ALOC NEWS

March 2, 2002

Associated Landlords of the Cumberland Area
ALOC Phone (301) 759-0530 P.O. Box 1867

Vol. 8, Issue 3

Upcoming Speakers

In March we have scheduled Chief Bobby Dick from the Cumberland Police Dept. as our speaker.
In April we have arranged for Bonnie Zembower from the District Court to be our speaker.

Lead Paint Training

There are many Lead Paint Training Courses available during the year and if you visit our website shown above you can get details for courses available at Hagerstown Junior College, Leadtec Services, Inc and Connor in Baltimore.
Keep in mind that Allegany College also has a regular schedule of classes.

New Form Development

We are always watching for new forms that may help Landlords handle their business better and we recently came across one sent out by the Cumberland Housing Authority. This form is Labeled "Verification Referral of Present Landlord" which is a single page form that asks a few simple questions regarding the tenant in question. This may be useful for us and we have modified it to suit our needs and we will have it on hand at the March meeting for review by the membership. Once we have a concurrence from the members we will finalize the form and send a copy to each member.

Election of Offices and Directors

It has been a long time since we have had any formal elections especially those regarding our Directors. With this in mind we will start working on getting a nominating committee together to see what we can do. It would probably be possible to have elections in June or July at the latest. Any persons interested in serving should contact Jeff Hutter or Carey Walker.

ANNUAL ALOC DUES

Every December membership dues notices are sent to all members with payment due in January. For those new members who recently joined and paid for 2002 there should be no dues notice attached. Your dues cover the cost of getting the newsletters out, advertising spots in the newspapers and radios, mileage costs associated with attendance at Maryland Property Owners meetings in Annapolis, reproduction of ALOC forms and miscellaneous administrative costs. With a cost of less than 11 cents per day this truly represents a bargain for our members.

If you have not yet paid your 2002 dues please do so as soon as possible. During March and April we will be culling our membership list of unpaid members, which can mean missed newsletter and other valuable information!

LEGISLATIVE ALERT

We recently mailed out a Legislative Alert to our members concerning HB 1154 and we urge each member to contact as many members of the Environmental Matters Committee to express our disdain with this bill and our desire that it not be passed.

Please keep in mind that this bill, if passed, would mandate lead dust tests for all inspections. This is not necessary and will increase our costs.

In addition you may also want to let our Western Maryland Delegation, Senator John Hafer, Speaker Cas Taylor, Delegates George Edwards and Kevin Kelly, know that you do not want more regulations. A combination of telephone calls and letters from as many members as possible would be helpful!

Attached is another copy of the last mailer in case you misplaced the first copy. Please take action today!!

Richard Bonig Rental Property Inspections Dust Wipe Tests/Visual Inspections 301-777-1369 MDE: Certified Lead Paint Visual Inspector HUD: Certified Lead Sampling Technician 9-30	*Carey Walker* Lead Inspections for Rental Housing Visual Inspections and Dust Wipes 201 Massachusetts Ave. Cumberland, MD 21502 301-722-8328 3-02
Highland Enterprises LLC Lead Abatement - Lead Risk Reduction Rental Property Maintenance Contractor Telephone 301-729-1086 FAX 301-729-4801 - Pager 301-546-0221 3-30 / 9-30	Robert Saville VISUAL INSPECTOR MDE Inspections Lead Dust Wipes LEAD PAINT SUPERVISOR "Excellent Rates" Telephone/FAX: 301-729-2994 1-30

Miscellaneous Items

The Eviction Process

Our speaker at the April meeting, Bonnie Zembower, from the District Court will go over the many legal documents and processes involved with Landlord Tenant matters. She will obviously not be providing legal advice but can help us navigate through the process of properly filing court papers. As we have talked about at many meetings in the past, there are certain ways to handle evictions and late rent payments and we recently ran across an interesting article in Hagerstown's newsletter. The article covers the adventures of a Louisiana Landlord who tried to evict his tenant for nonpayment. The Owner had not received rent by the 8th of the month and had his agent deliver a notice to vacate, however the agent agreed to accept a late payment which would be paid as soon as possible. When the 18th rolled around no rent had been received so the Owner filed court papers and the following day concluded that the property was abandoned as the electric was turned off. On the 20th the locks were changed and the tenant's personal property was removed and put in storage. Sometime during the same day the Owner's agent accepted the tenant's late rent payment.
The court shortly thereafter awarded the owner past due rent, cleaning cost and late fees but gave the tenant credit for rent paid. The tenant was also allowed to retrieve her property from storage by paying those costs. The tenant appealed, maintaining her assertion that she was wrongfully evicted. The appeals court partially overturned the lower court ruling and the Owner ended up losing some of the rent (he changed locks prior to the court ruling), having to pay for the storage fees (removed the tenants property before the court ruling) and ended up having to let the tenant move back into the unit.
The bottom line is you cannot take unilateral action against a tenant, regardless of the situation. You must work through the court process and not act until the court rules and documentation is issued. These types of situations will be covered at the April meeting.

Leases and other Documents

The Leases and other forms have been upgraded to reflect Law changes made in recent years and are available now.

ALOC has available leases, rental applications and tenant checklists for sale, at cost, to members. The cost for each item is as follows:
Lease @ $ 0.25 Rental Application @ $ 0.20 Move in Checklist @ $ 0.20 Lead Paint Brochures, both EPA and Maryland @ $ 1.50 for the pair.
Document Receipt for MDE and EPA brochures (disclosure) @ $ 0.15

These forms are kept at Jeff Hutter's office, TWR Comm. at 117-119 Valley Street. Any paid member can stop by and pick up whatever they need, however we ask that you call first with your order so that the forms can be ready and waiting for you.

Please call at least 24 hours in advance as these are made to order.
When you call 777-2692 ext 113, you can talk to Pam, Stacy or Gary
Please note: We do not keep MDE or City Housing registration forms on hand.

ALOC Officers

J. Jeffrey Hutter President

Carey Walker Vice President

Stephanie Wharton Secretary

J. Jeffrey Hutter Treasurer

Board of Directors

Ed Hedrick
Milt Sarver
Clarence Anderson

Thoughts for the Month

Happy are they that hear their own detraction, and can put them to mending.

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing - II, 3.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the
conclusion that envy is ignorance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

TWR Communications 301-777-2692 9-30

The leading supplier of quality high speed Internet Access in Allegany-Garrett-Washington Counties and surrounding areas of West Virginia using K56 Flex modems. TWR provides other computer services including training, computer repairs, networking, website hosting and Internet advertising.
TWR is an agent for Cellular One, operates a wide area network with wide area paging and mobile 2-way radio. Check us out at twr@hereintown.net

Landlord Helpers of Western Maryland
PO Box 1697
Cumberland, MD 21501
301-724-9110 Fax 301-724-2647
Mary Miltenberger, Manager
Lead Paint Services
Instruction in requirements, Analysis of units,
Supervision of work site, Inspections,
Evaluation before you buy.
Call us for all of your lead paint concerns. 3-02

A-1 Inspections, Inc.

PRE-PURCHASE/PRE-SETTLEMENT INSPECTIONS RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL LEAD INSPECTIONS

PHONE 301-724-LEAD
301-724-5323 9-30

Credit Bureau, Inc.

Sign up now to start pulling Credit Reports!!

Report rental history to our Database!

Let Mike Wright show you how!

301-729-5202 5-02