I own a house in Florida with my sister. Up until now I have been letting her manage it-I just pay half of the real estate taxes and take a few deductions off of my taxes each year. Recently my sister has not been communicating very much with me-I know from a few comments she made earlier this summer our tenant has had some trouble paying the rent on time. When I got a statement of our joint bank account( to which the rent in paid into and we pay our expenses out of this account as well) I see that no rent has been debited to the account since July! WOW-shocker! Where can I find out what the laws are concerning eviction in the state of FL? Neither my sister or I live in FL-I am a resident of WI and my sister lives in NJ. --97.83.xxx.xx

--71.118.xx.xx

Hire a lawyer, look up the landlord/tenant laws, but better figure out the communication situation, hire a PM because you have no one on the ground in state taking care of business. --71.1.xx.xxx

Sorry to quick, better hop a flight and get eyes on your investment ASAP and while in town do the above, out of state landlording is a tough road to plow, need to set up systems, good luck. --71.1.xx.xxx

--68.50.xx.xxx

Just because there's been no deposit of rent into your joint account, doesn't mean you sister hasn't collected rent from the tenants. Money troubles is a justification for stealing in some peoples minds. I would check with the tenants to see if they've been paying. Also you can check with the utility company to see if the account is current. --173.55.xxx.xx

I would no longer want a business association with someone that negligent and uncommunicative. --180.180.xxx.xxx

Signed, Your Sister!!!!! --74.184.xxx.xx

Clean this one up and find a new hobby. --97.94.xx.xxx

3rd-we bought the house together so my other sister would have a nice place to live when she got a divorce from her abusive husband and it is in a very nice quiet subdivision away from him. We were renting it out for the last 3 years to the same person who now is not paying the rent. I really had no reason to distrust anything until a few months ago. We have friends near our house, and my Mom is a snowbird but she lives 3 hours away. --97.83.xxx.xx

Welcome to this site where you can learn many, many angles of the business, one thing the owners and mangers need to have on hand is tenant laws, I suggest printing the local rules and placing into a 3 ring binder - now flip the book over and do this with state tenant laws, you will find a few overlaps but after a few studies and flips it will make sense. One golden rules is tenant pays for utilities, you have learned recently that family is not good at managing your money and you also realize that others will abuse it easily also or you would leave your BP card on top of the pump at the station close to home, you don't do you. Hire a eviction service lawyer to recover your place, no other legal system works like rental housing, the idea is 30 day or less to recover the unit to repair and re-rent, damages should each be verified with photos, chances are you will not recover lost rent but try to evaluate and desperate wear-n-tear from physical damages which should be charged to the outgoing tenant, take your judgement and remember this lesson. --76.188.xxx.xxx

--173.65.xxx.xxx

OK who's next????? --74.184.xxx.xx

Yes, let us know the area where the rental is. I myself know of an excellent realtor who handles rentals in Flagler County, at and near the coast. --71.175.xxx.xxx

Does the divorced sister live there ? --66.87.xx.xxx

Thank you to the people who are nice the rest you know where you can go! The home is in Sebring FL-which is Highlands County. Without going into too many of the family details-we bought the home in 2009. We bought it right-it was brand new-never been lived in but had been sitting for 3 yrs-just needed a few minor finishing things-like shower doors and ceiling fans etc installed. I am not broke-thank you very much Mr/MS GA whoever you are! My little sister(#3) was accused of harming a child by her ABUSIVE HUSBAND! Sister # 2 and her husband and my husband and I-all 4 of us are on the deed. We took equity out of our home in WI to purchase this house with sister #2. sister #3 lived in the home until May of 2010. We did not rent the home until Feb of 2013. The same tenant has been in the home the entire time and no issues at all between my sister # 2 until last year when my Dad passed away in August of 2014. Our relationship has been strained and just plain different than it ever has been since then. There was some talk that they would buy us out. But now she just wants us to sign it over to her and that is NOT going to happen. since that statement was made I began to do my own research on exactly what was going on and discovered no rent was debited to the bank account last week when I deposited the tax money. I have not been very good at tracking any of this-I trusted my sister! and until recently I had no reasons not to trust her. Some people think omission of facts or unpleasantness is not lying-in denial of reality in their minds. I am done being a mushroom-and I have already told her that. I appreciate all the helpful posts! I don't intend to do anything stupid here-so I want to gather all of the information I can and then use all of it to help make the correct decision on what to do-before I do anything! This site was highly recommended by a friend and co-worker who has found it very useful and he absolutely LOVES being a landlord. --97.83.xxx.xx