I mentioned in another thread that I plan to buy a house and rent it out. The Supreme Court decided years ago that if property (a house, a car… whatever) is used during the commission of an illegal act, the owner would forfeit that property to the State even if the owner did not know that the property was being used during the commission of an illegal act.
Questions: If I rent a house to someone and they are using drugs there and I don’t know about it, would my house be seized if they are caught? Is there any sort of protection against this, such as insurance or legal recourse? What would my legal responsibility be to make sure my tenants are’t violating any laws? People are arrested in apartment buildings all the time. Have any apartment buildings been seized because one of the tenants is doing something illegal?
Yes! If your tenants are commit drug related crimes or are suspected to have committed drug related crimes and the cops bust them, they can and often do seize the house, cars and property within. It is VERY difficult to reclaim your property even if they were renting the house and you had nothing to do with it. Sometimes you can’t even get it back if the parties involved were found to be innocent of all charges- especially if the police auction occurs between the time your property is seized and the charges are dropped.
Often times it’s impossible to get your property back- especially if it’s something valuable like a nice car or an airplane because of the roadblocks thrown up by complicated paperwork.
Drug busts are huge money-makers for police departments because they get to keep or sell everything they seize including but not limited to any cash laying around, weapons (even legal ones!), bicycles, computers, the house itself… A lot of laws allowing seizure are appalling in the power they give officers and departments and by and large are ignored because people/ judges appear to have the opinion that “if you’re dumb enough to lend your car/house/airplane to a drug user you deserve what you get” or “if you’re mistaken for a drug dealer there’s probably something fishy going on because innocent people don’t just get mistaken like that”.
Not all police departments will take advantage of a person, but some do and it’s those few that tarnish the reputation of cops in general.
One vitally important point is that you need to have a lease in place that specifies that the premises are under no circumstances to be used for illegal activity. While that won’t stop someone who was gonna use it for drugs anyway, and does not bind any third party, it does several things: (1) gives you ground for immediate eviction if you catch on before the cops do, (2) makes the forfeiture of the property much less likely, and (3) makes it crystal clear that your intent was not to permit the drug dealing.
And, of course, there are a wide range of crimes which are not drug-related that might make you want to get rid of the tenant anyway.
I have been in the property management business for 10 years, and have on occasion had tenants charged with drug offenses. No attempt has ever been made to seize the property, nor have I ever heard of such an attempt from other property managers or literature.
Obviously managers do their best to screen tenants. Each state is different regarding access to criminal records. In my state it is nearly impossible to get that information through legal channels, however, I have found that with intensive personal screening and requesting and checking all references given as well as any other references you can get from any other source, will ferret out past problems.
One of my most effective tools has been pulling a credit report on all adult applicants. Folks are almost always up front with me when I tell them that I will be checking their credit reports. There is lots of valuable information contained in a credit report, including judgements.
I have been in the property management business for 10 years, and have on occasion had tenants charged with drug offenses. No attempt has ever been made to seize the property, nor have I ever heard of such an attempt from other property managers or literature.
Obviously managers do their best to screen tenants. Each state is different regarding access to criminal records. In my state it is nearly impossible to get that information through legal channels, however, I have found that with intensive personal screening and requesting and checking all references given as well as any other references you can get from any other source, will ferret out past problems.
One of my most effective tools has been pulling a credit report on all adult applicants. Folks are almost always up front with me when I tell them that I will be checking their credit reports. There is lots of valuable information contained in a credit report, including judgements.
I thought they could only take property they can prove that was bought with profits from drug dealing? How would that apply to a rental situation? Hmmm.
OK Johnny L.A., let’s compare apples with oranges.
The case you cite is about shared ownership of a car, in which one of the couple used the vehicle while using drugs.
The apparant term used in this case here seems to be a “general consent to use”. We’ll have to wait for a lawyers interpretation of the term, but I’m going to wager that general consent to use is not part of a standard rental or lease agreement.
If such were the case there would be a mass exodus of rental property owners and a dearth of affordable homes for people to live in.
This site is all about asset forfeiture. When undertaken, it is a civil action against the property itself. Sometimes you’ll see ads in the personals section where some sheriff has placed notice that he has arrested a car or a sum of money.
Lots of property has been forfeited in cases where no convictions were ever attained.
If you are in SoCal - you know the police state mentality - SEE A LAWYER!
i know of no real estate stolen under color of law, but I seem to recall a $425,000 yacht seized because a deckhand was caught with a joint (Reagan era, I think the owner eventually got it back)
whatever you do, don’t rent to poor people (esp. those of color) in areas ‘known to the police’ to be ‘areas of activity’
anybody know of a case where the police (SoCal) were made to pay for damages done in a 'oops - worng address (but the bastard was probably doing SOMETHING!) raid? Damages easily run into $20-50,000 in a full-blown, ram-a-tank-through-the-door-rip-the-walls-apart type excercise.
In Houston police used the threat of seizing a motel to force the owners to make changes the police thought were needed to reduce drug trafficing by tenants. No one questioned the legality of the police to seize the motel.
I am just looking for a cite showing where the owner of a rental property has ever lost their property to the state becuase of drug activity by a tenant. I realize that in some jurisdictions the police can take personal property belonging to a tenant, but I am not aware of a property owner losing their property because of a tenant.
I have absolutely no qualms with the police using whatever leverage they can come up with to get drug dealing tenants out of any property. As if any sane property owner WANTS drug dealers renting their property.
I do know of properties have been completely ruined by meth labs, even here in small town America.
This is a pretty touch subject for me. As a property manager, I always try to know as much as I can about my tenants and to look out for my clients the owners. The police and the state could make it much easier for managers or landlords if they could do a criminal check on all potential tenants.
While some states do allow access to criminal records, my state does not, citing privacy issues.
I fail to see how the state could take property, saying “YOU” should have known that your tenant was dealing drugs from your property when they don’t give us access to known information.
There is no way this could be right without a LOT of qualifiers, otherwise the government would be awash in siezed assets (as if it’s not anyway). The inventory would include every hotel in which there has ever been a prostitute busted, every restaurant that has ever served a drink to a minor, and the entirity of every apartment complex that has ever had tenents smoke pot or engage in sodomy. This would pretty well take care of every hotel, restaurant, and rental property in America.
I have been a landlord for 15 years and I think I would have heard of this by now.
bnorton: Sorry, I should have said “could be forced to forfeit”. So legally, a law enforcement agency could seize your property even if you didn’t know it was being used illegally; but it seems like they don’t do it that often for large assets. But if they can do it, I’d like to find out if there is any sort of protection.
I suppose there would be some limitations. After all, what’s to keep someone with property that they can’t sell & with a big mortgage they can’t pay from doing some drugs on it, then reporting it & being free of that financial mess?
