well my old man’s machine shop just got a notice to vacate property notice at his machine shop. it is for september 30. now cosidering he has been at this same place for close to 12 years there is quite a bit of stuff accumulated not to mention 4 lathes, a couple of mills and a CNC lathe to move. I am not sure we can move all this stuff out along with finding a new place and fullfilling our workload in this short amount of time what are our options. we are in texas. I am going to see the landlord today if possible. problem is she only shows up about once a day for about 30 minutes and leaves. if it makes any difference the landlord job just changed hand a couple of months ago and since then she has been giving us grief about things that are not even our fault including trash the wind blew across the parking lot saying it was ours. she recently also evicted a guy who had been renting since the property went up 20 or so years ago. seems she is cleaning house so to speak. it seems she handed out close to 5 or 6 of these yesterday including my uncles mechanic shop next door. any tips or advice appreciated.
Call your attorney.
First of all, you should talk to a lawyer in your state for specific legal advice.
Second, I’m not sure if you are asking if you can fight the eviction, or just buy more time.
She may be cleaning house. And if that’s the case, then you need to look carefully at the lease. What is the term of the lease? Is there an option to renew? What are the requirements for termination? On what grounds may the landlord terminate?
If you merely want to ask for more time to vacate, it should be pretty easy to get. Were the landlord to file an eviction, that process would take time. So have that going for you. Also, by agreeing to leave, you would be saving the landlord some money. Anyway, that’s the best I can do without more info.
SEE A LAWYER.
I am not your lawyer; you are not my client; this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your jurisdiction for legal advice about your specific situation.
well an update and yes I am going to see a lawyer tommorow. anyway the reason she gave was that she saw cars parked in front late at night and figures someone is staying there. when my mother went to confront her and invited her three times to go over there and check for herself that it just a machine shop, she declined to go. I checked the lease and nowhere does it limit the hours one can be on the premises. Sometimes we run thre shifts and I stay there overnight working and making sure the CNC doesn’t blow up. I also talked to another she had given the notice to who also works late at his shop and her reason to him was that the insurance does not cover people being here overnight. of course the lease states that they are not responsible for any damages to person or property. so what the hell is she talking about and my old man has a 1/2 million insurance on ours. and last but not least four of the 5 or 6 people she served notice to are hispanic. people with no complaints from neighbors and always paid rent on time. long time residents 6 years and up. just smells fishy is all. any advice on what to speak to my layer about tommorow, besides what i mentioned?
So it’s not even a matter of delinquent rent, but just that the owner thinks someone is there overnight, or late at night? Sounds to me like you have a solid case since there doesn’t seem to be any restritions on how you use the premises.
exactly! our lease expires next may 2005. I read our lease 8 times over and nowhere does it state this lease will be null and void if someone is on the premises later than x:xx hour. like i said sometimes we do hot jobs and need to work thru the night to get the stuff out in time. I mean that is the reason we purchased the CNC, to have it running if possible 24 hours a day.
IANAL! This isn’t legal advice!
Many places have a “Landlord and Tenant Act” (or some other name to the same effect). If Texas does have such an act, and it covers commercial property, there may be an arbitration process as an alternative to the courts. Ask your lawyer.
Since you mention “the landlord job” it sounds like you’re dealing with a manager rather than the owner. If so, you might be able to go over her head and talk to the owner directly. Again, ask your lawyer.
Disclaimer again: IANAL! This isn’t legal advice!
Thanks to everyone who gave advice and I know it is just that advice til I talk to my lawyer. i just want to get an idea of what i am in for. and yes she just manages the property for the real owners. my mother mentioned that she wanted to try to work things out with her instead of going over her head out of respect, but if she wants to play hardball… It just pisses me off never mind the expenditure of moving , oh well so be it.
Well, yeah. If you are correct that there is no clause specifying times when people are in the building (be careful here, there may be a zoning law that covers this, in which case you would be violating the standard clause that requires you to comply with such laws), then the owner should be VERY interested in hearing about the potential expense and liablity from a frivolous eviction case. I leave it to you and your lawyer to determine what is what.
Insert standard disclaimers here . . .
well houston does not have any zoning laws whatsoever. spoke to the lawyer on the phone and going to see him in person tommorow. he mentioned lawsuit considering the previous manager(who we signed the lease with) was unlicensed. we did not receive the information about brokerage services before signing the lease. turns out it was 5 hispanic tenants served eviction notices in one day. and other little things. i am generally against frivolous lawsuits, but man i wann make her pay if possible.
Excellent. See what a good lawyer can tell ya.
Minimumly, your lease shall not be renewed, so you should be prepared to move.
As a commercial real estate agent I do a lot of office-warehousing leasing. Unless there’s other issues involved you have not made clear, office-warehouse leases generally almost never set time limitations on the hours of business. The only issues controlling this beyond the lease specifics would typcially be zoning regulations or noise ordinances which are typically not that applicable in light industrial or commercial areas, unless they are proximate to a residential area.
Regarding insurance, most simple office warehouse leases call for the landlord to insure the physical premises (ie bricks and sticks) against destruction by fire, acts of vengeful God etc. The tenant maintains an accident policy (often with the landlord named as an additional insured party) in case people (invitees) are injured on premises. I have never, ever heard of a commercial fire policy on a light industrial office-warehouse building that limited the hours of operation of a light industrial user. If they obtained fire insurance with this limitation built in on a commerical / light-industrial building your lawyer will have no problems.
I do have to be frank with you that, from a commercial real estate perspective, your story does not make any sense re getting rid of paying tenants in good standing based on time of operation restrictions in commercial fire policy, however, if things are as you have indicated, your lawyer will have no problems beating them like drums.
Assuming you are current on your rent and the scenario does not contain additional side issues you have not discussed, there are a couple of possibilities here -
1: The property manager is insanely incompetent
2: There is a larger agenda at work to clear all the tenants out, as the owner has decided to make other use of the property
Before you rack up a few hundred or thousand dollars in legal bills it might be prudent to contact the landlord directly. I really don’t understand your reluctance to do this. If things are as you have stated them, with no additonal factors, the property manager is lying or nuts I would have been on the phone 10 seconds after receiving a non-sensical eviction notice.
well we talked to a lawyer today and she basically said what you said astro. she said don’t worry this is almost laughable; what is your landlord thinking. thing is we pay really cheap rent compared to the surrounding area. her guess is she is trying to clear every old tenant out and increase rent or whatever. another thing the current landlord just got her realtor license 4 months ago. as far as contacting the landlord she refuses to talk to us and just mentions get out or the sheriff is coming to get you out. she will not let us talk to the actual owners of the property. by the way the lease we have is 1 1/2 pages long, basically old photocopies from the '70’s the lawyer almost laughed when she said this is it? the lease basically says don’t burn the place down and keep it quiet. she basically thought we would just leave. well she is wrong. the lawyer said we have a pretty good case for a lawsuit if we want to pursue that. my mother said you can keep half as a percentage just make the bitch pay. this my mother who is of the school of turn the other cheek. she is pissed that this “cunt” my mother’s word’s could potentially fuck up our family business just because she got a hair up her ass. and ouryl that would be fine with us as we are thinking of moving out after all this but compare 7 months to 7 days.