Carey–I don’t have personal experience with tenants or buyers but I have watched some expert people (employers) deal with situations like the above. If the guy really has money coming to him, I would try to work something out with him and keep it out of the courts. Unless you want the home back. See if he can pay you something now to tide you over and get a date about when you’ll get paid, with late fees, of course.
There are a lot of people out there with a huge sense of entitlement and you may have one of them in this situation. However, if you take him to court on principle (because he owes you) it could be a lose/lose for both of you. Tell him you understand his situation but that you want to work something out for both of you and that “paying when I get the money” is not specific enough for you. People can only hear this when they’re not feeling attacked. There’s not much you can do about what makes this guy feel attacked, but if you are firm and fair, I think there is a good chance he’ll work with you. Unless he’s a real deadbeat and doesn’t really have any money coming to him, in which case I’d probably do whatever I could do make his life miserable…
My first mobile that I sold in January for $1k down and carrying the rest of the $7k in monthly payments of $186.93…well the guy hasn’t paid me for 2 months.
I’ve sent the certified letter. And he called me FINALLY after he read the POSTED LETTER on his door and told me that he was fired and is waiting on his 401k money…well i listened but told him if i didn’t have it by such and such then i would start the repo procedure and he stated well i’m not just gonna let the home go i put a lot of work into it, i’m gonna pay when i get the money.
Well none the less, it’s been 2 weeks now and still no money. Now here’s my problem: I asked around about how to go about doing the repo and someone told me to go to the courthouse. When I did I was sent to the Prothonatary (sp?) office and they told me that I had to RECORD my lein against the mobile home and if i Didn’t RECORD it then the sheriff couldn’t go and get the guy out. They said i did not have the proper wording in my note. There was suppose to be something to the effect of a line in the note empowering me to record the note at the prothonatary office, etc.
Anyway, where do i go from here? I’ve contacted an attorney but he’s taking FOREVER to get back to me and he deals mostly in Foreclosures I don’t think he knows too much about mobile homes.
Carey,
I’m sorry to hear about your situation. I don’t have advice on how to clear it up, but I would advise to take action quickly. My experiences to date are that once they are behind and you agree to work with them, they get further behind. A note from the court is what usually gets them back in line. We no longer play around with our tenants/payors. If they think they are going to be late and call us ahead of time, we make an exception. We ask when we can expect payment and make it clear that if we do not have payment on that date we will file the next day. If they don’t have it to us, we file- plain and simple. They are the ones who gave us a date, and didn’t live up to it.
Move forward, if the guy wants the home, he will come up with the money. His payments are very low. If he can’t come up with one payment in 2 months I feel sorry for him. There is plenty of work out there. Put some pressure on him, the only person who can lose now is you.
Hi Carey, sorry to here about that this deal has not turned around faster. But keep your chin up, these early deals are the best education you can get. I would rather find out now that my note was not worded correctly than to find out after a couple of dozen deals.
Here is a suggestion that came from John Hyre. This one is simple and easy.
Simply go down to your local bank and ask them to see a copy of the note that they use when they make car loans. They have teams of lawyers to draw up and review these notes so why not take advantage of it.
If you already have a car loan in your state, pull the paperwork on it and go from there.
I know this does not help now, but it may make future deals much easier.