Make sure you have the mail forwarded to your business address after you purchase a new investment property....Why?

I made the mistake of purchasing a property for rehabbing for about 50K and not forwarding the properties mail to my business address. It was a duplex but both buildings were gut jobs. See pictures!

Duplex inside the Main 2/1 house. 

The City of Miami placed a violation on the structure for being unsecured. This violation was mailed to the property address but since the property did not have a mail box, the post office refused delivery. One of the terms of the violation was the structure must be secured within so many days or a $250/day fine would be imposed.

Front view of Duplex Front House.

Guess What?

This violation was written before I even purchased the property. It had been sitting abandoned for years so you can imagine the size of the fine. My Title company missed it so I was never aware of it until I started to repair the property.

Front view of Duplex Back House.

Well the fine had accumulated to $250K. Now, I do not know about you but I wasn't going to pay a fine that was more than the property was worth. So after speaking with the Title company, the area inspector, the City of Miami mitigation committee, I was able to mitigate the lien down to a manageable level. I would tell you how I did it but that is another blogging event.

Complete view of Duplex.

 So the violation was resolved! The City doesn't want to make it impossible for you with unmanageable fines. Their objective is to make you correct the violation and comply. I was doing them a favor by bringing an abandoned property back online and producing additional tax revenue. The moral of the story is to make sure you are getting the properties mail. I would have known about the violation a lot earlier in the process if I forwarded the investment properties mail to my business address.

Written by +Bob Burns.

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"Pain is Temporary, Regret is Forever!" MREIA's President about.me/RobertKBurns Telephone #: 305-586-5280 email: sec8@planocho.com MREIA's Web Page: www.miamireia.com