The Troubleshooter 3-6-25

Ripped off, bad news, need advice?

Who you don't have? Come running just as fast as we can.

Shooter's gonna help.

Come man, this is.

The Troubleshooter Show.

No Tom Martinez, welcome, Welcome.

To the show. And as you know, it's the only show of it's kind.

We're here to solve your problems, answer complaints and uh I'm sorry, take your complaints and recoup your money.

That's my favorite part.

You got a bad contractor out there and basically need help. We use the power of the media. Think about that. We use this big radio tower. In fact, I think our radio tower the KOA ones in Parker. I'm not actually sure where ky House is, but we use that tower to broadcast and warn people of bad, bad guys out there, bad landlords, bad people in general. If you go to Sleavesbrigade dot com, you'll see a lot of the worst of the worst. We do have lines open.

I suppose that there's environmental damage.

We don't really do too much of that, but we do help people buy and sell real estate, both residential and commercial. And there's a dispute and involving real estate, we get involved in that, even go to court.

Yeah, absolutely, So yeah, you'll go to court and you'll fight and you'll litigate, right, yes, yeah.

And there's a lot of people.

It's kind of funny a lot of attorneys, some attorneys really never go into court ever.

I mean really in real estate, A lot of attorneys pick one side or the other transactions or litigation, but I actually straddle into both.

You do both. You know who else does that? Is election attorneys.

I'm trying to I'm helping my sister in law in Georgia, and I'm trying to find her the right attorney out there. And I'm finding that a lot of collection attorneys, not collection agencies, but attorneys not only will they collect for you, but they'll also help defend collections from you. And I didn't realize that. I figured they'd just be one or the other. But I'm finding a lot of firms they do literally both, which makes sense, and I like the fact you do that.

Well, I'm not a plaintiff attorney or a defendant attorney, whichever side calls me first. Like a landlord's situation, if the tenant calls me first, I'll represent the tenant. Wise, I'll represent the landlord if they call me first.

And the problem with that, it's not that it's a problem. I know you do that, but generally speaking, the tenant is probably facing eviction. That would be your probably your number one call from a tenant, yeah, yeah, And then what happens is generally it's because of non payment.

And tell me if I'm wrong.

I'm just saying your average, your average call from a tenant.

Right facing eviction or some type of problem, just be with the landlord. There's a lot of tenant rights out there now.

Of course, but generally, I guess where I'm going with this is there's generally no money. So because they haven't paid the rent, there's no money, so there's no money to really retain an attorney.

Doesn't that happen quite a bit?

I mean, just the fact they haven't paid their rent is meaning they don't have the money.

Most likely.

Yeah, I get more commercial tenants calling me for assessions than residential because they have more money.

And I got you and then bigger dollars. Yet not only bigger dollars. But let me give the phone number out by the way. Anybody has any questions complaints, we'd love to dive in.

I've also got.

Deputy Dimitri's here, Deputy Doc, my lovely wife Suzanne Kelly.

And who do we have today? Is it Dragon? Dragon? Real quick?

How come I'm havvy? We're Shannon? Why is he always there now?

Because of the way schedules are we have a board ofth that's out on vacation.

So oh okay, I got it.

Someone's on vacation. So we will go back to the old way again, correct at some point?

All right?

Three oh three seven one three eight two five five. Love to talk to you now, three zero three Martino three oh three seven one three eight two five five, Go ahead.

Document, I say we got something out, Brad.

This guy is going to look like he's twenty five when he's ninety years old. He's the youngest looking guy I've ever seen.

I think he looks good he doesn't look like a baby.

No, no, but he's gonna look I'm telling you thirty years old when he's ninety.

I'm not sure if Doc's hitting on you over here, I'm not sure what's going on. No, I know it's a compliment Doc. So where I was going with that, though, Brad is basically this A lot of the people that call you, Oh we went to the commercial thing.

I already asked you that. So on the commercial side.

If the company's not paying, I mean, whatever it is in office building or an office suite that someone's running, they're not paying, there's generally a personal guarantee attached to it, right.

A lot of times on commercial yes, And that's.

And so there's other people to go after.

I mean, so when you go, when you're actually working for the tenant, what do you generally do? What's your biggest call for the tenants side?

Up front? I help people negotiate their leases.

Commercial leases are very long, fifteen to fifty pages, a lot to go through. I highly recommend an attorney on all commercial leases.

Yeah, because in fact, if you've never leased before, I've leased a lot of buildings, but my god, if you just look at cam charges. You really got to understand that you might be paying a certain amount right now. Then all of a sudden you're at that triple net goes up, and I mean, your lease can go a big time. Do a lot of people come to you after the fact and basically say, hey, you know they're trying to charge me more.

Now, I suppose if real estate taxes go up in a big way, then I'm want to talk about that.

Now, how about on the other side, the landlords? Well, hold on, I still want to go on the tenant side. How about tenants to call you that aren't commercial, that are residential a house or running a duplex or a condo, whatever it is, an apartment, what what is that typical? Cause that more what I was describing.

The calls I get are more about the habitability and the condition of the premises.

So they might say, hey, we've got mold here and they're not doing anything about it.

It's a very common one.

Water damage or secure like the management person that keeps walking in without without knocking or without notice, you know, just trampling on their rights.

And how do you Okay, and that's fair, they're trampling on their rights, But how do you help somebody like that.

Generally, do they have money.

Well, and they're welcome to retain me.

And if if they want to spend money on an attorney, but I do give a free initial consultation and try to steal people in the right direction.

You know, generally, what do you.

Do if it's something like mold and you know, really the first thing you do is what tell them to hire someone to get a multi test.

The first thing is not a legal question at all. It's a safety question. You know, it's their personal safety and health. If it's if it's a toxic situation and they have a baby, maybe they shouldn't be there.

Walified out.

You know.

We've got one we're doing at ten thirty today and I'm going to tell you about it real quick. This girl Tiffany called this woman Tiffany, and she rented.

Out her house. Okay.

Her husband passed away about eighteen months ago, and she moved from their house up in up in the mountains, Okay. And she moved from there to an apartment and rented out to house follow me so far or moved in with a friend something along those terms, and rented out to house. She rented it out for approximately three months.

Okay.

After the three months, the tenants said, we want out of the lease. Okay, And the reason we want out of the lease is there's toxic mold. Apparently someone came out and did a test and there wasn't toxic mold.

But here's where it went. They hired, they moved out. They hired an attorney or retained an attorney. Hell, they might be the attorney, I don't know. And they filed a lawsuit against her and are trying to, what I say, shake her down for twenty five thousand. They tried to shake her down, the attorneys saying, pay me twenty five will make this go away. If not, we're going to file a lawsuit against you because my clients got injured

Well, the fact that the owner in landlord doesn't have the right coven insurance has no effect on the on the tennis rights.

No, I'm not talking about the tenant. Tiffany's the landlord.

Okay.

So she's the landlord and the tenants you're suing her.

Okay, Well, we have a statch in Colorado that gives tennants a lot of rights in the case of water damage and mold. Yes, water damage that could cause mold. You don't necessarily have to prove that there is mold. Yeah, but there is a water condition.

Okay.

Hold on, we're going to go to her after this. We're going to talk to her and we're going to get her expert on Brian Burns too. So everybody holds tight.

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 oh 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.

All right, By the way, this hour brought to you by paulthwatermanwaterpros dot Net. I'll tell you what I love about Paul Pricing Pricing Pricing, it's the best. His systems are up to fifty percent off all the competition out there. The system Suzanna and I bought from them, beautiful water softener does everything in the entire house, and it was thirty five hundred bucks. Everybody else wanted seven to twelve thousand. You're not going to get a better deal. And it's

If I recall.

Yeah, so they were in there and they were paying rent. The first time or the first time they complained or brought up an issue was when roughly.

With the mold.

It was December twenty seventh.

So on December twenty seventh, how did they contact you?

Did they just call you or what?

No?

They texted me with about twenty photos okay, and then when I tried to call them immediately, they said we would like to proceed with texting from here on out. So it just kind of seems fishy.

Well okay, but hold on. So they said that, and they sent you pictures of the mold. And that was on December twenty seventh. When did you have someone or when did they have someone come out and actually test the mold, and did you do it or did they do it?

They did it and they had someone come out December twentieth, So I was unaware.

Oh so they tested before they even contacted you about it. Yeah, okay, So what what did you actually see the results.

Yet?

And what did the results say? They basically said, there's no mold.

Yeah, yeah, basically, well it was a you know, a mold that was not found in the air.

You know, it wasn't it was it wasn't airborne.

It wasn't airborne, and it wasn't it wasn't hazarded hazard as to anybody's health.

Okay, it was non hazardous, I get it. So, yeah, where was it? Was it all over the house in the basement.

No, so they had taken pictures saying that it was all over my house okay, And the only spot that it was found was in my laundry room and it was just from a from a pipe that had leaked and I had got it fixed from a plumber and then it just kind of progressed.

Okay.

So then after after the twenty seventh when they just wanted to text back and forth.

What was the next thing that happened?

They basically, without getting the results backed, they said that they were wanting to move out January. First, they had they had texted me.

Then what did you say, fine, go ahead or what.

I said, depending on the results. We don't have the results of what type of mold it is. Okay, you know, if it was bad and they needed to get out.

So what where did that end up from there?

God like?

Because I know they left on the sixteenth of January, right, yes, So see what happened in between? Did they just pack up and leave? Did you give them permission to break the least?

Where?

Did you guys leave it? In each other's eyes?

No?

And that that was the scary part. I think they are wanting. They were trying to get me to verbally say that they could move out by the first So I never really verbally said they could break the lease. But I did say if they felt that their health was declining, I wasn't keeping them there, that they had the choice to move out. They felt like their health was bad, So.

What happened They just moved out?

No, So they basically said we're going to stay here the entire month of January and you can use our last month's rent as rent, and we're not going to.

Be we expect or.

They kind of went back and forth. They said they were going to move out, then they said they were going to stay. Then they said they were going to move out, but they wanted their entire month last month's rent returned to them, plus their deposits.

So where did it end up?

Though?

What actually happened?

So I had they didn't pay rent on the first they attempted to pay rent. They tried to pay five dollars into my account.

They attempted to give you five dollars.

Yeah, okay, and.

I guess that's waters like that's the renters squatter, right, seeing, I guess was what I was told for my attorney.

So he well, hold on, hold on, Brad O'Brien real quick. Why would they try to transfer just five bucks? Is that like an old wives tale?

That's about? I don't know what that's about.

So you never I mean, if if someone pays partial rent, I don't care if it's a quarter or half the rent. I mean they still didn't pay their rent still, right? Or has Colorado changed something?

If there's a habitability situation the tennis still has to pay the rent at the same time that the landlord has a bunch of duties things to do to remediate the issue. But the only time that a tendant can withhold rent is if if they've give give landlord plenty of notice to fix it. The landlord didn't do it, and then the tenant got None of.

That has happened, at least from this side of the story.

So okay, so they tried to give you five bucks or whatever, then what happened?

So basically, I just I had got an attorney at that point because seems seem it.

Felt to me, Yeah, the whole thing's crazy.

They were trying to build a cake. So what happened Immediately? If I got an attorney. He advised me to just accept a check or cash in person and advise them of that that I was shutting down them being able to go to my bank and put cash into my account.

So far, so far, I think these guys are just scamming you. I mean, so far, That's what I'm thinking. But so I still want to go to the next part. I'm really trying to get there. So what happened they? Why did they move out on the sixty where in your eyes?

What happened?

So my attorney this advised me to let them know if they didn't pay run by the first that we would start the eviction process. So we did, and they they got served in a viction notice or the start of an eviction not yea, So the.

Ten day notice, right, Brad? Would it be a ten day notice or a twenty what is the notice?

Now?

Non payment a round as a ten day notice.

So the ten day notice then, so they put that on the door. Whatever you guys did, then what yees? They packed up and left?

Yeah, they got an attorney and then I'm assuming their attorney advised them to move out because they were out before the eviction papers could be served to them.

Okay, I get it.

I get it up to there, so then they moved out. Now hold on, I got to take this break. I'm going to come back.

There's two parts of this.

We're going to dive into the first part because Brian Burns has been he's one of our experts on the insurance. Generally speaking, if somebody gets injured in your house, follow me down the road here. If someone gets injured in your house and you call your insurance company or they sue you, let's go right to that. Someone sues you because they think it's your issue, you're liable for it. You simply hand it over to your insurance company, your homeowners,

Gonna find out if she has coverage after this.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excelroofing 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 oh 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.

All right three o three seven one three eight two five five. A couple lines open.

We're gonna help Tiffany out here three zero three seven one three eight two five five. Any questions, complaints you want to rat out a bad contractor I'd love to hear it. Brian Burns. They sent you over Tiffany's basically lease with her tenant and the insurance policy, and you would have nothing to do with the lease actually, but the UH insurance policy.

A couple things here.

One, if you rent out your house and you don't have a landlord tenant insurance policy, will you even get coverage period.

No, I think she's going to have a really uphill you know, whenever you have an incorrect policy like this. So it looks like she just has a home insurance policy. Yeah, yet she's renting it out. Now, if the home, let's say, you know, God forbid it burned down, the insurance company wouldn't be able to decline based off of the fact there was a tenant in it, because it wasn't necessarily the reason behind.

Her So she would add coverage to a catastrophe.

Yeah, so here, here's a good way to think of it. Having the tenant or whatever it is in this case. In this case it is a tenant. If having the tenant isn't the cause of loss, the insurance company would have a hard time declining or denying a claim off of that.

Okay, But now on the liability side, because they're basically saying, she didn't do her job as a landlord and there was mold and now she has some form of damages, which we don't even know what they are, but that's what they're claiming. Typically speaking, if she had the right kind of insurance, what would happen.

If she had the right kind of insurance they're depending and the Travelers is who she's with. But depending on the policy, you could have limited coverage. Now, the actual damage amount is very limited. I see five thousand dollars on some policies. But what you really want is something that will allow coverage for the lawsuit for the actual legal fees. And so if there's coverage, they have to defend. And it doesn't really matter if the coverage is only five thousand dollars.

If there is coverage, they have to defend, so they have to pay the attorney feess hold one.

That's very interesting.

So even if the lawsuit, if you hired an attorney, could be fifty thousand dollars, but you only have five thousand dollars in coverage, they still have to spend fifty five thousand.

If they lost.

There you go yep, So they still have to defend. Now, what happens when you have very limited amount, they'll sometimes settle them.

Well, now let's go back time.

The fact that she had the wrong kind of coverage, she just had a typical homeowners Does that give them one hundred percent in out where they don't have to step in at all? And then I'll follow that with the second question, is there any exclusions in her policy that talk about mold and damages like this?

Well, okay, so the first part of your question, I would say, yes, they're going to have a good case to get out of this from the simple fact that if it's a homewner policy, you can't sue yourself, so you're not that coverage isn't even there. Yeah, so having a tenant in this case dramatically changes.

The risk, got it?

And they're not going to cover something that's dramatically different than what the policy's written for. But secondly, what you sent me is essentially a declaration page, so it's not policy language, so I can't read the exclusions. You read her policy for exclusions. If you want to send me the full policy, I'd be happy to read it and I'll find it.

I do want to clarify on one thing.

So if there was a fire or a hailstorm, they probably would have coverage. But because this is a tenant and claiming that she would is not a good landlord, they can fight that and probably win it. But when you brought up the coverage aspect to that, what happens if I had someone living with me?

For like I don't know.

Like if Doc Doc's house burned down in a Boulder fire and he moved in with me for six months and there was mold in the room that I let Doc stay in and all of a sudden he's suing me. I would have coverage under that scenario, or at least they would have to defend me, is probably the better question.

Yeah, I mean it's really hard because the whole issue of mold is crazy, is a crazy one, and so insurance companies have really started to write their policies associated with limiting themselves for things that they can't control. But in this case, an accidental you know, in that case.

What's really crazy in this case, though, is none of that's really gonna matter because she probably has zero coverage. So, Tiffany, have you even you haven't even talked to your homeowner about this or I'm not sorry your your insurance company about this at all?

Right?

I just filed a claim for the you know, when I got an estimate on how much it was going to cost to fix the drywall and everything.

And they did that, right, or they haven't even answered the claim yet.

They have something going out today. But I did lightly bring it up you know, Hey, yeah, you're.

I think you heard everything Brian just said. I don't think you're going to have any coverage as far as the insurance company defending you in the lawsuit.

Do you know what it says in the lawsuit? By the way, it.

Just mainly they they're going after me for in habitable living conditions to where they had to break the lease and move. So they're suing me not only for like basically for that health stuff and then covering their rent for them.

How much how much are we talking? Do you even know?

If my attorney said anywhere from fifty to seventy thousand dollars, so they're.

Sooner for fifty to seventy thousand. Hey, First of all, Brian Burns, I really appreciate you coming on. I know you're at an insurance conference and you got to get back to it, and I do appreciate it, Brian. But the Insurance helps Center, these guys will look at all your coverages.

They'll look at them every year.

They'll shop multiple companies find the best company for you. For example, if you have young drivers in the house, these guys will find the best policy to have the cheapest for you. Three oh three nine ninety six nine thousand, and I shouldn't have said cheapest the best coverage three oh three nine nine six nine thousand.

Hey, get back to that conference, man, have fun.

Oh, I see the mark.

Thanks so so basically Tiffany Brad O'Brien. So they're saying fifty to seventy thousand dollars, let's talk about Tiffany.

You don't know the breakdown.

You have no idea what the breakdown is, because yes, yeah I do.

It's attorney that includes attorney fees, that includes they are saying they want three months of their rent covered. Uh, they want food. They want basically room and board, food, everything covered for being put out of their current living of the current living situation due to inhabitable conditions.

And how much is the health part? Do you ask the health aspect of it?

They didn't break that down, so that was more of I think the strong arming cart trying to scare me. They never really went to the doctor. They just sent pictures. You know, my house is at eleven thousand feet, so that's you're going to have, you know, and especially in the winter time that dryness, you're going to have some blood in your in your finesses. Yeah, so they were sending me no.

I yeah, I get all that. In the mold test came back negative, right exactly.

But they were just sending me those are the only health pictures quote quote health pictures there.

So hold on, we're going to we're going to take this break.

Brad's got some questions here and thoughts on it, and I've got my own thoughts, and I I just think it's a shakedown.

But you're gonna have to do something.

That's the bottom line, even if they are shaking you down, if they filed the lawsuit, as soon as you get served, you're.

Gonna have to answer it. And it's not gonna be cheap.

Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel roofing dot com.

You don't pay a cent until you're contenth.

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 oh 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.

All right, three oh three seven one three eight two five five three oh three Martino brand O'Brien, I'm gonna bring Tiffany back up and let's just kind of get through this once and for all. What are your thoughts on it? To me, it's a complete shakedown. They found an attorney and this is just my opinion, an unscrupulous attorney that is basically doing the shakedown.

That's what I think.

Well, when somebody is suing you for money, there's two components. First, is there causation, Did something that you do cause them injury or damage? And secondly, on damages, what are the damages?

But back to causation.

You know, if they want to take this to court, they're gonna have to prove to a judge or jury that this mold caused them some sickness or injury, and that's really hard to prove. You'd have to have expert testimony from a doctor probably to make that.

That's a very extensive type of a quirkeet.

That's where I go back to the shakedown.

But at a curiosity, Tiffany, was it a frozen pipe?

What would happen?

It was last year, so it was you know, nobody wrote the plumber didn't really know. We just fixed the issue. It was a trusted summer and the issue was fixed. It just either according to the environmental report, it could have been something that started from that, or this is another big thing that I should bring that could have been causing the mold. They were doing taxidermy in my house and so that was also notated in the environmental report, and they were unhappy about that, and they actually.

They were unhappy that ended up in the report.

Yeah, and how would I'm just curious, how would taxidermy, how would stuffing a whatever?

How would that create mold?

They had from the report they had dead animals hanging in my house.

Oh my god, they're probably using chemicals like fromaldehyde, all kinds of well they have to Yeah, that's not good for the air exactly.

So in the report they said that that could have been contributing to them mold as well.

Well, I don't think they'd be able to prove it.

And this is just all thoughts. But when they here's where I keep going back and I feel.

Horrible for it.

They filed the case already, right, Yeah, so she's going to get served.

Did you already get served today or what?

I have not been served yet because I'm in the attorney I did have was like, this is kind of I just do a viction.

Yeah, I recommend.

That's what we were talking about, litigator, That's what we were talking about. So really, where I want to get real with you, Tiffany, is this They're going to serve you and you're going to have to hire an attorney. I mean, there's no way you're going to walk into court. You could end up losing that house. But I want to ask you a few things, and Brad, this is what kills me. I really truly believe it's a shakedown. In fact, I think they're just they might have been

But she's not going to know what to do. She could get herself into deep trouble.

Anyone contemplating being in a court case has to make a business decision about whether the cost of attorneys and experts and other court costs is worth the effort of trying to win that case.

Yeah, I mean it's crazy, But is there any way if you go we talked frivolous, a frivolous lawsuit. People might say this is but if there's anything my understanding, if there's anything at all, meaning you know, it's possible they had a relationship, they had a contract, so it can't be frivolous in most cases.

Would you agree?

Yeah, Frivolous is a very strong word. It means absolutely devoid of any basis. In fact, if it's if there's some inkling of some facts that are in dispute that would that could be called a colorable claim, and that's a colorable claim is maybe not a strong claim, but it's some minimal amount of claim that makes it not frivolous.

So so I guess where I'm going is her shaking her down? I mean, Dimitri, you and I have both gone to small claim scored a lot of times and if suited people, and we're somewhat familiar. We're not attorneys, but I mean we've been around this black we do this show.

So I mean, what's your what's your take on all this so far?

Well, you asked really two questions about what my experience is like and whether or not I'm concerned about being charged with credibly charged with frivolous actions, right, so I'm extremely concerned about that. I make sure that I have backup documentation for every claim I make. Yeah, Now, in her case, I mean, it's it's hard to say whether or not it's actually frivolous. I don't think they're going to complaint without having read the complaint itself.

I don't think this. I don't think they would. I don't think this would get thrown out. I think she's going to end up hiring an attorney. Tiffany, what is your economic situation? It's not great, is it.

I mean it's you know, how.

Much echoity do you have in that house?

A pretty good amount. I'm just worried, like I don't want I don't want to lose the house, you know, because that's that's an asset of mine. But with Brian's passing, you know, I was thinking about it just because I would like to maybe relocate. But that was the only reason. But as far as I am in the I.

Am in the.

Process of hiring someone. I do have someone that is overlooking the case and everything. So I have to give chin a you know, an agreement to hire her, right, I'm not really.

What is it?

Is it a personal injury attorney? What kind of attorney?

Real estate litigator?

Hold on a second, hold on, Tiffany, I got it.

This is a hard break, by the way, people three O three seven one three eight two five five. We want to hear from you. You're complain to your questions. Three oh three Martino, another hour coming up.

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 comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven 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.

Yeah, ripped up.

News, need a vessel, you don't have.

Come runnxious as we can.

Shooter's gonna help.

Come.

This is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martin right, Welcome.

To the show, the only show of It's kyt We're here to solve problems, answer questions, take complaints. You've been ripped off. You need some help. Phone number is easy. We do have some open lines. We're gonna finish up with a call from last hour, but get everybody caught up. But three oh three seven one three A two five five that's the number. You can always email us for help at help at troubleshooter dot com. Don't forget your phone number so we can reach out to you. That's

Yeah, he graduated from Dulah last year and he's not a personal injury attorney according to his bio and Java real estate, Yeah, real.

Estate, commercial transactions, stuff like that.

Yeah, it's very curious, Hey, Tiffany, A couple questions how much was the rent? Thirty five hundred, So Brad O'Brien was asking that because we're trying to figure out how it gets to fifty to seventy thousand under any scenario like this, right, So.

Nothing was stated like that. That was more of the estimate my attorney told me because of they basically tried to settle with me for twenty five thousand. I said, if I did that, Tyler Hollenbach the attorneys that if I did not settle for twenty five thousand, these costs a double if not triple.

Yeah, wow, Okay, But I there's two things here. One, there's two. There's really only two things, And Brad, I want you to chime in, but one, when you get served, you're either going to have tire and attorney trying to do this yourself.

You're going to end up just so upside down. It's going to be crazy.

I've seen it personally, I've heard stories about it on the air a million times. But you're either going to have to hire an attorney. I've got some good ideas for you on what attorney, and I would say, a personal injury attorney.

Who else would you say would defend this?

And you were Tiffany, didn't you say you were talking to somebody, but it was a real estate attorney. For the life of me, I have no idea why you would hire a real estate attorney for this.

Brad, what's your opinion on that you're a real estate attorney.

Yeah, this is no longer really a real estate litigation matter. This is not a viction or habitability because they've moved out. This is a money dispute. So any general litigator could handle this.

Ye, why would you use the real estate attorney Tiffany?

I think when interviewing her, she had dealt with a lot of landlord tenant trials.

She has a lot of experience with that.

Okay, sort of it.

So she's a litigator and she both sides of the fence.

Yeah, okay, y well, I mean that's good hopefully.

The only other thing I would say to you, but I think you have too much assets. That house is in a nice place depending on your assets bankruptcy And the only reason I even bring that up if you had little to no assets, most of the equity in that house would be shielded so they wouldn't be able to touch that.

And if you didn't have any other money but yet had.

Other debt like credit card debt or other debt, you might make the whole thing get away. But I think you could actually do that possibly, you know, in the future, if you had to, they if somehow they did get a huge judgment, go ahead, doc.

Well, one of our morons actually said something interesting. Yeah, they lived there for twenty years without any problems. As soon as the tenants move in, who's in a taxidermy in the house. Yeah, with no ventilation and chemicals, all of a sudden they have problems. Wouldn't that also be a good thing to bring up.

It's all the it's all the cost of the defense though. That that's what sucks about this to me, the whole case. If everything Tiffany's saying is just honest and straight up, and I believe her, I can't imagine having to hire an attorney.

How much of a retainer are you going to have to pay?

Tiffany three thousand and then she's three hundred an hour, which isn't bad, but she said the retainer could be it could require multiple retainers.

Oh my god, you'll go through three thousand so quick you won't even blank.

I mean, that's that's nothing.

I mean, that's that's That's what irritates the hell out of me about this. It truly is a shakedown because they probably have some agreement with this attorney, Like either they know them and this is purely a guess. Either they know him, or he's doing it somewhat on contingency.

He's a brand new attorney.

It's not like he's got a bunch of you know, people out there that that are clients of his. I mean, maybe he does, I don't know, but to me, it's a shakedown. And I feel horrible for you, Tiffany. And that's why I was saying maybe even the bankruptcy route, because how much can you throw at this. I mean, I don't want you to answer that question. You have equity in the house, and that's probably what they see in the long run, is the equity. But my god,

And I want to tell everybody something.

Listen, by the time if this literally goes through discovery, if it went through discovery, and we're talking now, we have a mold company involved, there's one deposition you have, Tiffany, is going to be two depositions. You're gonna have both of those tenants, and then you're gonna have probably another expert tickets hired. Just that I'm throwing this out to

Think case like this, I think both each side would probably incurre at least twenty five thousand attorney phase.

I think easily twenty five with.

A prevailing party attorney feed provision. The loser may have to pay all both sides, so fifty So that's that's probably equal to or more than the amountain. That's even in dispute, which is crazy. So it's like the tailwag and the dog.

Yeah, I mean that's it's like, what do you do in that case? What other?

Just out of curious to Tiffany, then I'm gonna move on for now until you get served. But I mean, do you do you have a lot? I just don't want to even talk about it on the air. That's the other part. I don't want to ask her about her assets. But I'm just wondering about bankruptcy. I mean, because if if she was under the threshold, but she might be over with the equity in that house, I mean de equity could be massive.

I mean, are you talking like three four hundred grand or more?

Oh?

Man, probably just so it's probably not even gonna be Uh.

Are you thinking about the homestead of exemption? Yeah, no, that does not apply it to rental property only plast it's.

Not a rental property. It's her main She's only been out of there for like four months. She lived there her whole life, or not her whole life. But how many years did you live there?

No, I've lived in Breckner's for fifteen and then out of that home. I think it's in two thousand and seventeen October of twenty seventeen.

So she lived there up until September, right.

But she now moved out and is living somewhere else Where are.

You living now? Yeah?

So no, I moved out when Brian passed away.

In oh she's been out of there for eighteen months. Lose that exemption as soon as you move out, So that's it. Oh my god, Dear Tiffany, I just can't believe this.

The person.

Well, you have an attorney, but man, I'm telling you, this could be. This could be a massive amount. I love Brad's opinion, but I don't think it's twenty five thousand. I think before you actually walk into a courtroom, I said, at least yeah, Okay, I'm saying like, I'm thinking you could be fifty plus deep in this. I've gone through like four or five depositions in one case, and I was one hundred and fifty grand in so I mean, let me give you an idea of that. It's insane money. Wow,

It's bogus.

I think it's a shakedown. That's my opinion. But just throw that argument out. Let's just say the judge goes, nope.

We're moving forward. I mean, what do you do.

I guess you just defend yourself, You tap into the equity, you do whatever you have to do, and then hopefully, why do you think maybe she would recover let's say she wins, Brad, why do you think she might recover attorney's fees.

If there is a prevailing party attorney fe provision in the.

Least was there, Tiffany, Did the least you have with them have a prevailing attorney fees?

No?

God, you know what it might have.

It might have.

Actually I can't remember, to be honest, I just purchased a new lease agreement from an attorney that made it a little tighter because obviously mine is not. So I just I can't remember if there was or not.

Can you send that over to us?

Absolutely?

All right, So listen, I mean, you hired an attorney. Just keep us, just keep us in the loop. There's really not much we can do. The only thing I want to do right now is just educate you. It's not going to be three thousand bucks. That's unless they come up with a settlement or something.

I mean, it's just crazy. That's what the shakedown is. Guys.

You know, what is she going to do? Spend fifty thousand on an attorney or pay him twenty five?

What do you do? People go, oh, well, i'd never let that happen. Well, what do you do?

At some point everything's in economic accountit orders.

I'll give you fifteen right now to go away.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's a true shakedown. Tiffany, Please you got my personal number. Pap us in the loop three oh three seven one three A two five five. Any questions you have for Brad O'Brien, any things you want to talk about, We want to hear from you right now three zero three Martina will be right back.

Go with a sure thing Denver's best rufer Excel Roofing dot com.

You don't pays cent until you're content than.

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 oh three seven 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.

All right, Frank Duran, the real estate Man.

My talk to Frank last night. He is a great guy, absolutely a great guy. I'm going to keep it somewhat confidential what we talked about, but he is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He's incredible and as far as a real estate guy, he's remarkable. He sold our house in Castle Rock for more than that same model went at the same time anywhere in Red Hawk.

It was crazy. That was the name of the neighborhood.

And then when he negotiated our new house, he made a unbelievable offer and he came up with it how we could save a ton of money, and it worked. I mean, the bottom line was, we made a cash offer, and we did it quick and only gave him like twenty four hours to think about it, the whole bit. I mean, but he came up with that game plan and I'll be danged, it worked. It simply worked, and it was the best Frank Duran Holmes dot com. So

It literally could end up that way.

Yeah, it's really a business decision that the that anybody has to think about before they get into a court case. And you have to think about what's the what are your chances of winning if you win, how much can you win if you lose, how much can you lose? What are the attorney fees to get that win? And is it worth it? You know, if you were gonna spend five thousand attorney fees to win like twenty.

Five, maybe that's a good deal.

Yeah, good bet.

But if you're gonna spend twenty five to win five, that's ridiculous.

Don't you hate the fact though? Like these kind of shakedowns, I mean, really remember the one. I think you were involved with it for a little bit. I'm not going to get in the names or anything, but you know, the guy's wife died and someone bought the house and he had like a camera in the house.

This is the craziest story ever.

So he actually don't ask me why he had a camera in his ex wife's house, but she knew about it, and he was an attorney and he moved out of state, older guy, and I think he was actually disbarred at one point from Colorado. But the bottom line was he bought the house and this attorney basically made it to where they didn't get to move into that house for like a year. You know which one I'm talking about. I mean, to me, that's a shakedown. I mean, wouldn't

I mean, he was saying, it's my house. It was just nuts.

They literally didn't have access or use of that house for a long time. I don't In fact, I haven't talked to that caller in a while. But I mean, I don't even know if they still own the house or if they sold it. But it was so bad I don't even think she wanted to move into it at the end.

The wife.

Yeah, people can use the courts to cause delays that make it tough for the other side. If the other side really needs to sell quickly and the other side starts some action that may not be very strong, but it's enough to cause a delay that might get them a settlement that they otherwise wouldn't get.

Brad, what do you think about my suggestion to make them account offer? I mean, if she count offers, I'll give you fifteen thousand.

That's what you're looking for.

Yeah, yeah, somebody count somebody cannot afford to take a case all the way through trial probably ought to be talking about a settlement.

Well doesn't that That's where I go back. That sucks so bad.

That's how it works.

It's just I know that's how it works. I mean, I get that's how it works. You know.

There's been a few times where we've been sued and basically for saying something and it has got thrown out. We called a slapsuit because they're saying, oh, you know, they called me a scumbag or whatever it happens to be. And the bottom line is it just comes down to opinion, and in a slapsuit, when it gets tossed out, you can get attorney's views. In fact, one time someone brought

She didn't have the money she had.

Basically an attorney friend that was working for didn't have the money, and he foreclosed down her condo eventually.

I mean, think about that. It's crazy.

But in a case like this, I mean, you're right, Brad, it's an economic decision.

Was you a Brad explained what a slapsuit is?

Well, it's basically technically in Colorado, there really isn't a slapsuit. It's something with very little merit. In other words, you sue me for giving my opinion on the air.

There's one.

I'm not going to get into what that particular one was about.

I'll tell you.

One that was close. Okay, you want to hear one a couple of years ago. Actually was it during COVID with the dance Studio?

Uh right, yeah, I believe so.

It was.

This one was a big one. People that had been listening to the show for a while Brad. You probably don't know this, but so we did a show. This woman calls up and says, hey, they're discriminating. This dance studio is discriminating against my kids. And are kids where I believe transgender and they're discriminating or the kids were gay, I forget transgender gay something like that. And first of all, just on the face of it, it sounds crazy because when you think of a dance studio, you don't think

Do you remember the dance studio? Yeah, something about the daughter being not yes, And it was years ago conversation you probably don't even know.

We got suit on that. We don't tell people when we get dude. We literally got sued on. Now it was crazy. I mean, it was absolutely nuts. But I'm going back what a slapsuit is doc. So they were saying we ran him out of business. They said because of this radio show and this woman calling that, we ran him out of business, literally ran him out of business. The dance studio closed up. Well, a couple things. One the reason it did close up and it did close up. Had nothing to do with us. I had to do

Doc.

They wanted I think fifty thousand, and we're like, there's no way.

We didn't do anything. We can have an opinion.

In fact, if you listen to it, remember how Donald Trump said a perfect call. Remember the perfect call he made. We had a perfect call. It was one hundred percent of perfect call. And we knew the attorneys they weren't even attorneys to deal with this stuff, Dmitri. They it was like, I don't you remember, like a family law attorney or something had nothing to do with this kind of thing.

Slander, It had nothing to do with it.

So they want they try to shake us down for fifty Then it went down to twenty five, and then finally we just said, you know, we had our attorney say, you know what, just sue us.

We're done.

We're going to do it, and basically he told her, and what's going to happen is you're going to walk into court and we're going to end up getting our attorney's fees, and we're going to take every single thing you have. I'm going to take your house, your car, anything you have. And that's our stance. That was our response. Basically, they didn't file the suit, but they kept threatening to, and our attorney basically wrote him a letter saying, that's

In real estate? I mean, really, Brad, I mean does that happen a lot or no?

Well, a slapsuit is a law suit with little or no merits that's done to chill discussion or chill the negative publicity that somebody might basically quiet them down.

Yeah so yeah, I mean, but it's just nuts to me. I think back on that dance studio and I just want to I don't know, but it is. It was a shakedown, and you know, we just have the means to stand up to it. But that one I was talking about with Tom. You know, Tom's been sued personally quite a bit over the years, and he's won every case, never lost case, never lost a case, and most of the time the other person ends up in really really bad situation. I got to take a break, Dennis, I'll

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 comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh 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.

All right, three oh three seven one three eight two five five off here, I was reminiscing about shakedowns. I mean, really, today's topic to me is shakedowns. I'm gonna go right to the phones. But the shakedown is horrible. Anybody out there that ever receives a letter, and it's not as prominent as it used to be. But one of the letters saying hey, you downloaded a movie or you downloaded back in the day was called wasn't it Napster? Yeah, naps That was.

The big one.

But this was a big deal about twenty years ago. Maybe thousands of people were getting sued all the time by RHEA, remember their Record Industry Association.

Absolutely, they're going.

After grandmothers for hundreds of thousands of dollars breach their grandkids without the grandmother's knowledge, were downloading from Napster and everything else.

And what I was telling Demitrius that happened to me on a movie. I don't think it was that company, but it was some slee's Ball attorney, and the bottom line was you just don't answer. I knew a friend that answered literally said, well, I didn't do it, maybe someone was on my WiFi.

His answer actually.

Incriminated him, Yeah it did, which was crazy, and they shook him down for ten grand.

But you don't. You don't even reply.

But how it typically works is, at least back the day, and I'm saying last fifteen years, they'll go to century Link, or they'll go to Xfinity, whoever your internet is, and they'll go there with the court order saying hey IP one nine two one six eight that five dot eight. Of course that's a local but I mean an actual IP address. You guys own that Class C that's one of your IP addresses, and this court order says you

Sounds mark like this letter that you received didn't have your name on it, or I was John Doe.

Oh that's how it was a dress.

Literally I was no that, No, I was literally John Doe, literally John Doe. Have you ever heard of a John Doe lawsuit, Brad O'Brien where you don't know who the who the player, or who the defendant is yet.

I've never named somebody's John Doe, but sometimes on real estate actions you'd name any and all interested parties who are not known.

Yeah, I got you.

So when they they know it's somebody that they're going after, but they don't know the name yet, you're John Doe, and they can literally file a John Doe lawsuit.

And then when they.

File it, they'd go back to Century Link and figure out exactly who you are, and then you would turn into John Doe. But it's literally a John Doe John Doe lawsuit. Hey Dennis, what's going on with you. And by the way, two lines open three oh three seven one three eight two five five pick Brad's brain. In fact, I know Dimitri's got some questions for him. But hey, Dennis, what's going on?

I think he answered one of my questions during the breaks. That's eight eight eight heating.

Oh.

I wanted to know what you're talking about the other day. And I think that's the one where you say they come out and they'll do repairs and they don't always try to talk to you into a new furnace.

Yeah, how old your furnace? I do have a few questions for you.

Well, it's twenty years old, but it's a it's really a good furnace. And I heated it for several years with wood.

So I didn't even use them that much.

So it doesn't have a lot of hours on it, if you will. What's wrong with it? Simply doesn't turn on.

No, there's nothing wrong right now. I just want I like to backup numbers in my phone in case something does go wrong.

Hey, Dennis, I'm going to tell you something.

Man.

Have you've never called eight eight eight before? Have you?

No, I've never called any heating company.

Listen, what area are you in just roughly up north where North Denver. Okay, listener, check it out, man, call them up. Say you want the Troubleshooter Special. Okay, forty five bucks. They're gonna come out to that furnace. It's running right now, works good, right. Oh, they're gonna listen, they're gonna tear it apart. They're gonna get all the dirt out of it. They're gonna clean the blower. They're gonna look at the heat exchanger and make sure it's clean.

You know, you know who to call. That's why they do it. But it's the real deal.

It's not the deal like where you just, you know, call someone up for a thirty nine dollars tune up or a nineteen dollars tune up and all of a sudden, all they're saying is, oh, you need a new furnace. It's nothing like that. It's the real deal. But what's your second question?

And the second one is I think it was this week you're talking to some guy that called him he wanted a wind shield for his older pickup, and then some other guy called in and said that he was windshield.

Oh yeah, Mark, it was the gentleman with the classic nineteen ninety three car and he Phil and he wanted the original Oe had.

Thirty thousand miles.

Thirty thirty seven thousand miles, forty four thousand miles seven forty seven thousand, Yeah, and he wanted that. Yeah, you're absolutely right. What did you want that guy's number they called in or what?

No? I wanted that?

I believe Kevin called in. He he was a guy that sounds like PPG. Yeah or something.

Kelly, did we keep that guy's number, Susanne, I have it because I was doing that day.

Here's the deal, though I don't like, I don't know anything about that guy. I don't mind giving it to you because you're asking. But I mean, that's what our referral list is all about. I get to know the people. Tom gets to know the people. We background check them and they sign a code of ethics. So I don't know anything about this guy, but he does seem legit.

Tons of them.

I mean I work here alongside of one of our experts, so almost every day, oh every day.

But I'm saying, like, if this windshield guy goes through the hoops, oh yeah, and gets on referral list. We'll generally have him in at least the first time to introduce the audience.

That'd be awesome.

So Dannis, hold on, we're gonna give that to you off air, all right. And then Dean's got a question on a John Doe lawsuit tests that's very curious. Or he's got a comment. I wonder if he got hit with one of those. Everybody, hang tight, we have a couple lines open. Three oh three seven one, three eight two five five. I'd love to talk to you, waiting to hear from you. Three oh three Martino.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.

You don't pay a cent until you're content than.

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 oh 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.

All right, three three seven two five.

Dean had a comment on the John Doe lawsuit we were talking about.

Basically, John Doe lawsuit.

Is if you don't know who the defendant is or their true name. You know who it is, but you don't know their actual name, or possibly a statute of limitations is getting ready to run out and you don't know them.

That's another reason to file one.

And then maybe sometimes to protect someone's identity. I guess maybe like in the example of a rape case or something along those lines.

I'm not exactly sure on that part, but go ahead. What's your comment?

Okay? You there?

Yeah, I'm here, Dean.

All right, you've got a real estate attorney with you.

Correct, yes, right next to me.

Is he familiar with the Conoradic Immigrant Tenant Protection Act?

No, I'm not.

What is it, Dean?

Well, it has to do with a lawsuit was filed the end of last month in a rap A Hope, CA County buy some illegal immigrants that were renting an apartment.

Hey, give me the name of that again. What is it?

The Colorado Immigrant Pennant peck.

And it passed legislation right, It's like it's a law.

Yeah, it's a thirty eight DA twelve one two zero.

Three thirty eight dash.

That's so, that's what I needed instead of Google thirty eight dash twelve dot what.

Twelve dash one two zero three b all.

Right, I'm going to look it up. Keep going, So go ahead, give us the give us the information.

All right. So, and I don't know anybody involved in this thing other than the plaintiffs are John Dealt. They're illegal immigrants that moved into an apartment building in Aurora. They gut behind on the rent and the guy that owns the apartment says, you pay the rent or I'm going to turn you into it. And they say to do that, and he says, on going though, if you don't pay the rent.

Yeah, So if you cannot harass or intimidate a tenant, or retaliate against a tenant for exercising the tenants right opposing any conduct interfere with the tenants, right, I don't see anything about Well, I guess in a way, Brad O'Brien, that's kind of I mean, if you if you tell a tenant I'm gonna turn it's kind of like blackmail or extortion in a way, right, I mean, wouldn't that be wrong in most cases? Just and I'll let you keep talking in a second, dem But I'm very curious on this.

Well, so him and his wife have sued the guy that owns the apartment, Yeah, based on that particular law, and his attorneys are the ACLU.

Yeah, that's a lot of money there, Okay, at least he used to be keep going.

Well anyway again, and they've got a temporary shaking order right now to stay in there.

And it's going roun right now.

I told you it was filed the ends of January.

Oh my god, t Well, I don't know what you do.

I mean, first of all, if we're talking, it's actually a CRS and it is I'm looking at it. I mean, that's just what the law is right now. But Brad, give me some opinions on this.

Well.

Colorado for housing purposes has several legally protected classes raised color, creed, sex, disability, but also national origin has has been one and that's I believe, separate from the statute that your color is referencing. I've not had the occasion to use the statute on immigration.

Yeah, it says bring an action to recover possession of a dwelling unit based solely or in part of an immigration or citizenship status of a tenant. So they so honestly they weren't paying, and then he threatened to turn him into ICE, and then the ACL you got involved.

Yeah, and the plaintiffs are John Doe and Jane Doe.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's because there, that's true. That's exactly why they use it. What an interesting comment on what we were talking about.

Dan.

That really is to bring in that John Doe in that fashion. Hey, I appreciate that call.

Man.

That's uh, that gives me food for thought. I don't know what to think of that. I don't think it's right. I don't think it's right.

Well, if you're not getting paid, it sucks. Let's just do that.

But there's legal ways to go about it, right, Brad, But can you how do you look at that?

And I'll ask you after the break.

But what I want you to think about, Brad, is like, if it's outside the immigration I get Hey, if you don't pay me, I'm going to call ICE to try to squeeze them so you get paid as a landlord. But that could be I can call your job and tell your boss you're a drunk and maybe he'll fire you. I mean, there's different ways you could kind of blackmail people. And I'm curious us if a if a landlord did that. Not just in the case that guy was talking about, but can you do that everybody?

Whole time? We got another hour coming.

Get on the whore now three o three seven to one, three eight two five five three oh three Martino.

Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.

You don't pay a cent until you're content.

Leave 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 oh three seven 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.

News so you don't have come, runs just as fast as we can.

Shoot's gonna help coming man.

This is the Troubleshooter Show. No, Tom Martinez, welcome you to you.

The only show. If it's kind. We're here to solve your problem.

Answer your questions, take your complaints, educate you, make your life a little bit better. We got a great group of people at referral list dot com, by the way, and they're just great people. They help us solve problems. In fact, over three hundred million dollars three hundred million dollars in cash, merchandise, exchanges, refund services over a long period of time, over forty years. If you have a problem, we want to hear from you. We want to recoup

That means nothing now right on.

The resident On the residential side, we've had a lot of changes in the last couple of years about what has to be in the lease and what and limitations on landlords in if a landlord is required to update their lease, they don't have to go and change the lease in the middle of the like a year long lease, but at the next renewal, if they're gonna stick with that tenant, they have to use a lease form that complies with the law.

But if let me ask you on that on that though, so let's say I have a lease that doesn't comply with the law, but they already signed it.

I mean, it's not like it's grandfathered, right.

No, it's not like.

For example, pet deposits used to be you could us to say they could be non refundable, but now they have to be refundable less actual pets.

So even though if they signed a lease that's perpetual and it's on its fifth year or whatever the terms are, it still doesn't matter. They have to refund the pet the pet deposit.

Right.

If there's a lease provision in an existing lease that says non refundable pet depot, that is no longer enforceable.

But if there's things that are not enforceable, is different than making it invalid. So it's not necessarily the other provisions in there would become invalid because some are right. I mean, it's still it's still in the framework of a lease and the things that you can do it still covers.

Well.

I think invalid probably means the same thing or equivalent to enforceable uninforceable. But there is one thing on a prevailing party attorney feed provisions where it used to be a one sided provision where it says if the landlord collects, they can get their attorney fees when they win.

Oh, but the tenant couldn't.

Yeah, but now the change of law says that that is no longer enforceable and it's void unless it's the two way attorney feed provision that either side prevails, they get their feast paid by the loser.

You know, I actually think that's fair.

I mean, you know, regardless, Yeah, it's kind of interesting that it was the other way before. But still, as a tenant, you didn't have to sign it. I mean, really, you could have negotiated that at the time. I mean, that would be the smart thing to do. Although most people aren't going to negotiate with an apartment complex.

Right people.

It's hard to find housing and good housing that's at a good rate, so people will But.

No matter what, if I'm a tenant, I mean, let's just saw commercial property, then you look at a lot of those leases.

If I am going to be someone's tenant.

Anytime I have done a commercial lease, and I have done probably twenty of them, I have the attorney look at over. Okay, this is going back in my day. His name was Michael Kopez, great guy. So Kupez would go over the lease and then we would enter into negotiations whatever they were. It might say, for example, that they can increase it in the second year X amount, or it might say it could say anything. It doesn't matter,

I mean, it's just not heard of. I mean they might, but I doubt it.

Yeah.

I think on the commercial side, both sides should have an attorney. Oh, at leases, because they're the dollars that are at risk are much higher and there's more things that could be a cost that you wouldn't think of on the commercial side.

Yeah.

And the other thing that we got to the point where, you know, we were our cash flow was good enough to where we didn't have to have personal guarantees on stuff. That's another big one. If you're a tenant, I mean, it depends on what side of the table you're on, But if you're a landlord, you're gonna want a personal

Yeah.

If you're if you're leasing to a if you're a commercial lease a landlord, and you're leasing to a credit rated tenant like a company that's on the stock market, yeah, sure, you're looking to the credit rating of that tenant. So that's that's why you wouldn't get a personal guarantee there.

What are some of the tricks that you've seen. Let's go on the landlord side. Were a landlord and let's just talk commercial. You do a ton of commercial I do, so let's talk some of the tricks. Like back in the day when I had computer stores, I would find a location, generally in a strip mall. I liked it next to a King Soupers, and I'd figure out who the landlord was, and then I'd engage in a conversation. So what kind of things can the landlord do to

Well, then I was negotiating what expenses for maintenance repairs are included in the rent. You know, if there's a base rent, does that include real estate taxes? Who's going to pay that bill? Is there a cap on year of a year increases?

So on the tennis side.

So on the tenant side though, or I'm sorry, on the landlord side, you would probably want to write it up like, you know, your rents five thousand a month or whatever it is, and then you break down, but they're going to pay for this, this, this, this, and this cam charges. They're going to pay whatever triple whatever it is. And a lot of people that are probably new to the business world might really not even understand that their rent could easily be six or seven thousand, not five thousand.

Yeah, there's usually a base rent component and an additional rent component that is the operating expenses the program to share of that unit as compared to the percentage of the whole building.

Yeah, and so the cam, the.

Cam could be equal to the amount of the base rent.

And then on the tenant side, if someone comes into you and says, hey, I'm going to lease this thing, what are you looking for in that least to protect your client.

Tenants like to see that they have options to extend. If they start with five years, they want to have the right to have an additional five years at their option, and then they want to lock down. What's the rate going to be for those five years. Is it going to be based on market the market rate at the time, which is really wide open, or is it going to be based off of an increase from the last year of the first term.

Yeah, And if you think about that, if you run a business and it's successful, and man, they'd really have you by the Cohunes at the end of that five years.

Let's say it's a restaurant. Can you imagine that?

I mean, a restaurant is something you travel to and you go eat there, and it's usually in your vicinity. And what happens is that five years comes up, you don't have any options. Even if the price goes up. You negotiated that. But if there is no options, they got you right, right, I mean really, and moving a restaurant is generally a failure.

Do you rent anything, Dmitri No.

I used to have a large production facility for my company that.

You rented, or at least it proper least.

Expired and I shut it down so I never had to move. But god, that would be a nightmare to move any kind of business, especially restaurant total.

Do you ever deal with eminent domain?

Umm?

Not really no, but I know about it.

Yeah, of course you do, but it's crazy. Anyhow, I gotta take this break. Three oh three seven one three eight two five five. We want to hear from you three two three Martino.

Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're contenth 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 oh three seven 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.

All right, three O three seven one three A two five five three oh three Martine. You know during the breaks we talk on YouTube a lot. I love giving information out and I'll go to that phone in a second.

But you know, I think.

The main part of this show is the educational value. No matter what, Helping people recouping money is what I love to my heart. But I was thinking back on a situation I had, and we have a real estate attorney in with us, Brad O'Brien and Brad. So this was like nineteen or two thousand and one. Suzanne and I sold our house in Clark Farms and Parker and we bought a new house in Castle Rock from Lenar.

I agree, I think a home builder contract is so complex and long and nuanced, and so many pitfalls in there that you really do have to have an attorney review that each and every time.

The pitfalls are unbelievable.

We've seen somewhere the house takes an extraordinary amount of time to get built and they're finally like two years down the road and they're like, this is crazy, but they couldn't get out.

Typically, these contracts are quick to tie your earnest money up. They make it non refundable except for extremely limited circumstances.

But they also and a lot of.

Them will actually let the builder out with no oh yeah, with no issue. So in other words, you think the earnest money you're protected, they could get more.

I've seen them. And tell me if you've seen.

These where if they get offered more money for the house, they can sell your house.

Yeah.

We saw that when the right after COVID, when the lumber prices went up and then the building prices in turn went up. In reaction to that, homebuilders were putting clauses in their contracts where they could actually increase the price on you mid mid construction.

There was one in Colorado Springs. This was during COVID. It was probably. I'm going to say twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. This was the craziest thing. We had eight people in the same condo that was being built in Colorado Springs, so it's a high rise condo. They sold the units. I'm making numbers up now because I don't remember, but I think they were around two hundred and fifty thousand. They had that exact clause you're talking

So they ended up getting their earnest money back.

They definitely got that back, but they ended up not getting a new unit because they could sell them for that higher price. I mean, that's crazy. That's one of the that's such a good thing you brought up because how many people think of that. How about first time home buyers? What do they know?

I gotta give Cobal props. When I bought my house during the COVID thing.

Yes, they told me.

You know, they had.

Delays because the supply chain issues. Sure, and they're horrible. They said, you know, you can get your earnest money back, or we'll we'll build a house at the same price, but we'll just have to wait until the supply chain issue is resolved.

And they got it done for you though.

It took no problems, well other than other than the delay in the building. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But other than that, I thought they were pretty reasonable with what they.

Offered, So they did what their do Brad give advice to, like someone that's gonna just what we're talking about, someone that's shopping for a new house.

Well, advice to a first time home buyer would be the same for any home buyer. Get an inspection, your opportunities to find stuff and have it remedied, and addressment is the highest before closing.

Then after, you know, one of the biggest calls we get on new purchases and people don't realize it is cement the driveway. They don't you know it's not perfect? And they'll say, hey, it's not perfect. They'll send us a picture and it's Spaulding, and I can I can count on one hand the times it's actually been handled one hand. It's absolutely nuts. How about buying a regular house, meaning not a new house. I mean, should someone hire an attorney first time home.

Buy I recommend it.

In Colorado, the trend is home on the residential side is people don't get an attorney.

Why is that?

Because I know when I was in New York, and I believe even New Jersey, I'm pretty sure I had to use an attorney.

It's just not the way it's done in Colorado.

In some states like New York, Illinois, Florida, it's very common to have attorneys on both sides of all deals. Yeahid even small residential But here people just sort of cross their fingers hope nothing goes wrong.

Well, I guess realtors though here, like Frank Duran, he's a great realtor. He he, I guess he in a way almost practices law when it comes to.

Hey better not.

Well, that's the thing is that real estate agents donnot give legal advice.

Oh, I know that.

Trust me and he Frank co. Frank definitely does not. But yeah, that's that's interesting you say that. But how are they Well, I guess just because Colorado doesn't. In Colorado, it's not even a part of enforcement. You don't have to use an attorney. In some states you literally have to use an.

Attest Like South Carolina, you must close with an attorney. Yeah, in an attorney off New York as well, I know New York for sure. Yeah, some states are association.

Frank is looking over a contract, you know, between a boom seller and says, look, this doesn't look right. I think you need legal advice. That's okay, I mean that's what Frank would probably do.

Oh yeah, And I know the Frank does that. That's because I get calls from Frank from his clients. He's very quick to recommend in an attorney, an attorney for any kind of legal question.

For you have to great advice.

I mean, like especially on disclosures. I mean, disclosures are huge. If you're selling your house and you have a realtor, and that's great, they're trying to get the most money for you. But if there's questions on hey, you know, should I disclose this. I mean that's a big one to have an attorney look at it.

I just had you disclose your case with the leap with the leech field.

Yeah, that's right. And who knows where that's going. I mean, honest to God, who knows where that's going. What What is the biggest thing you've seen or you have dealt with, Brad on a new build? Have you had a couple come to you or a person come to you and want to get out of I'm using this totally as an example, but a kV home or a lenar home or they have a warranty issue after the fact where they should have hired someone like you to look at it.

Yeah, warranty issues, the timing of closing, like the builder taking too long to finish it and complete it and.

Close on it charging more.

These home builder contracts are very loose in terms of setting a deadline for the home builder to be done and go to closing, and when it comes to.

Uh like.

Upgrades and like having a budget for whatever for things like cabinets or appliances.

One problem is having.

Just a just a big number for here's your budget for plumbing, your plumbing fixtures, and you don't know what's in that, you don't know what.

Quality is on there.

It is, So it's it's recommended, especially on the custom home building side, to get a very detailed speck list of of the make model of the fixtures and equipment appliances rather than just like a lump sum.

So when we bought our first house, Susanna and I, it was in Clark Farms and Parker. We went with US Homes and they built a and it went fair, It went pretty fast, and honestly, ultimately I liked the product. I ended up buying another one, but they changed to I think Lenar Bottom, but we sold that house and then we did buy the Lenar House in Castle Rocks. So in two thousand and one we bought this house.

It's crazy.

But where I really wanted to go for this is back to the new home purchase in the contract. I wanted out at that point to use them. I couldn't get out of that new home or they'd keep the earnest money and possibly come after.

Me for any kind of deficit if there was one.

And worse than that, if I did want to move in and go with another mortgage company that was lower, I had to pay for all the upgrades that were already done, and that was like twenty five thousand dollars in their eyes.

So I was in a no win situation.

I was going to have a higher than normal interest rate or I had to come another twenty grand out of pocket.

It was crazy. But after Tom got involved, I'll tell you what happened.

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 to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank to round the real estate man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty.

Two all right three zero three seven.

One three eight two five five three oh three seven one three eight two five five. So I'm gonna finish that story real quick. But basically, we Susanna and I bought a new house by Lenar and we got free upgrades. This is going back to two thousand and one, and we got free upgrades on it. But we agreed to use their mortgage lender, and of course they make money

I don't remember the exact amount higher, which absolutely was crazy.

I mean, that's a lot of money that sturms between five percent and seven percent. So I was literally at their building at the time. Lenar was at Lincoln and five. The building's still there, but I don't think they're there. And they were on the top floor and it was a big conference room with one of those big tables, and I was down there trying to talk to someone to get this done, and they weren't going to do anything.

Still broadcasted right out of this building.

But I called them up and I put them on speakerphone in front of these two guys. We're in this big conference room. It's got a table the size of like is something ridiculous. I mean like thirty feet long, and it's just three of us in this one room and I put on the table and bottom line, they brought it down about a point in a quarter. Yep, brought it down for me and they agreed to it and everything went great.

Man.

So that was time Tom really helped me out big time. I mean big time. It'd be funny. I wonder if he actually remembers that, but it's nuts, man. But we're talking to Brad O'Brien and Brad, actually I got someone's got a question for you. But the homeowner stuff very important, right, new homebuilder have an attorney?

Have you look at it?

I could add about the affiliated businesses with homebuilders? Did they the biggest ones do have their affiliated mortgage companies and title companies.

Do they actually own those or they're just.

I think they're commonly owned. That's that's why they're affiliated. And sometimes they have even the same name, the same accept that my say mortgage company or insurance company.

But you're not required to use them. You're free to choose your own company.

And is that is that a law in Colorado?

Actually you're you're free to choose your own vendors.

But if they if they incentivize you with a free upgrade like cabinets, then they turn around like they tried to do to me.

If you don't want to use them, charge.

Yes, usedly makes sense to use their affiliated company because when when you get a lower you got a better deal and they get a little they make money on it as well.

Yeah, and then Doc brought up an interesting point.

I could have just refined, that's true, but then you're still doing closing costs and everything. Again, but it's a lot, right, It's less than what the upgrade would have been my mortgage.

And recently I had a they had a lender. I had to qualify for the loan through their lender. As long as I qualified for the loan, Yeah, then I could find my own, uh mortgage company, because if I couldn't find anybody else, then I would be sort of backed into their their mortgage company. So that was the hoop I had to jump through.

Brad, what do you see, Let's get out of the new home purchase and we know all the pitfalls there. I mean, the bottom line is, have someone look at it. If anything, you know you still want the house, but be aware that it can take a long time. Be aware they might be able to up a price on it. Be aware of what you're signing, because if you do want to back out, chances are you're not going to.

I mean, seriously, it's really hard to get back.

It's a leap of faith to be a purchaser of a from a home builder on a new construction. It's it's much safer to be the first purchaser on the first resale.

Yeah, and that goes for big companies or small companies, even if it's a guy building or developing even one neighborhood. That might even be more important to make sure an attorney's involved with that where you're actually paying a builder as you go, you know, a construction loan and stuff.

You can dig into all that.

Now, on the commercial side, what's the biggest thing, you say, just commercial in general, what's the biggest phone call you get? Is it from landlords? Is it from like tenants that are going to run out of a strip mall? Like literally, what's the biggest call you get or or maybe the biggest problem you see?

Well, I help a commercial owner. Property owners buy and sell and do leasing. So everything yeah, And it's also kind of economy driven. When the economy is great, it's a lot of transactions. When the economy turns, it's litigation mechanics leans tenants leaving before the end of the term, that sort of thing.

Can you do you do like UCC filings on inventory and stuff?

Yes, I do, so you do sometimes landlord gets landlords get you see rights to foreclose on the furniture, fixure, and equipment of a tenant.

See.

People don't understand how important that is. I'm talking, of course from the landlords standpoint, but they can actually own your inventory, and those UCC filings are very important, especially if someone goes bankrupt on you, because you actually could be first in line with that filing to go after the equipment compared to someone that didn't have those filings.

Yeah, my landlord clients don't too often go after the equipment because it's really has liquidation value. Like a restaurant that went out of business and used restaurant equipment, used tables.

Yes, it's almost worth nothing.

Yes, And it almost doesn't justify the cost of going after it.

That makes a lot of sense. The other thing.

Is a lot of times the UCC is filed on the inventory by the person that sold in the inventory or the person that sold them or leasing them the equipment, or if they didn't SEC there's already someone above you.

If they didn't pay their sales taxes. The state of Colorado steps in line first. Oh yeah, they do on the sales tax Lian, the state is unbelievable. Hold on, I can take this break, bow, I promise I'll get to you after this.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.

You don't pay a cent until your content.

Time for insurance check up free, no obligation comparison call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh 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 all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right three oh three seven one three eight two five five bo.

What is going on with you.

Bo.

By the way, I want to tell everybody really quick, one Clear Choice Doors dot Com. This is the garage door company that we've been talking about for at least fifteen years, if not twenty.

They're on a.

Referral list a referral list dot com. They have showrooms up and down the front range. If you're looking for a new garage door, but if you have a older one and need a tune up, they got great prices and you want to get it tuned up before it breaks, if a spring goes out, or if you need a new garage door opener or anything like that, these guys can handle it. One clear Choice Doors dot Com. Now, Bo, you have a question actually for Brad. What is your question for Brad?

Sir?

Yes, hi, Brad. Hey, I've been working on this case and Common Mark know about it. Is Joel Joe from Alison Mechanical and Brad you helped him put a mechanics clean on his property. Basically, he provided materials onto this. He let his friend use an account, a plumbing account. It was a boiler installation, so Joe did not get paid for the materials. So Joe, with your help, put a mechanic clean on the property.

Wait a minute, so I want to get this straight.

So the caller had someone he knew, like an employer or somebody, use his account in an eight VAC company.

Yeah it was. It was another company. It was called ken Call Construction. They used his account, got it about six thousand dollars worth of material? Okay?

They did?

Did they? Did? They?

But hold on, bo did they use his account with permission?

Yes?

They did.

Okay, So that's where I was getting there. And then it got delivered and then what happened?

Okay, So the contractor Ken Call installed the system, but they didn't pay Joe for the for the materials.

Now, who didn't pay Joe? Nobody.

Nobody paid Joe, not the homeowner where the installation.

Oh so then so then they called you, Brad. Is this what I'm understanding?

Yeah, let me clarify.

So I didn't help Joe file the mechanics SLEAN, but I did speak with him in general about mechanics leans and his situation by the pace on it. Yeah, and by the way, he did. He did call me this week and authorized me to discuss his at her with Tom.

So yeah, I'm not reaching any client confidentiality.

Yeah, yeah, we know, of course you never would.

But so so the bottom line is you just gave him some information and then both did the guy end up getting paid?

No?

This is the story that I want really good clarification because Mark, you and Tom told me on it all right.

Hold on though, man, we're coming up. Hold on, hold on, and then Michael you hold on too. But I know where he's going to go, and we're going to talk about it next hour.

And you can look at it either way.

There's two ways to look at What I'm going to refer to is an affirmative defense against the lean in Colorado. It's very important pay attention to this. If you're a homeowner, it's going to be big.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel Roofing dot com.

You don't pay a cent until you're content.

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 oh three, seven 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.

D tough news.

Need advice, so you don't have.

Come. Run inxious as fast as we can.

Shooter's gonna help come man.

This is the Troubleshooter Show Now, Tom Martinez, welcome my.

Friends to the only show of this came.

We're here to solve problems, answer questions, take your complaints, pick our brains. We'd love you to do that. Three oh three Martino is a phone number. Two lines open, three oh three seven one three eight two five five. We're gonna go back to Deputy Bow. But I need to tell everybody about water pros. Shuzanna and I got a softener from Paul. How long ago is that pay?

It's been a good year year plus.

You love it Toash, I love it. I'll tell you why I love it. I've had to go out and buy the salt for it once. I mean, it's crazy. It goes through so slow. It's probably there's only two of us, but ours is for a big house. The whole thing costs less than thirty five hundred dollars thirty five hundred bucks.

We got it.

We had other companies out besides waterpros dot com or dot net, and they were eight thousand to twelve thousand more than double.

And now he's got a system. Listen to this. This is crazy.

Thirty six ninety nine under thirty seven hundred bucks. It gets rid of forever chemicals in your entire house, whole house. It softens the water and make sure the chlorine's acceptable. You understand what I'm saying. It's unbelievable for under thirty seven hundred bucks. Other places, you know, thirteen thousand dollars waterpros dot net, water pros dot net.

Now I'm going back to Bow. He has an update.

But we had a caller that basically Brad just talked to the guy, didn't engage with him, but he might actually hire him at this point. But what happened was, I'm going to say this as quick as I can, somebody allowed someone to use their wholesale account or account at an.

HVAC supply house.

They delivered and installed I assume bo the furnace to the person's house.

Is that correct? So far?

Yes, they installed two boilers in a water so.

They installed that stuff.

But the person that was allowed to use the account, that's not the problem never paid the supplier.

Right, they never paid the supply.

So therefore the person that allowed him to use the wholesale account is looking at a bill from the supplier period.

Right. And in this situation, even though he's an individual, I believe he is now acting as the supplier because he is the one that basically allowed the materials to be delivered.

Yeah, no, I would agree with that he is. He definitely is the supplier at this point. But here's where I think you were going. The supplier can put a lien on the property. There's no doubt about that. They have to do it. What's the period of time? Let's walk through that real quick for everybody. So, if a contractor wants to put a lien on a property because they never got paid, let's say an HVAC contractor, when do they have to do it by? Isn't it thirty or forty days or ninety days?

What is it now?

Before they record a mechanical leane against the property, they have to serve a ten day notice of intent to lean and that's got to be delivered at least ten days before the recording, and that ten day notice has to be delivered within excuse me. The ten days plus the recording have to be done within four months after the contractors last week, so.

One hundred and twenty days roughly. Ye, so in one hundred and twenty days. So if in other words, you wouldn't, well, you can lean a property at any point. But what I'm saying, in order to have a valid lian if you will, if they didn't do any work in a five month period, they missed the window.

Yeah, a mechanic or a contractor has a lean from day one, papering it and recording it is perfecting.

The lean is god.

And if you don't perfect it and follow the timeline, then your lean expires automatically.

Okay, now in this case, and then I want to pick your brain on leans, just so everybody understands how they work. But in this case, they were in the time frame and the supplier, who was this guy who allowed this other company that apparently is no good to use his account, is going to lean the property right bo.

Yes, And he already leaned the PEAT file the intent and recorded the lean and it was all done within the time period.

Yep, it's all done in the time period. So the next party's got to do and Brad please, you're the attorney that does this all the time. But he's got to literally take them to court and basically prove that they owe money, right yese.

Within six months after the last work or after the completion of the project, the mechanic who's the starting a lean has to file a claim, a court claim for foreclosure of that mechanic's.

Lane, right. And that's basically in front of a judge. I mean it is.

It's in district court too, not county court.

Yees.

So I mean it's a real court date. You show up and you prove that they owe you money or prove whatever. You prove your case and then if that happens, we can talk about the collection part of it later. But that's that's it. It's it's pretty much done and over the leans on the property.

Now.

The problem that I see with this, and Bo this was the question I think you were going to is in Colorado we actually have an affirmative defense, but only certain things. Certain things have to be in place for it to work. One was this property a single family dwelling.

Yes, okay, assl.

Pines yes, correct.

Did they have a contract in writing a contract with the person that installed the furnace. Yes, did they pay that person for the furnace?

Yes, a contractor was Ken Call Construction. The amount of the job is thirty eight thousand dollars in the ladies that own the house paid the contractor for.

The work, so the contractor was paid in full. It's a single family home. And does the owner of that single family home actually live there?

She lives there, and she's the owner.

And that's it.

I mean, so when they go to perfect it, actually, what is that called? You already said when the perfection was, what's it called? When you bring them to court, you're not. I mean, you're basically suing them.

So foreclosure of the mechanics lane, that's what is.

Called the foreclosure. So when they go to that part, the foreclosure of the mechanics lane, that woman or that guy, whoever it is is, they could simply assert that affirmative defense if they met that criteria, and then that person or that supplier would not win the case.

That's what I want to know, because you guys told me last week, since she's the homeowner and she paid the bill, that she could get out of the she could get out of this.

Tradition everything, if everything I just said, if everything I just said, or if everything that you answered the questions I said is correct, Yes, single family dwelling. She paid the contractor in full. She has that affirmative defense, so.

The supplier has no right to collect on the materials that were supplied. Well, I don't understand the.

Homeowner bo bo bo listen. I mean whether you understand it, whether it's right or not, doesn't matter. But here's the interesting part. They would have to assert that defense. I mean, am I correcting that, Brad? I mean if they walked in in the woman had no idea about that, would a judge automatically do that?

In your eyes?

Or the judge doesn't get involved in the argument side or do they if there is an affirmative defense to anything for that matter, and.

Affirmative this affirmative defense is not like you you assert it and then the case is over. You still have to win with this affirmative defense, either at trial or an emotion for summery judgment.

Correct.

But I'm saying if the homeowner in this did not even know this was a and shows up by themselves when they get sued or when they go for the foreclosure action.

Would the judge actually tell her about it.

No, judges don't give legal advice, That's what I mean.

So they wouldn't. So if she doesn't know about it, they could still get paid.

You're right, I'll give you another.

I'll give everybody out there another instance. You know, there's a statute of limitation on debt collection. So if you didn't pay in most circumstances, depending on where you live or what state, six seven years, and you didn't renew it, and you didn't make any payments on it, the statute's gone.

It's just simply gone.

But they can still serve you bring you to court in front of a judge and try to prove their case. But if you don't point out to them that it's past the statute of limitations, they could literally win the case.

Do you follow what I'm saying.

Yeah, So basically this guy's hose, he's not going to be able to collect if.

She asserts that. If she asserts that affirmative defense.

Well I'm sure she'll hire an attorney. And Brad quoted you know a cost to do a judicial foreclosure of ten thousand dollars. Well, markets like these rooping companies roofing companies supply rooping materials YEP, and roopers do roughs, and then the supply the rooting.

It.

It's just it's the exact same thing. Bo, there's no difference. It's the exact same thing. If they meet the criteria.

Can't they suit subcontractors to the contractor for the materials.

Bough, Yeah, that's what they have to do. That's that's his remedy.

This is if she asserts this and she doesn't have to pay the supplier and everything goes in her favor, which I'm pretty sure it would if she has an attorney.

I know it would. But but then he.

Goes after that contractor that used his account.

That would be an alternative, but he's explored that.

Well, I think that's going to be the only alternative in this case. You know, I'll give it. And I know where you're saying he has no recourse.

He does have recourse, Yeah.

After that person. But I know what Bo saying. Both saying it's not fair. It's just simply not fair, because it's just not fair. That's really saying. It's got nothing to do with law. But I'll give you, I'll give you an idea because people might not think. A contractor might not like or a subcontractor, i should say, might not like this affirmative defense.

But I'll give you. I'll give you an idea. If your employer.

Takes money out of your check to pay taxes, okay, if they take money out of your check, you're just a regular employee, and you made a hundred dollars and of course your checks for eighty because the twenty dollars was taken out for taxes, and that employer is unscrupulous and decides instead of sending that twenty dollars to Uncle Sam, that that employer keeps the twenty dollars. Okay, Eventually the irs the W two's will match up and everything will

They still owe all the payroll.

Taxes in don Eiley's case over ten million dollars across fifty sixty different small businesses, and some of them are listening today. I guarantee it. That's how don on Iley got busted. But it took ten years and they went after the small businesses. But the affirmative defense, you might think, wait a second, why.

Doesn't the employee actually owe it?

How come these people get stuck holding the bag because why couldn't you use the same defense with the employee, Because ultimately that money coming out of the paycheck is on my behalf, So ultimately I didn't pay the IRS, but.

They do hold it there.

So the affirmative defense, the IRS won't go after the employee, but they'll nail the business to the wall, which is absolutely incredible. And that guy ruined a lot of lives. Hey bo, I appreciate it. Three oh three seven one three talk.

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 oh three seven 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.

All right, three oh three seven one three eight two five five three oh.

Three Martino, you know we were talking during the break, Well, real quick, I do want to tell you about somebody and eight eight eight heating dot Com. I know another commercial. Blah blah blah, I can already. These are good guys, though, here's the bottom line. You want someone that'll come out and actually give you a bit on fixing something.

These are your guys. They're not going to.

Just say, hey, that furnace needs a blower, so therefore you should spend you know, a million dollars on a new furnace. They're going to give you a price to repair it, and it's going to be a fair price. Then if you do want an estimate on a new system, they'll give it to you. And they have high efficiency systems, they have cheaper systems like eighty percent furnaces. They've got it all. They've got the whole gamut. They have heat pumps, they got mini splits, the sky's got at all. They're

Well, there is the trust fund Statute in Colorado which is under the Mechanics Lean Statutes. That says, basically, if if a property owner pays some money to the general contractor for further payment to the sub the subs and suppliers of the general contractor, then that general contractor holds those funds in trust.

YEP, meaning it's only for that job.

Yeah, and right, no commingling allowed.

A general can't contractor cannot take funds from one project and allocate to other projects.

So we always hear the scenario Rob Peter to pay Paul. That's basically what this stops because a lot of contractors, and it's true, a lot, I don't care what they do. You know, they get that ten thousand dollars check and they still got to finish another job somewhere and they basically use that ten thousand dollars to finish that before they start this job. It just happens all the time. Yes,

Doesn't work that way. So when you said you.

Don't co mingle funds, it's kind of strange because honestly, all the funds can be in the same bank account, but they got to be earmarked, right.

The funds can't be expended so that they're no longer in the bank account.

Yeah, so that's a great way to look at it.

I mean, if somebody gives you one thousand dollars, earn the other one.

Thousand bucks in there exactly.

And if they gave you ten thousand dollars and did five thousand dollars worth of work, there needs to be five thousand in that's right.

So what happens if that does happen?

Well, under this trust fund statute, it basically says that if a general contractor violates it, then they're held responsible as well under the civil theft statute in Colorado, which is even worse because that makes the company and its officers personally liable for those amounts.

So, therefore, if I wrote a check to ABC contractor for ten thousand dollars in the scenario we're using, and he never shows up, and.

What do you do? Then you call an attorney.

I mean that's basically the first place you'd start. I'm saying real world because these are the calls we take all the time. So real world. What does someone do like that when they're sitting there? Well, you start off with the demand letter to return the money.

Yeah, But I mean generally you're going to hire an attorney, right.

Do the work. Yeah, And if that doesn't work, then you look to a lawsuit.

Yeah, you would look at a lawsuit.

And the cool part you just said, is how about if how about if ABC Construction went out of business. That's where you're saying the owners of it or whoever this person was, could be held personally liable. Yeah, the officers, right, any of them, if there was ten owners, all of them possibly yep.

And the civil theest statute also provides for a troubling and if it's really egregious.

Trouble damages. But here's the problem, you know the problem with this law.

Think about it.

What's the problem Generally when you're up against this what happens.

Well, you get a judgment.

If there's no money to pay the judgment, then the defense is judgment proof.

Yeah.

So what I think think that law should do, and I'm curious if you agree or disagree.

I think there should be jail time associated.

Well, that would be a criminal theft. This is a civil theF I.

Know that, But I mean, there's no These guys go out of business left and right. These contractors take money, You go after them, you get the judgment, and there's nothing else.

That's it.

They go bankrupt and they move to They moved to New Mexico and do the same damn thing again.

It drives me insane.

So but if you had a criminal and I don't think there might be a small part of the criminal part in there, but I think it's like a misdemeanor.

I'm not even sure if you would do jail time. Do you know off top of your head.

I don't practice criminal law.

Yeah, so I don't know.

But if they have assets, absolutely, I mean then you could go after them.

What other.

I'll go to Donna in a second. What what other things When it comes to the Trust Fund Statute, Well.

It also has an attorney feed provision, so you can get that back.

Yeah.

If a lot of contracts don't have an attorney prevailing party attorney feed provisions, so you could see somebody win but not get your attorney fees reimbursed.

He might break even for example.

Yeah.

Yeah, but if you have a claim under the Trust Fund Statute, it has its own attorney feed provision for the party, for the the party that brought the claim and wins.

So even though there's no criminal on what we're talking about, but it is interesting because trouble damages and attorney's fees that could be big if there was assets on the other side. If it's a decent sized company, or if the officers literally had money.

I mean, you could recover a lot.

In the scenario we use, you could get thirty thousand dollars and whatever you pay for the attorney. That's a possible outcome. Yeah, I mean that's pretty that. That does have some teeth. It's very similar to like bad checks in Colorado. You get to treble damages and other stuff like that. So that that is kind of cool. How do I put this?

What?

I want to revisit this? If it was up to you, I know you're not a criminal attorney, I get that, but if it was up to you, actually you just simply I don't think you care because you work both sides, which is cool. I mean that's what attorneys do. But do you think there should be jail time for breaking those kind of statutes.

Someone feels strongly that they want to get the person in trouble criminally, yeah, and they're free to contact the district attorney and make a claim, you know, a criminal reporting yeah, a theft? Yeah, all right, I don't get involved in that.

Kelly. What's your comment on contractors?

Hey, you guys, I just make a comment.

Yeah, go ahead.

A real general, a real general contractor that is upright, and a real general contractor that is upright doesn't take money up front. They financed the entire job mostly yeah, send you No not.

Mostly well no, wait wait Kelly, Kelly, No.

There is no that's what That's what people are getting screwed. I'm not talking just roof in a house or something, Kelly. Having a plumber come over and run you a drain, Kelly and stuff?

Kelly, Can I talk for a second. How about if how about if.

I have a custom house and I want to get new windows for it, and I have K and H or Garvinus or someone come out and they're going to measure, and they're going to order from a factory custom windows. You don't think you're gonna you shouldn't put a deposit down, Absolutely you should. Those windows can't be used anywhere else.

No.

I work on Mark. We work on eighteen million dollar houses, forty forty.

Million dollar housw do you do on them.

Our custom houses?

I'm on a fire sprinker company, okay, okay, And I have never been paid up front ever, one can I for anything?

Kelly?

I agree with you ninety five percent of the time. If you listen to the show. I'm the one always touting that. But there is some special order stuff. I simply disagree with you. You know we can we can disagree.

But general contractor, if you have a custom house, when you're ordering sixty five different windows at each of them, the cost on them is over three and four grand.

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 comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven 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.

All right, three oh three seven one three eight two five five three zero three Martino. Now, mister Dimitri, you've got some questions for Brad.

What do you got?

I love educating people, honestly, God, And by the way, I'm gonna turn over you in a second. But olslaw dot com. If you're a landlord out there, really, if you haven't updated your lease, call Brad. If you're looking at buying a house, I don't care if it's a brand new house like we talked about new construction, I just don't care. And if you're buying a house with somebody other than your spouse, my goodness, called Brad. That's a big one, because that can create more issues than

Let's talk about bad neighbors for a moment and what and what relief one can find in civil courts. So all seen all of these stories about a typical, you know, hoarder situation where they fill their house in the yard with all kinds of junk. Those homes inevitably burned down and sometimes they explode.

What are you saying an iceore?

Not just an iceore, but a safety problem. How many times have we heard of hoarders homes blowing up?

What's the question to him?

What can the neighbors do? If anything?

Well, the most expedient thing is to call the local city or county building department because that's probably a building code violation Arizona.

Yeah, yeah, and.

Get them, get the city or county working against the neighbor's who's got a bunch of stuff. But if you have to sue the homeowner directly for some nuisance situation, that's a nuisance lawsuit that takes a whole lot longer to resolve.

And what is a nuisance lawsuit? I mean, it doesn't sound like there's a simple and cheap solution to this. This sounds like a difficult I mean, I can't even wrap my mind around what a nuisance lawsuit looks like.

What the relief basket.

In case, there's a threshold to bring a nuisance lawsuit because the courts and the law presumed that people have thick skins, so garden variety disputes between neighbors, like shouting and name calling. There's really no remedy in court. Courts really are not set up to do to handle this kind of situations, because if they were, courts would be overfull with lawsuits about people yelling at each other and calling each other names.

On that topic, Suzanne, do you remember the light, the guy with the bright light? So listen to this Tomitri a little before your time, he had I think it was a newer house he just built, and he put up these beautiful they like street lights, but they were.

In his driveway. But when they were turned on, they were.

So bright the neighbors were going ape, you know what I'm saying. So, but the curious part is he actually had a company come out and measure the light. The light was too bright for the zoning. Well well, but hold on, it really was. It wasn't supposed to be as bright as it was according to the municipality.

I think it was indepth.

But very few municipalities have actual objective numbers for lumens or or if it's a sound violation for decibels. Yeah, and so if there is something like that, great you can say oh this, this municipality has this decibel limit and.

They did Okay, but they wouldn't do anything. But that's really I know, so do a damn thing, right. Noosan's cases are the strongest when there's some physical manifestation of something off site coming on site.

Got it.

So if there's like a factory.

That's blowing smoke and the smoke lands on your property, Okay, then that's a stronger lawsuit than if it's some off site noise.

Yeah, I got it.

No, that makes sense, and then that's a big one in apartments of course, here all the time, you know, the person above me's making noise.

Go ahead, Dmitri.

Yeah. No.

In the example, the theoretical example that I cited, you know this, the nuisance that that I told you about also has a direct impact on the value of the neighbor's properties.

I mean, it's much more.

Difficult to sell a house or big to do when the potential buyers come over and witness this mess.

So is that part of the damages that I can see?

Concord, Well, you don't get to the damages question, like how much you owe somebody for something you did, until you've gotten past the causation and you're shown that you have a claim that's recognized under law. So somebody calls you a name, your neighbor calls you a name.

And that's not part of my example.

I want you think exactly about, well, the hoarder situation you're saying full of garbage.

Hold on, So we're in a we're in a neighborhood with no ho aa and the guy next to me has a house and he's got old couches in the front yard and a refrigerator. You know, we're talking the craziest looking hillbilly house ever and that and he's not supposed to. He's simply not supposed to. Is that kind of where you're going?

And let's make it even worse.

Loud music at all hours of the nine, the motorcycles revving, and gunshots once in a while, you name it. And I can't sell my house because of that.

Wait, here's a real world case, Brad, and let's let me use this as an example. I got to take the break. But this is real world. This happened. Not only did they call into this show, it was on Fox thirty one. They were selling their house in a cul de sac. The guy on the other end of the cul de sac had a banner on the side of his house. On the side of his house that was massive, and the banner said something like I party and I'm paraphrasing I party all night, play loud music,

Is that a good example.

That's perfect example of what I'm asking.

We'll talk about it right after this