Landlord demanding gun serial #s from renter/tenant?

Here is an idea for Lessees whose Landlords (after the fact) give them a hard time regarding firearms in a rent house.

If the Lessor/Landlord is a private individual leasing a former residence, there will be a mortgage on it in 9 out of 10 cases. In a lot of cases the original loans were written as owner-occupied, single family residence mortgages.

A Deed of Trust will be on file at the county courthouse, in the property records division of the county clerk and you can search for that document by owner name as Grantor. (The Deed of Trust will tell you the Mortgage Lender, loan number and occupancy type, and if a Due and Payable in thirty days exists)

You can determine off the Deed of Trust if the note being secured by that deed of trust has a Due and Payable clause (note gets called in early by Lender) if at any time the property is not OWNER OCCUPIED, and the Lender determines they wish to call the note due for violating the agreement that the property be "owner occupied" and not a rental.

It's pretty standard on all SFR owner occupied mortgages, but a lot of folks don't know it because they don't read it at closing.

Many new landlords rent out their existing home when they buy a new residence, and a lot will knowingly purchase a Non Onwer Occupied property and claim to the lender they intend to occupy it, since they get a much lower interest rate when borrowing the money, and then they move out and rent it.

If that is the case, and you find the Deed of Trust in public records the Lessee can always tell the Landlord that if they persist in harrassing them about these firearms, the Lessee will contact the Lender's legal department to inform them the property is now a rental property, (a copy of your signed lease agreement is a great enclosure to provide them) and it appears to be in violation of the owner occupancy agreement in the loan agreement.

If the landlord is a private individual, it may cause them to back off if they don't have the cash to pay off the note immediately. (not likely in most cases) It is also very difficult to have a non-owner occupied refinance processed within thirty days. So it may spur a foreclosue occurance, which is not real pretty on their credit report, because once on there it stays for about seven years and if they go for another mortgage loan to finance property within 36 months, it really kind of makes it impossible for them to get financing at any legitimate lender.

It's a thought, and it might be worth a shot.
 
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I don't think the landlords have any legal right require that you give them the serial numbers on your guns. If you are legally allowed to own guns, there should be nothing they can do about it. Frankly, it is none of their friggin business whether I own guns or not unless I am breaking some law.

With that said, my previous landlord knew I owned guns and she had absolutely no problems with it. She never asked me where I stored them, what make and model they were, and she sure as hell didn't ask for the serial numbers. This was a cheaper apartment in Gainesville, FL where I lived while doing my MBA at UF. I wish there were more landlords like her.

As for buckster, why the hell did you write down the serial number of the gun and put it in their file? What reason did you have for being in their apartment in the first place without their being present? Unless there was a service request, routine maintenance (pest control), or an emergency, I believe that there are laws protecting the privacy of tenants. They certainly do not ahve any rights to go rummaging through peoples' things! :mad: :barf:
 
I don't think the landlords have any legal right require that you give them the serial numbers on your guns. If you are legally allowed to own guns, there should be nothing they can do about it. Frankly, it is none of their friggin business whether I own guns or not unless I am breaking some law.
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Although state to state laws will differ here, I belive that Steve is correct, in general, here.

If that became an issue with my landlord, (or for that matter, my homeowners association, etc) I would seek housing elsewhere.

It is a moot point if it is specified in the lease. Most things in leases are boilerplate, something slipped in that violates presumed rights is generally grounds for appeal, if not a lawsuit.
 
It was a service request

And it was on the coffee table where I put the note of having been there for service. He was a boyfriend, and not on the lease. They broke up later and he came over several times late at night drunk causing a disturbance. I had to ask him to leave. He had it in his back pocket. She even made a report of it. What if he had shot her? Me.? Another tenant? So, it was proper to do that. It ended up that the police came back, seems he was on the "lamb" for outstanding warrants in California. They lived over me and the fighting was constant. Some times you get a feeling, I'm glad I did. In eight years the only problem there. Sorry if you got the wrong idea.:)
 
The guy probably has them already if he's the landlord and has a key....make sure they're put away where he can't lay paws on them!
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Yet another reason (that I hadn't thought of, since I own my own house) for having a gunsafe.
 
I have to say that doing that would be playing with fire Gary Conner. However, if I was in that situation it might be usefull to have that little tidbit of info.
 
And it was on the coffee table where I put the note of having been there for service. He was a boyfriend, and not on the lease. They broke up later and he came over several times late at night drunk causing a disturbance. I had to ask him to leave. He had it in his back pocket. She even made a report of it. What if he had shot her? Me.? Another tenant? So, it was proper to do that. It ended up that the police came back, seems he was on the "lamb" for outstanding warrants in California. They lived over me and the fighting was constant. Some times you get a feeling, I'm glad I did. In eight years the only problem there. Sorry if you got the wrong idea.
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buckster,

While your actions may may seem justified given the surrounding circumstances, your post seems to indicate that the problems started after they broke up. If he had not caused any problems prior to your actions, I woudl still feel that you were wrong. Since he was not on the lease, you could have asked him to leave, forced them to ammend their lease, or evict them for violating the lease.

If the boyfriend was causing problems, you should have called the police to arrest him for public intoxication and disturbing the peace. Furthermore, unless your state allows for open carry, he could have been arrested for that. In Florida, it is a misdemeanor, but if they found out he was wanted, they would have arrested him, especially for illegally possessing a firearm. Besides, his outstanding warrent made it illegal for him to possess a firearm.

For your safety, I would recommend you let the police do their job when things get ugly. There is no reason to get yourself shot.

by the way, if I misread your post, I apologize.
 
Dear Crosshair:

You say that it would be "playing with fire", however, every bit of information I listed, is filed as PUBLIC RECORD at the county courthouse. It is public record. If the landlord is committing a breach of their purchase loan agreement, then it is the Landlord playing with fire, not the person "discovering" the fact via public record and being a good citizen in reporting it to the harmed party, that being the Note Holder.

Landlords often love to "bully" people who believe the landlord can pretty much do what they please. If the Landlord is suddenly the one facing a thirty day legal decision, then it is their OWN fault for attempting to pull somthing out of the hat on the Lessor outside of their original written lease agreement.

I forgot to mention, the Deed of Trust also will list the exact loan amount they borrowed, and the date they borrowed it. By using an amortization schedule, you can tell to the exact penny, how much money they owe at the beginning of next month. Often asking the Landlord if they want to risk having to come up with say, ninety thousand dollars within thirty days (if it is an owner occupied note) is sufficient enough for them to be slightly more reasonable.
 
Gary,

That's a great idea, if you want to go to war with your landlord. Threatening with a forclosure will DEFINITELY stir up a hornet's nest in the situation. But, it's still usually up to the lending institution to demand full payment, and if the landlord has always made their mortgage payments, the lending officer might just decide to let it go. Then, a third party has called your hand, and you're left with an angry landlord, a bad lease, and no leverage.

It's a good idea for a seasoned and established adult, but I wouldn't recommend it for a college kid. For a college kid, basically I recommend actually looking at a house before you sign a lease!
 
As a Landlord myself, I would never want to violate the privacy of my tenants. I strongly believe in personal privacy, and that is for everyone!. As for repairs to my houses, I go above and beyond because these properties are my investments, and they are managed as such. True, this is a business for me, and is run as such. All tenants are screened etc. Know if I actually see a firearm unsecured in my property, I would probably mention that it should be properly secured when they are not home, but I would not look at numbers or make a issue out of it. I usually always carry, and in Georgia I can in my car or properties.
There was some good advise given earlier, and each state law is different. As to reporting a landloed to the lender, actually a lender will not listen to you. Currently lenders don't care whats going on with Real Estate, they just want the note payment. As foreclosures become more persistant they will not call a note. In the Atlanta area there are 4000+ foreclosures every month, and rising!
 
Perchance, White, do you own houses in a run-down part of a college town, that rents almost exclusively to college students? If so, then you are a rare find indeed!
 
Samauri:

A college "kid" is normally eighteen years of age. You are no longer a "kid" at eighteen. You are simply inexperienced. But the sooner you begin learning to defend against a bully, the better.

In my opinion, if the landlord is willing to allow you to get killed by an intruder or rapist because they are simply anti-gun, they ALREADY have delcared war on you.

The quicker a young man or woman learns not to let people run over them, the better. If one waits till they attain the age of fifty before standing up for themselves they are in for a lot of misery.

You are indeed correct that the Lender may choose NOT to call the note due, however, the Landlord is flipping a coin (regardless if the payments are made on time) due to the fiduciary responsiblity to their investors, especially if it is a government secured Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan product.

I would rather be in the Lessor's postion in that case, than the Landlords, regardless of mortgage payments being made on time.

For example, if you were a Note Holder and you held a note on which thirty thousand dollars were owed, but the property was currently valued at One Hundred and Sixty Thousand Dollars, and you knew the Borrower was in violation of the contract they signed, and you could own it in thirty days if he couldn't cough up the amount due ,or have it refinanced within that time frame, would you think about possibly calling it in, and taking the One Hundred and Thirty Thousand dollar profit?

I know I would.

That is a lot of money to risk on a coin toss.

If I were that Landlord and discovered there was the slightest chance I would have to go into a Chinese Fire drill to refinance, or cough up the Thirty Thousand in thirty days, I would CERTAINLY not be wanting to "go to war" with a Lessor. Often when someone "declares war" just to prove they are powerful, or just enjoy being a bully, they find their victim isn't as weak as they assumed. Just handing him the certified copy from the County Clerk's originally filed Deed of Trust showing the loan was made as an "Owner Occupied Single Family Residential Agreement" would make him much more reasonable.

It isn't the inexperience of the "College Kid/Lessor" that would matter. What would matter in this case, would be the inexperience of the Landlord with Deeds of Trust securing notes with "Due and Payable" clauses in them. :)
 
Oh, you're preaching to the choir on this one. I'd go scare the landlord to death. (Actually, what I'd do is undertake repairs in the building in the amount of the remaining rent on the property for the remainder of the lease and then discontinue rent payments, but that's just me...)

But, that might be more heat than the youngster wants to deal with.

Oh, and don't come off all indignant about the irreprehensible state of underdevelopment of the moral backbone in the youth in this country. I DEFINITELY agree with you on that one. But, I defy you to walk the streets of a college campus in this country and find an 18 year old having the proper combination of logic, rational determination, and life-experience to facilitate fronting a legal battle against a well-financed landlord. I agree that they should be more mature. My point is that they (most typically) aren't.
 
So you guys are advocating extortion and blackmail by informing the landlord of his little "secret" should you find his mortgage is for an occupied dwelling and he is renting it out?
 
Extortion involves the threat of criminal prosecution. Nope, that's not what we're doing.

Blackmail involves payment in exchange for keeping secrets. Nope, that's not what we're doing.

What we're doing is determining the full consequences to all those involved of instigating a full-out legal battle. Should the landlord decide to mix this up, then the he/she would be creating a record of having been in default on their lending contract. And then, as a friendly courtesy, we're informing the landlord of those consequences. It's the landlord, not the tenant, who will instigate this problem by forcing the tenant into a legal battle over the landlord's unwillingness to maintain a habitable premesis.

Trust me, the difference between a lawyer and a mercenary is a very slim line. ;)
 
And folks wonder...

...Why lawyers are held in such high esteem.

...And why landlords charge such high rents.

Some lawyers and landlords are truely a credit to their profession.
 
Trust me, the difference between a lawyer and a mercenary is a very slim line.
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Yes; the former requires a state license. Other than that..........

My contracts professor asked me what type of law I wanted to practice; I told her, "Litigation." She replied; "Ah, you want to be a gladiator!"

I said, "Gladiator, Hell; I want the black holster with the silver horse's head on it!" ;)
 
Samurai said:
Extortion involves the threat of criminal prosecution. Nope, that's not what we're doing.

Blackmail involves payment in exchange for keeping secrets. Nope, that's not what we're doing.
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black·mail (blăk'māl') n.
1. a. Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.
b. Something of value extorted in this manner.

From the Thomson-Gale Legal Dictionary:
Blackmail:

In blackmail the threat might consist of physical injury to the threatened person or to someone loved by that person, or injury to a person's reputation. In some cases the victim is told that an illegal act he or she had previously committed will be exposed if the victim fails to comply with the demand.

Although blackmail is generally synonymous with extortion, some states distinguish the offenses by requiring that the former be in writing.

and
Extortion:
Elements of Offense-
Virtually all extortion statutes require that a threat must be made to the person or property of the victim. Threats to harm the victim's friends or relatives may also be included. It is not necessary for a threat to involve physical injury. It may be sufficient to threaten to accuse another person of a crime or to expose a secret that would result in public embarrassment or ridicule. The threat does not have to relate to an unlawful act. Extortion may be carried out by a threat to tell the victim's spouse that the victim is having an illicit sexual affair with another.

Other types of threats sufficient to constitute extortion include those to harm the victim's business and those to either testify against the victim or withhold testimony necessary to his or her defense or claim in an administrative proceeding or a lawsuit. Many statutes also provide that any threat to harm another person in his or her career or reputation is extortion.


Conclusion:
If you know about it and don't report it, and use it against him, it's extortion.
If you have it in writing, it's blackmail.
 
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