My Fiancee Has Rental Properties in the Crackhead Zone

Dear Ms. HeartBeat:
My fiance of three years has three rental houses. Two of them are located in a drug infected area, same street he lives on, arrests all the time, wide open transaction you can see daily. He is thinking of buying house two down from his house for rental. This block would not bring in good investment because no one wants to live in this area. The people that rent his houses are into the drug scene, usually not married, living together with two or month children.

He has lots of difficulty collecting rent from two house on this street, always have problems with renters, always have to repair something destroyed by tenants. I am upset that he wants to go through this again. He is 68 and does work/repairs himself, then he is laid up physically for days after working on houses.

Rents are always late, if he gets any at all. He complaints to me, but will not take my advice to runs checks on renters, do home visits, honor contract with late fees, etc. He thinks I am being too hard, says he is just trying to help people. That is why people use and abuse him, because he will not stand up.

This is really taking a negative effect on our relationship. He says I always bring up negative things like he is stupid. But he brings it to me when it is in disaster and unable to get rent or the floor, appliances, etc. have been destroyed. He is very good to me, but this decision is coming very close to breaking the relationship.

Am I wrong? He has three homes… this will be his fourth rental and he makes no money at end of year, in fact, he pays because I cannot convince him to keep records, receipts, etc. for a business. Then the cries to me in APRIL OF HAVING TO PAY taxes. When i try to discuss he refuses, to says I always want to make him look bad. His communication skills are negative zero. Help please!

Signed,
Getting Fed Up

Dear Getting Fed Up:
There is something he is getting out of this situation. Not sure what, because it sounds like a big headache to me. Since he doesn’t want your help and thinks he has it all under control, stop helping him.

There is no way in this world a man should have four rental properties and be PAYING taxes at the end of the year. My family was in the real property business in San Francisco for decades until my Dad passed. He had at one point 19 apartment buildings and single family homes, and made his four children work in all of them. No free passes at our house! Buildings are very expensive to maintain and detailed records must be kept for tax and insurance purposes.

If your boyfriend kept any kind of records, even throwing the receipts into a shoebox and taking them to an accountant at the end of the year, he would not have to pay. There are repair and maintenance costs, depreciation on the property, even his travel expenses to and from the properties are all tax deductible. Anyone he pays to do things to the property like plumbers and electricians, roofers and day laborers to haul junk – all are a tax deduction. The ads he runs to find new tenants are also a tax deduction. The water and garbage he pays and any other utilities are tax deductions. He is wasting a lot of money being silly and prideful and not listening to his woman. He should be looking at you as a player on his team, not like his adversary. He has the wrong attitude here and its costing him his shirt just because he wants to play that MAN role. SMH. There is no fool like an old fool, and you can tell him I said so!

The least he can do is get rid of the fools he has in there and get some Section 8 tenants. That way he would get most of his money from the government every month right on time, and the tenants have a vested interest in keeping the property up. They are not supposed to have drugs, wild parties or any illegal activities going on and no extra people staying in the house otherwise they lose their Section 8 and get evicted. Families are always looking for someplace to live, so he should be able to get a Section 8 tenant or two very easily.

If he doesn’t want to listen to those suggestions, tell him not to talk to you about anything going on with those properties. You can talk about everything else BUT that. It’s not fair to you for him to dump all that worry and anxiety on your shoulders when he has no plans to do anything to change matters. He is just running his mouth then, and you have every right to tell him you’re tired of hearing it.

Finally, it’s cute that you all have been engaged for 500 years, but you better keep it that way. Marrying this man would mean that your money goes into the pot with his, which is just more money for him to mess up with. That would be the dumbest thing you could ever do to yourself.

MsHeartBeat

Relationship and dating advice columnist of Ask HeartBeat! Has enjoyed dishing out insightful yet hilariously funny advice, tersely worded reality checks and "let me slap you upside the head" wake up calls to men and women around the globe since 1991.