, Eva, here's how you get
a hold of Brad. His number is seven too oho
three seven oh seven three eight eight, and you can
find him on the web at olslaw dot com. So
we'd recommend that you give him a call and protect
yourself by papering this thing up and doing everything correctly.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
Okay, sounds good, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:22:17):
All right, we are coming up on another break here, Frank,
hang on. We'll get you next with your issue about
insurance and a motorcycle. Just uh hang on, we'll be
right back.

Speaker 10 (01:22:31):
Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel roofing
dot com.

Speaker 11 (01:22:35):
You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Speaker 10 (01:22:40):
Time for an insurance check up, free, no obligation comparison
call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
seven to one.

Speaker 4 (01:22:51):
Help.

Speaker 10 (01:22:51):
You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
durand the real estate man dot Com to list your
home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
All right, good afternoon, John Fuller. Here in the Troubleshooter Network,
we are getting right back to it. We have a
couple of callers lined up here. Frank, you have an
issue with motorcycle insurance. What's going on, Frank?

Speaker 20 (01:23:26):
Oh, actually it's not motorcycle insurance. But what happened is
my niece shipped a motorcycle from Denver to Grand Junction
and in transit it got heavily damaged, and they ended up.
The company that shipped it has Progressive Insurance. Okay, they
wounded up going back and forth, they got a settlement
agreed upon of fifty eight hundred dollars. So Progressives tells

(01:23:48):
my niece that they'll pay her forty eight hundred, but
the insurance deductibles one thousand, and she has to get
it from him, and he said he would venmo or
Zelle and then come to find out, he called her
and said, look, I don't have the money. I'm not
working and I don't have the money to pay it.
Is it standard for an insurance company to make a
settlement to total the bike and then not pay the

(01:24:15):
whole amount of what they agreed to pay.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
No, it's not that's not how it generally works. The
only time a deductible normally comes into play is when
you're making a claim for your own property under like
a comprehensive claim, where it's like your car or something
going to the body shop, and you've got to pay
a deductible when it's a third party. That's no different
than you and I getting in an accident, Frank and
my insurance company has to pay your car. They're not

(01:24:39):
going to charge me a deductible for that claim. They're
going to pay the claim out completely. And it just
doesn't come up at all. So I think I would
take that up with Progressive and just say, no, thank you,
we're not playing that game. If you have some deal
with your insured, that's on your end, but you can't
shift that over to you to go collect that thousand dollars.

Speaker 20 (01:25:02):
Well, apparently, I'll talk to her more. But apparently she's
talked to Progressive or the agent or whoever it is
that's worked this out, and they said, no, you have
to get it from him. And so I suggested that
she get a hold of the real Estate Commission Colorado
real Estate or insurance Commission and make a complaint because

(01:25:23):
that's not the way it should be handled.

Speaker 4 (01:25:25):
Yeah, I mean, you can definitely do that. They'll take
your complaint and stuff. But that's just not right. And
I think if you keep elevating that or escalating it
to you know, a higher level at Progressive, somebody is gonna,
you know, is going to say, no, that's not how
it's supposed to happen. I can't think of any type
of insurance claim that would require you, the claimant to

(01:25:49):
go and seek out some sort of a deductible from
some third party, even if they had a coinsurance amount
or something. You know, that's just not how that's just
not how it works.

Speaker 15 (01:26:02):
So well, that's good advice.

Speaker 20 (01:26:03):
I'm going to have her do that and hopefully take
it up the chain and get it resolved quickly. Obviously
she saw the complaint. That may take a little longer,
it may not even have any impact.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
Well, I mean it can. I mean, you just never
know the thing about the insurance commission is when when
it has teeth, you know, all you're really hoping that
you get out of that is a phone call to
the carrier saying is this really what you guys are
wanting to do here? And oftentimes to compel them to
exactly it's just that that call saying we're watching and

(01:26:35):
we're aware of this, and is this really how you
want to play the game? And many times that's all
it takes to get, you know, to get something to happen.
With that being said, though, let me tell you, in
my practice, progressive takes liberties that I take issue with
on a number of different things, and so it's not
surprising to me that you're having that issue. But but

(01:26:58):
I've generally been able to resolve them just by pushing
harder and harder and getting people higher up on the
food chain to deal with it. So that would be
my suggestion to you.

Speaker 20 (01:27:08):
Perfect And we're gonna try that for sure, all right,
and I'll let you know how it works out.

Speaker 4 (01:27:13):
Hey, dude, do that. I appreciate it, Frank, he's doing better.
We'll pass that along. Thanks Frank for the call. We
appreciate it. Keith is on the line with the comment
about eva situation. Keith, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):
Oh?

Speaker 18 (01:27:27):
I just wanted to add that if you don't have
a lease which states a grace period for the for
the payments of the monthly rental, then the state automatically
implies a seven day waiting period, so you couldn't file
the ten day notice until a week after they don't
pay if she doesn't have a lease.

Speaker 4 (01:27:47):
Okay, and Brad, would you care to Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
I don't agree with that. I know I do know
the seven day thing you're talking about. Let me first
say that as soon as they are daylight, you can
give them a ten day notice. The seven day thing
you're talking talking about, I expect is right to cure. No,
the late fee, so you can charge if it's in
a written lease that that that the landlord can charge
a late fee, then the late fee can be a

(01:28:13):
certain amount.

Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
Top of my head, I can't say what it is.

Speaker 5 (01:28:15):
But you cannot assess that late fee until the rent
has been late for seven days, So you.

Speaker 15 (01:28:21):
Can get that.

Speaker 5 (01:28:22):
Uh, you can assess that late fee on the eighth day,
but but you can you can give the ten day
notice as soon.

Speaker 4 (01:28:27):
As they're minute late on the rent. Okay, is that
is that what you're talking about? The late fee there? Keith, Yes, yes,
thank you for that. Correction. Okay, cool, Well, thanks for
the comment. We appreciate the call there, Keith. We're going
to go to a couple of follow ups here. Bo
actually had a couple of questions for for Brad today
on real estate issues. We're going to go ahead and

(01:28:48):
deal with those as always. Give us a call. We
got a couple open lines seven one, three, eight, two
five five is the number, uh three oh three. Martino
also works, So give us a call. We'll be glad
to help you out.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
Bo.

Speaker 4 (01:28:59):
What is going on with you?

Speaker 19 (01:29:01):
Yes, And I'd like to just comment to our listeners
who are landlords, this is a great opportunity for you
to call in talk to Brad O'Brien and get your
legal real estate questions answered. It no charge. And Brad,
I have a question being a landlord. I've been to
court several times on fictions and the judge issues this

(01:29:25):
piece of paper called the writ of restitution. And I
understand the word writ, but I never really could get
my brain wrapped around the word restitution. And my question
is twofold. If I do get the rep when I
do get the writ of restitution, is this something that
I can just serve upon the tenant because technically, when

(01:29:48):
you use the sheriff, the sheriff is sometimes like a
month and a half out to execute this writ of restitution.
And the second part of my question is how long
does rate of restitution lasts?

Speaker 7 (01:30:02):
Is it a week, a month, a year?

Speaker 5 (01:30:05):
So okay, Well, when the only way that a landlord
can can lawfully evict a tenant is through the court,
and they go to court and file on an eviction
action in order to obtain a court order for possession
of the property, where the court is saying that the
landlord has legal possession of the premises, the rental premises,
and the tenant no longer has legal possession, and so

(01:30:28):
that is the restitution. So the court is basically giving
the possession of the premises back to the landlord. That's
the restitution part of it.

Speaker 6 (01:30:35):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:30:35):
So at the end of a eviction court case, there's
a trial or a default judgment which ends up in
this order of possession in favor of the landlord, and
the next step is the writ of restitution that is
an order from the court to the county sheriff.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
The actual form of the writs.

Speaker 5 (01:30:54):
Starts off to the sheriff of whichever county and so
the only party that execute a written or do something
about it is the sheriff. Private parties and landlords cannot
execute writs on their own. That's self help and that's illegal,
and that'll get you in trouble. So as soon as
a judge court issues this order of possession in favor
of the landlord, then there's a two day waiting period

(01:31:17):
before the writ can be issued. However, there's a further
waiting period of ten days after that judgment has entered
before the sheriff can actually execute the rit Now you
recognize that there's a problem of some of these county
sheriffs are kind of backed up and truth sometimes a
month and a.

Speaker 4 (01:31:32):
Half, Brad, So can I interrupt here just so we
can clarify the language. What does execute the writ actually mean?
Does that mean nailing it on the door? Does that
mean physically kicking the people out? I mean, what does
executing it mean?

Speaker 5 (01:31:46):
When a sheriff executes a red restitution, they are physically
removing the tenants and their belongings from the premises.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
Okay, and let me clarify. They don't lift a finger
to do any of that stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:31:55):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:31:56):
The landlord who is doing the eviction is required to
hire a moving company or to have like five or
six able bodied movers sufficient to get the move out
done within one hour, maybe two if it's a bigger house.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
So is that when you just see stuff piled up
by the curb.

Speaker 5 (01:32:13):
Right, so the right any the move out, the place
to put it is next to the right of way
and that unfortunately, that will get you in trouble if
you're like an hua community, because that'll get the land
we're defined so they but normally those things have to
remain on the curve for twenty four hours before the
landlord can remove them. There is some protection for the

(01:32:35):
landlord for loss of property by following the procedures if
the if the sheriff is there supervising the execution of
the red restitution supervising the actional move out, then the
landlord is protected from a liability.

Speaker 4 (01:32:50):
For loss of that personal property. Okay, hold that thought.
We're going to take a real quick break and we'll
be right back. So thank you.

Speaker 10 (01:33:02):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Time for an insurance checkup free no obligation. In comparison,
call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer

(01:33:24):
when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all
three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:33:41):
Hey, we're back live in the house. This is John
Fuller on the Troubleshooter Network and we are working through
Bo's questions and all things about what not to do
on evictions and stuff. And it sounds like there's so
much more to it than I ever had an idea,
and so I'm going to turn it back over to
bow here or what. So it sounds like a crazy

(01:34:04):
process here where I mean, how many times does it
actually go down to where you're having to get the sheriff.
It seems like people would want to get their stuff
out and not have it end up on the curb.
I mean, does this happen a lot in your practice? Yeah,
most tenants.

Speaker 5 (01:34:20):
Most tenants will not go to the bitter end of
the sheriff process because nobody wants their stuff to be
put out on the curb, right, so when they know
it's close, they'll they'll finally go. But there are some
dead enders out there who go to the better end
and their stuff's out of the curb. I don't know why,
but but that's it's expensive for landlord to take it
that far because then they have to hire movers.

Speaker 4 (01:34:41):
They got to pay the sheriff feed to actually do that.

Speaker 7 (01:34:43):
It's happened to me twice.

Speaker 19 (01:34:45):
And about this rider restitution, Brad, I would like, you're right,
it's a it's a device that goes directly to the sheriff.
But I'd like to have the ability to present the
ridd restitution pay or to the tenant to know that,
I mean business, you need to get out, because the
last couple of experiences I have they have not I

(01:35:07):
mean just.

Speaker 4 (01:35:08):
As a.

Speaker 19 (01:35:11):
Warning that they need to move their stuff out. And
in Denver, for a landlord, it's pretty difficult to do
the eviction all the way down. Of course, you want
people to move their stuff out, but the sheriff the
last time we used it was like a month and
a half out to just show up to supervise. And
you're right, they don't lift a thing and they give
you an hour and a half to two hours tops,

(01:35:33):
and if you can't get the move done in that
time frame, you basically have to start over with the
eviction process.

Speaker 5 (01:35:40):
Yeah, most county sheriff's offices don't want you to call
them until that ten day waiting period to serve a
writ has actually run, and so you call them on
day ten or eleven, and then they open the calendar
and say, okay, three to four weeks out, we have
an opening to conduct an eviction. And so yeah, there's
an additional time in there. No, some tenants know about that,
and they, you know, if they want to game this
them and get more free rent, they just milk it

(01:36:01):
to the bitter end.

Speaker 4 (01:36:02):
Yeah, So how long does a tenant have to actually
cure during this process? Like what's the last day that
they can pay and reset the clock on all this age.

Speaker 5 (01:36:14):
That was a recent change in the last couple of
years as well. Now a tenant can cure their unpaid
rent up until the moment that the judge issues in
order of possession. Okay, so at that point their right
to cure has gone.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
So if they come to court with a money order
or something, they can cure it over and over again
as long as they want. That's right.

Speaker 9 (01:36:33):
As part of that cure, do they also have to
reimburse the landlord for their costs of this eviction or
is it just the rent that needs to know?

Speaker 5 (01:36:41):
At this point, there has been no judgment on damages,
like how much does the rent do and if there's
any attorney fees involved.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
So eviction cases have two steps. There's two hearings.

Speaker 5 (01:36:51):
The first hearing is the possession hearing and that normally
happens ten to fourteen days after the complaint is filed,
and then based on that outcome, the court would set
the actual trial on the money part, maybe two to
three weeks out later, and that's where you can get
your judgment for order for attorney fees and pass do round.

Speaker 9 (01:37:09):
So, even if the tenant cures the past due rent
in the court room, there's still going to be another
hearing for the damages and costs.

Speaker 5 (01:37:18):
Yes, landlord could take it to the second part the trial,
but most landlords aren't going to do that. It's just
too expensive, doesn't make sense, doesn't ever done that?

Speaker 19 (01:37:26):
Yeah, the second part you might stay, we have the
money for the rent.

Speaker 7 (01:37:30):
They're just they're just beating a dead horse trying to.

Speaker 5 (01:37:33):
You might spend as much in attorney fees as the
amount you're trying to recover, and then you.

Speaker 4 (01:37:36):
May not even be able to recover. Right. Are you
in county court on these usually?

Speaker 5 (01:37:41):
Or Yes, you can do evictions in both county court
and district court, but they're much faster and cheaper in
county court, which is an expedited process under the rules
simplified perceise civil procedure.

Speaker 4 (01:37:51):
But you can actually if the rent.

Speaker 5 (01:37:54):
Sometimes in the commercial evictions will start in county court
for possession and then remove it to district court to
get the money judgment. Because in commercial amount of controversy,
yeah you can. You can only recover twenty five thousand
in county court. Right, so if the amount is over,
you have to go to the district court.

Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
Got you? But the but the first portion of it
would still be in county court. It's only when you're
fighting for the money aspect that the jurisdictional limits come
into play, right, got you? Cool? Uh, Frank, you have
another question on your motorcycle shipping issue. What's going on? Frank?

Speaker 20 (01:38:27):
Well, so she called the supervisor over Progressive and the
supervisor said that it is a car a commercial cargo policy,
and that that's the way it's written. But I've never
heard of an instance where the damaged party has to
get money from the insured when and they're totaling the bike.

(01:38:48):
So I don't understand commercial cargo versus.

Speaker 6 (01:38:53):
Regular policy.

Speaker 4 (01:38:54):
Well, so here's a suggestion for you, Frank, and I
don't know what your situation is. In my practice, we
frequently have cases where we have disputes among property damage carriers,
and we sometimes will use our own carrier to file
a clean and then let that carrier deal with subrogating
and going to get repaid from the other side. That's

(01:39:15):
an option if you want to talk more about that.
Hang on until the other side of the break. We
got to cut to a brake right now. Thanks for
calling Ken, hang on the line as well. We'll get
your calls as we get back.

Speaker 10 (01:39:30):
Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison,
call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only

(01:39:51):
customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man
dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
Yea ripped off news. Didn't need advice, so you don't
have come running.

Speaker 11 (01:40:13):
It's just as fast as we can.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Shooter's gonna help coming.

Speaker 3 (01:40:19):
This is the Troubleshooter Show now, Tom Martine, Hey.

Speaker 4 (01:40:26):
Good afternoon. John Fuller here filling in for Tom Martino
and the Troubleshooter Network. Just to report Tom is doing well.
He is still in the hospital, but he reports improvement
every day. I texted him something short and brief and
it turned into I think thirteen texts this morning in
about in about ten minutes. So that tells you Tom's
doing just fine. And we'll be back here in no time.

(01:40:49):
So we have been passing along all the well wishes
and stuff from all the listeners, and we appreciate those.
So we are here to help you solve problems, take complaints.
If you've been scammed, if you've been victimized by some
contractor some company, some insurance company, we are here to
help you get a hold of us by calling three
oh three seven one three eight two five five that's

(01:41:12):
three O three seven one three talk. You can also
get to us at uh the three or three Martino,
So multiple ways to get ahold of us. Call us today.
We're happy to help. In the studio of today is
Brad O'Brien with O'Brien Legal Services Bread as a real
estate attorney with a number of years of experience. We're

(01:41:32):
talking today mainly about you know, evictions and what steps
need to be taken and kind of dealing with some
horror stories and it's just crazy the requirements that you
have to go through as a landlord to get somebody
out of your property. When when something like that happens.
And so if you've got questions about real estate, your

(01:41:53):
rental properties, landlord tenant situations, by all means, get on
the horn. Now. We've got about an hour to answer
those questions. But it's a great opportunity to tap into
brand's expertise and we look for those questions real quick.
We're going to go to the lines. We have Ken
with a question about property tax. What is going on
with you? Ken?

Speaker 15 (01:42:17):
Yes, I went into Douglas County this morning to pay
my property taxes. And I realized that yesterday, you know,
they were due and I couldn't make it. So this
morning I went in to pay them. It was like
three hours into the first day, and they charged me.

(01:42:37):
They tell me that it's one percent charge. Oh oh,
they gave me this statue. And I looked up the statue.
In the eight section, it stipulates if it's received in
their office within five days, then the date received is

(01:42:58):
the do date. And I even spoke to Dave gil
and he refused to do anythings, said call my legislator.

Speaker 4 (01:43:08):
Oh that's friendly, Brad. Any advice here.

Speaker 5 (01:43:13):
I'm not familiar with the statue, but I'm wondering if
if that's a mail in situation where it's postmark before
the deadline but then received after the deadline.

Speaker 4 (01:43:20):
Is that is that how it reads?

Speaker 15 (01:43:23):
It's it's the statutes three nine dash ten dash one
oh four point.

Speaker 4 (01:43:31):
Five three nine dash ten dash one oh four point five.

Speaker 15 (01:43:37):
Okay, Section eight.

Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
Okay, I can look it up real quick. Okay, all right,
so Ken, let's uh, let's give Brad a couple of
seconds to look that up, and we'll come right back
and see if we can work through that statute. Okay,
we have another issue with one of Dimitri's cases that
we wanted to also get into with Brad. So we're

(01:44:02):
going to get a little background on the case from
Dmitri and then we're going to talk about that at
some lenk because it's a fascinating issue that has come
up and there's so many different ways that could go.
But why don't you give a little bit of background.
We don't need to go the encyclopedic version of it,
but just give us a little background on this story

(01:44:25):
and we'll go from there.

Speaker 9 (01:44:27):
John and Brad. A few days ago, lady by the
name of Haley called us because she and her roommate
had rented a very expensive apartment downtown and everything went
well for a while until it no longer was going
well and they had some kind of a falling out
the roommate. Apparently, it wasn't very clear from Haley's call
if the roommate had applied for a protection protection order

(01:44:51):
or actually got one. Okay, but that's actually outside the
scope of what my question was for you yesterday and
today is for Brad or both of you guys. And
so the roommate the estranged roommate went to the property
manager's office at the apartment complex and asked them to
terminate her.

Speaker 4 (01:45:08):
Lease, and they did.

Speaker 9 (01:45:11):
Now that part sounds reasonable to me, But here's the
part that really bothered me. Now, Haley is stuck with
a payment for the entire apartment and utilities, and that's
what the apartment manager had told her. Now, we actually
called Brad with this a few days ago, and Brad said, oh, yeah, oh,
you know the leases. You know, you're jointly and severably responsible,

(01:45:31):
So she's going to be stuck with it. So that's
the answer we gave her. But over the next few hours,
long after the show, it kept bothering me, and it
took me a while to figure out what I was
bothered by. I think we made a mistake by looking
at this issue from the perspective of what does the
lease say. I think that the perspective should have been

(01:45:52):
from the perspective of contractual agreement. And Guys, what I
came up with in my mind is that before these
leases were even signed, those three principles had a contract
among themselves, and that contract to enter into. It's an unwritten,
unspoken contract. But the contract is this both tenants agree

(01:46:14):
to enter into these leases with a property manager contingent
on each of them entering into this. And so what
happened at the end is that the principal one, which
is the landlord, and principal two, which is the estranged roommate,
got together decided that the roommate is no longer obligated

(01:46:35):
to perform her duties under this contract. They, without the
knowledge or permission of the second the second tenant let
the first one out of the lease to the financial
detriment of Hailey. And I said, look, I think in
my view, the equitable position, the equitable resolution to this
would be, hey, we let her out, but it shouldn't

(01:46:56):
be to Hailey's detriment, and Haley should be allowed to
pay just her half of the lease all right until
it runs out, and then they move her out.

Speaker 4 (01:47:05):
Got it? Yeah, I remember that call. And what I said.

Speaker 5 (01:47:10):
Is that the tenant who got let out of the
lease is liable to the remaining tenant only if those
two tenants had an agreement between each other. And I
also said that the lease between the tenants and the
landlord is a is a two way agreement, It's not
a three way agreement.

Speaker 4 (01:47:29):
It's a two way agreement.

Speaker 5 (01:47:30):
You got tenants on one got two tenants on one side,
and you got a landlord on the other side. And
nothing in the typical lease has anything between the two
tenants as far as their duties and obligations to each other.
So they'd have to have their own separate agreement as
between the two of them.

Speaker 4 (01:47:43):
Okay, hold that thought, and let's deal with Kim's issue
real quick. And then I want to come back to
that and throw a couple of curve balls in there.
So what'd you find out on Kim's property texts? Yeah,
as I suspected.

Speaker 5 (01:47:55):
The statute he referenced is a talks about when when
a tax payment is mailed in or sent through a
common courier like FedEx, and it received, it's received in
the treasure office after the deadline. Now, this statue talks
about the situation where there's no postmark.

Speaker 4 (01:48:13):
So this is a postmark statue.

Speaker 5 (01:48:17):
If you postmark it by the deadline and the postmark
shows on the envelope, you're good. But if if somehow
a postmark is not put on a fixed on that
envelope and it's received after the deadline, then there's this
five day grace where if it's received within by May fifth,
when the deadline was April thirtieth, the Treasure's office will
be all deemed it on time day six and on.

(01:48:37):
They have to use the date of actual receipt as
the as the date it was received. So so this caller,
when he walked in the payment a day late, doesn't
get the benefit of the statute.

Speaker 4 (01:48:50):
It's just straight late. Yeah, because the statute is only
late really wouldn't matter. It's just as late. It's only
for mailing in that get arrives after the deadline. That
pretty much what they too told you there, Ken, I'm okay?
Is that pretty much what they told you?

Speaker 15 (01:49:05):
Well, they told me that he couldn't do anything to
call my legislator. Yeah, oh, I just think you know,
three hours and twenty minutes into the first day.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
Yeah, that it says.

Speaker 15 (01:49:18):
The way I read the statue was if it wasn't postmarked,
if it didn't have a postmark on it, but it
was received within less than five days, that they need
to claim the due date as the day it was received.

Speaker 5 (01:49:38):
No, no, they'll they'll deem it on time if it
is within five days.

Speaker 4 (01:49:42):
But that's not you walked in the payment. But that's
only if it arrives by mail, right, yes, with no postmark.
So it just happened to not have a postmark, but
it came in with the mailman. So you should have
ran down the mailman and tucked it in his bag.
But when you just walked it in there yourself, you
couldn't avail yourself of that part of the rule.

Speaker 15 (01:50:03):
Well, what's the definition of a common carrier? If I
carried it in there?

Speaker 6 (01:50:07):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:50:07):
Common?

Speaker 9 (01:50:08):
A common carrier is a well defined term that would
be like ups, fed Ex, DHL, flying tigers.

Speaker 4 (01:50:15):
Are you in the business of carrying people's mail?

Speaker 15 (01:50:18):
No, No, I'm in the truck and business.

Speaker 9 (01:50:21):
Oh did you bring this in in your truck in
the back of your truck?

Speaker 15 (01:50:28):
And that and that check that I paid them with
is in a trucking check?

Speaker 4 (01:50:34):
Well, I don't think the party making the payment really
invokes the exception to the rule or makes it.

Speaker 5 (01:50:41):
You know, County treasurers have no flexibility. They have to
they have if something is a minute late, they are
required to propose. If they have no flexibility or discretion
to say oh close enough.

Speaker 4 (01:50:53):
Yeah, they have to follow the statue. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 15 (01:50:55):
Sorry, not the money, it's not the money at all.
It's just you know, I like I say, we're talking
three hours and twenty minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:51:05):
Well it's a day and three hours and twenty minutes.
I mean, listen, Ken, you're preaching to the choir. I
wish there was an exception, and that seems close enough
to me, But the reality is those guys at the
clerk's office they don't have the legal latitude to make
an exception. They just don't. I mean, it's not within

(01:51:25):
their power to say. That's why they told you to
go see the legislature, because that's who wrote the laws.
Once they were written and once they were imposed on them,
they have no latitude of doing it differently. So I
wish I had a different answer for you, But I'm sorry.
Late is late from their perspective, and there's just not
a heck of a lot that we can do. Thank you,

(01:51:47):
Thank you for listening. We appreciate it. All right, So
now back to Dimitri's call. Actually, we're going to go
to one real quick break and then we're going to
come back and dive headfirst into this least situation and
see if there's a way to four it.

Speaker 10 (01:52:00):
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Speaker 11 (01:52:10):
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Speaker 10 (01:52:15):
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Speaker 4 (01:52:48):
All right, good afternoon, John Fuller here for the Troubleshooter Network.
We are having a lovely discussion about a bunch of
crazy different topics, but nonetheless we're back focused on task here,
and our task is to help you with all of
your problems. So, if you've been a live to cheated,
scammed by somebody, we are here to help you. Give

(01:53:10):
us a call it three O three seven one three
eight two five five. In the studio today we have
Brad O'Brien who is a real estate attorney with O'Brien
Legal Services, and Brad has quite a bit of experience
in dealing with these issues. And so we were talking
about Dimitri's case before the break and just to recap uh,

(01:53:33):
we had two young ladies I believe that were parties
to a rental contract for an apartment. There was a
falling out between them. One apparently applied for and maybe
even secured a restraining order against the other. One approached
the landlord and was allowed to be let off of

(01:53:54):
the lease. And so with that she you know, she
gave up her right to possess the property, but the
landlord also gave up the right to go after her
for non payment of rent or for any damages and
stuff that might have occurred following that tenancy, and left
the remaining tenant stuck with the entirety of the obligation

(01:54:17):
and the entirety of the responsibility for the you know,
any damages or whatnot. And so if I understand your position,
you see no issue with that? Is that? Is that fine?

Speaker 5 (01:54:32):
The remaining tenant can recover from the tenant who got
let off only if those two tenants had an agreement
between them as far as contribution and covering each of
their How.

Speaker 4 (01:54:41):
Is there both their joint signatures as responsible parties on
this lease, not an implied agreement between them to be
jointly responsible for what damages may flow.

Speaker 5 (01:54:53):
Well, that that lease agreement where the two tenants sign
is undoubtedly going to say that the two tenants are
gently and severally liable for the rent. That means each
of them is independently responsible for all of the rent. Right,
Nothing in there is implied to say that that that
the one tenant that has to reverse the other tenant.

Speaker 4 (01:55:12):
I know, but they're jointly and severally liable. They probably
severally applied for you know, the the the apartment or
the condo or whatever. They both had to fill out
an application. I mean, it seems to me that and
and listen, I get why the landlord let them off.
I mean that same warranty of habitability deals with like

(01:55:35):
domestic violence and abuse situations, and it gives a clear
path to a landlord to say, we're not going to
force you to go back into an abusive situation. And
so I understand the landlord letting them off, But I
don't understand how them letting off one party, a unilateral
move to let one half of this person get off

(01:55:55):
of the lease, doesn't impliedly cancel the whole thing because
it's a it's a unilateral modification of the agreement without
the consent of the other party to the contract.

Speaker 5 (01:56:06):
Well, if both tents are one hundred percent each separately
liable for the rent from the day one, then the
landlord letting one of the tenants out does not increase
the liability on the remaining tenant. The tennis has the
same liability as they did before.

Speaker 4 (01:56:21):
But how do they forego their rights as a party
to that contract not to suffer the effect of a
unilateral modification. I mean, she didn't get to consent to
the modification. How how can the landlord do that and
change that overall position and say I decided to let

(01:56:43):
her off, You're responsible for everything now, yeah, I think
that's the discretion the landlord has. Do you support have
anything to do with that?

Speaker 5 (01:56:52):
Well, that's why it makes sense for a tense to
have a written agreement between the two of them separate
from the lease that talks about their rights to each other.

Speaker 4 (01:57:03):
It's a cohabitation agreement which I can prepare so you
don't feel that joint and several liability under the lease
gives the one tenant any rights to go after the
other tenant to.

Speaker 5 (01:57:15):
Enforce that, I don't think. So maybe there's some case
law on that. I'm not aware of it, but I
haven't researched it. Be there, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:57:24):
It just seems to me that that, And you know,
I'm not a real estate attorney, but if I were
playing one on TV, my position would be that I
understand and even support them letting that tenant out. I
think the law supports that, but that modification in effect

(01:57:46):
is a breach of the overall agreement, and you can't
do that and impose that modification on the other party
without her consent to it. Maybe I'm wrong about that,
but that would be my take on the overall situation.

Speaker 5 (01:58:00):
If it might be the case where the two tenants,
before they ever signed the least for the landlord said
between the two of them, or one of them said, hey,
will you go on this lease with me, and let's
READI split at fifty to fifty, that would be an
independent agreement between the two of them, even if it's
not in writing, which could be enforceable. So the remaining
tenant could seek a contribution through a court action against

(01:58:20):
the departed tenant for the half that they agreed to expressly,
but not in writing before the lease was signed.

Speaker 4 (01:58:28):
So what if that tenant took the position that I
believe this contract has now been breached and I have
no remedy but to move out. I can't afford to
pay the entirety of the rent. I think it's been breached.
I'm out of here, and the ladlord comes knocking on
the door. Would that tenant still be able to sue
the other one for contribution under that?

Speaker 14 (01:58:47):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:58:47):
Yeah, full agreement. Sure, it's a separate agreement, right, yep.
What possibility can you imagine that that suing that other
tenant could be construed as a violation of the restraint order?
Oh there's a restraining order here? Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:59:05):
If the restraining order is about physical distance between I
don't think it restrains someone from suing somebody in court. Well,
as a matter of fact, that's the exception where if
there's a restraining order, you can actually be in the
same room with them, if it's the court room where
you are required to be appearing.

Speaker 4 (01:59:18):
But if it says you shall not harass, molest, intimidate,
or I forget the actual language of the restraining orders,
could could somebody interpret that as being over that line. No,
I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (01:59:30):
I think commencing a court action is not, uh is
not going to be deemed harassment. I mean, that's why
they call it legal extortion, because you can extort somebody
through a court action where you couldn't do it anywhere else.

Speaker 4 (01:59:42):
Right, you know, that's pretty fascinating. I mean, that's that's
an interesting case. Is what is the land what is
the tenet that's staying? Is she doing is she trying
to get another roommate to help to help that situation,
or what is she doing here?

Speaker 9 (01:59:56):
You know, she didn't address that topic specifically, but she
said the least expiring in June anyway, But she's looking
down the barrel of a couple of months worth of
three thousand dollars plus payments, and that's going to put
her in serious financial straits, you know, especially since she
needs to rent another apartment and come up with a
deposit and probably at a higher cost now because she's

(02:00:17):
by her she's alone now, right.

Speaker 5 (02:00:19):
Oh and the restraining order between the two tenants, the
landlord has no part of that. They're not responsible for
that happening.

Speaker 4 (02:00:25):
Absolutely not. But I think the landlord is using that
as cover to justify them letting her out of the lease.
And I support that. I mean the warranty of habitability
Loves in Colorado specifically say yes, you can do that,
and it's a defense to any challenge to that. So
I think the landlord is one hundred percent right for

(02:00:48):
doing that. So real quickly, we've got a question online
from or a caller online from Glenn. Glenn, what is
going on with you?

Speaker 8 (02:00:57):
You got a quick question? Maybe what is defined as
an asset that you could come after somebody for?

Speaker 6 (02:01:07):
Like we've been.

Speaker 8 (02:01:08):
Talking about their houses, their cars, cash, What about iras
and a para account? Are those open for?

Speaker 4 (02:01:18):
That's a great question, but I got to ask you
a couple questions to give you a good answer. Hang
on the line here, we'll be right back after this break.

Speaker 10 (02:01:29):
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Speaker 11 (02:01:33):
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Speaker 10 (02:01:38):
Time for an insurance checkup, free no obligation comparison call
Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
insurance companies find out now three O three, seven to
seven to one. Help you'll think you're his only customer
when you choose Frank durand the real estate man dot
com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three
nine two zero sixteen twenty.

Speaker 4 (02:01:58):
Two mm hm, all right, good afternoon, Good afternoon, John
Fuller here for the Troubleshooter Network. We are getting close
to the end of this and we are working through

(02:02:20):
a whole bunch of other issues. Glenn was on the
line with a great question and and Glenn, I need
to know a little bit more information about like where
would this judgment come from that that you're seeking to
shield assets from. Are we talking about as a result
of like a car accident or in a bankruptcy or
in a contract action? To give me a little bit

(02:02:41):
more about the context of your question.

Speaker 8 (02:02:44):
Yeah, just I'm in the after yesterday. I'm starting to
kick around the idea of an umbrella policy, et cetera.
So more from the you know, the auto got you
insurance aspect of you know, kind of seeing whereas what
the total you know, the total value I'm at absolutely
can they come after this huge pair of account you know?

Speaker 4 (02:03:06):
Yeah, no, that's that's great. Thanks for clearing that up. So,
so here's basically the way it works. You know, when
you cause an accident, and when you cause somebody damages,
you know, ultimately they would have the right to go
to a jury trial and have a jury decide what
the totality of those damages are. And let's just say
that those damages exceeded the amount of insurance that you

(02:03:28):
had and for some reason the insurance didn't pony it
up and you didn't get a settlement, and they're actually
coming on, you know, and knocking on your door trying
to collect on this judgment. So at that point, you know,
there are certain assets that are protected and there are
those that are not. So so the worst thing to
have is unencumbered assets of you know, real estate out

(02:03:51):
there other than your primary home. There is some some
homestead protection for your primary home, but it only goes
up to a certain level. I would probably know what
that level is. The homestead exemption is two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars of equity okay if unless you're sixty
year older or disabled, and three fifty three fifty okay.

(02:04:12):
So what that basically means is, if you have a
million dollar free and clear home, you can you can
shield up to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars of
that if you're over that age, but you can't shield
the balance of it, and so it still can effectively
result in you having to sell that asset to satisfy
that judgment. It's just that the first three hundred and

(02:04:33):
fifty thousand dollars of that of the proceeds would be
protected and you would be able to shield those from
the creditor. As far as other property goes, like tools
and vehicles and stuff, I mean, there are certain you know,
most of these exemptions are found in bankruptcy law, but
they kind of flow over into debt collection laws as well,

(02:04:56):
and so there are exemptions safe for tools that you
use in your feshion and stuff like that. Your retirement
accounts are largely going to be exempt from collection from
a creditor. But the better course of action, Glenn, is
really to to just buy the insurance. I mean, it's
so cheap to have enough insurance and that umbrella. After

(02:05:18):
you have the state minimum or the minimum that they
require for umbrellas, which for most carriers are like two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, that next step of getting
an umbrella is generally fairly cheap. But again, if you
heard me say anything yesterday at all, the main reason
that I have an umbrella is so it opens the
door to me getting more uninsured coverage to protect me

(02:05:40):
and my family. Because all the liability in the world
only protects you against somebody that you hurt, and the
more important people to take care of from my perspective
is myself and my family. And that's where the uninsured
motorists and the great medical payments coverage and stuff come in.
And that's just the extra benefit of getting that umbrella
is it opens the door to the possibility of buying

(02:06:03):
that extra uninsured motorist. Does that make sense.

Speaker 8 (02:06:07):
Pretty much? Yeah, it's good to know. So the umbrella
for my protection, as you said, that would help cover
an uninsured motorsors that can have to be added to it.

Speaker 4 (02:06:20):
Also, so most umbrellas are just an extension of your
liability coverage. Okay, So the liability is that coverage that
you have that is solely meant to compensate some other
person that you cause damages too. It's not generally you know,
property damage, that's a separate line item that's covered in

(02:06:42):
your policy. It's really for you know, the economic and
non economic damages that flowed from the accident that you caused.
The state minimum liability is twenty five thousand. That is
an abysmally low number that I wouldn't recommend that anybody have.
But as you begin to go the ladder of liability coverage,

(02:07:03):
you know they're at a certain point you become eligible
to buy umbrellas. Most carriers expect you to have two
fifty to five hundred, meaning two fifty per person and
up to five hundred per accident before you're allowed to
buy an umbrella. And that's why umbrellas are pretty cheap,
because you know ninety percent of accidents, maybe even more
than that, won't come close to going over that two

(02:07:24):
fifty or five hundred thousand dollars threshold. So the likelihood
that a carrier actually gets tapped for that million dollars
of liability is fairly low. So it's a pretty cheap
coverage for them to sell to you. But once you
get that umbrella policy, you're right, it does not automatically
impact your your uninsured motorist coverage at all. There are

(02:07:47):
no umbrella policies that I'm aware of that automatically extend
uninsured motorist coverage when they extend your liability limits. That's
something that requires a separate endorsement or writer they sometimes
call them. It's just a separate add on provision that
you have to pay for. But it's not that much.

(02:08:07):
I mean, I think in my umbrella, adding the UM
was maybe another one hundred bucks a year or something.
Not even that much actually, but it's a lot. It's
a big umbrella because I've got a really big UM
policy on my coverage. So make sure when you do that.
If you listen to Dan yesterday, he told you that
a number of carriers don't offer those writers, but a

(02:08:29):
number of them do, and sometimes it's the specialty lines.
And if your carrier doesn't offer that additional UM writer,
find one that does. Call somebody like Dan mahoney that
can look up all these different carriers and find one
that offers that for you.

Speaker 8 (02:08:44):
All right, Glenn, good stuff, thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:08:46):
All right, thank you for the call. We appreciate it.
We're going to go to our another break here. We'll
be right back with more information.

Speaker 10 (02:08:52):
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to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only

(02:09:14):
customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate man
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Speaker 4 (02:09:34):
Shooter Network. We were getting close to the end of
day and our discussion has turned to car cases and
values and all that kind of stuff, and I'm going
to kind of just go off on a little bit
of a ran about that. Before we get to that,
I'm going to take the last caller on the line
that we have here at the moment, which is Jackie.
That's not to say don't call in if you have

(02:09:55):
an issue. Seven one, three, eight two five y five
is a number area code three oh three. Jackie, you
have a story on eviction. Tell me what your story is.
Glad to hear it.

Speaker 21 (02:10:05):
It's just kind of a funny story about twenty years ago.
I had to evict somebody from a third floor unit
in an apartment complex and I don't remember how the
tenants knew the date that the sheriff was coming out,
but they let my guys that I was paying for.
They let my guys take everything down from the third
floor down to the curb, and then they were waiting

(02:10:27):
there at the curb to pick up their stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:10:29):
Nice. I like it. Yeah, that's kind of like the
old story about you know, when you're out hunting in
the woods and this guy shot a big elk way
back in the woods and stuff, and he's I mean,
he's so far back and he boomed, the gun goes
off and he shoots the elk, and next thing you
hear the game wardens like, game wardens, stop, I need
to see your license. And he's like, I don't. I

(02:10:51):
don't I don't have a license, or I can't find it.
I don't know where the license is. And he's like, uh,
you know, we're going to have to drag that elk out.
It's evidence for you're shooting an elk out of season.
And a guy like, well, I'm not dragging it out,
you know, you drag it out, And so the game
warden drags the elk two miles back to the road
and everything and all of a sudden, the guy's like, oh, wait,
here's my license and stuff and he finds it at

(02:11:13):
the last minute. That's the same kind of thing there.
Great Jackie, thanks for sharing that story with us. We
appreciate it. So here's kind of the thing here. I
get these calls all the time where people are like, hey,
you know, I had this accident and I've been treating
and the insurance company said they wanted to make me
an offer, and so I've got this offer, and I

(02:11:35):
just really don't know if I should accept the offer
and what I should do. And I'm you know, my
first question is what happened and find out and everything,
and then it's it's tell me about the offer, and
I get something along these lines. The offer is like, Okay,
we're going to pay you for up to five thousand
dollars for medical bills that you've incurred up to this date,

(02:11:57):
and maybe another five thousand for medical that you you
might incur for the next ninety days, and then we'll
give you like a thousand dollars and that'll be it.
I mean, we're really given till it hurts here. Let
me just tell you that is not an offer. That's
not the way the world turns. The medical expenses that
you incur are entirely the responsibility of the at pop party,

(02:12:21):
but they're never going to pay them. You should never
turn over to the other side the responsibility of negotiating
and dealing with your medical providers at all. That is
a bad idea. One of the key things that we
do is to maximize all of the benefits that you have,
your medical payments, coverage, your health insurance coverage, and everything else,

(02:12:41):
so that those benefits are used in the right order.
And we tell those at fault parties to sit back
and wait until the end and then they'll make one
payment to us for the totality of your damages and
not ever get into these situations where they get to
decide what they pay down the road and something like that.
So if you get an offer that sounds anything like that,

(02:13:03):
stop what you're doing at that point and give us
a call. We can help you work through what exactly
the insurance company is trying to do to you. So
that is my two cent rant for the day. Brad,
thank you for being here. Great information. You know, when
you need to get a hold of Brad at seven
two oh three seven oh seven, three, eight eight. As always,

(02:13:26):
save all your problems for us. I'll be back to
talk to you again tomorrow. We'll see you then