A couple months later, you guessed it, the mold is back, and getting worse by the day. We alerted the property manager and a few days later, the contractor was out again. This time, he looked in the crawl space under the house and the crawl space above the house. He found next to no insulation in the attic and a pipe that had a huge leak under the house. They plan on painting over the mold in the cabinet(yes, that came back) with a mold killing paint. I read on blackmold.awardspace that that should kill of the mold because the wooden cabinet was painted before the mold grew(as far as we know), so painting over it with a paint that seals of oxygen will kill the green mold.

I’ve gone through our lease and repairs and maintenance(although mold is never mentioned) is covered by the realty company.

That’s just fine, but my current issue is this: The property manager(claims to have 15 years of being a house inspector experience) has instructed us(the tenants) to use a 20% bleach and water mixture to clean the black mold on the ceiling. 1. As the mold was not caused my tenant negligence, it is not our responsibility to clean the mold right? I estimate this would take us at least 3 hours and we don’t have a way to reach the ceiling(chairs aren’t tall enough, don’t own a ladder). I know if we go buy a ladder and take the receipt to the manager, we’ll get reimbursed, but am I also correct in thinking that we are owed compensation for the time if we decided to take it upon ourselves to do the job? I read on http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=22462661 about a tenant who was paid minimum wage for doing his dishes because his dishwasher was broken and the landlord didn’t want it fixed. 2. Anyone know this case so I can reference it? 3. Know a tenant union or housing authority near Hampton Roads? 4. Any other advice?

Sorry for the long read and thanks for your time.
CORRECTION: My questions(yes, there’s multiple questions) now lie in the last paragraph.
Spoke with the rental company, they will be having the maid who cleans their properties out to clean the mold off the ceiling. However, they want to use bleach(20% bleach 80% water). The property manager wants the entire ceiling bleached(roughly 1100 sq ft), and also want us to cover our property with plastic so nothing gets bleached. They expected us to provide plastic, cover all our stuff ourselves, and to be vacant from the house(its a single family home) for a whole day. Well, that wasn’t going to work. If they want it cleaned with bleach, they can pay the maid to cover all my stuff with plastic they provide. If it’s not safe do be in the home, I expect a hotel/motel room provided for the duration of the temporary vacancy. The mold wasn’t due to tenant negligence, so it’s their responsibility to clean the property of the mold and all that that entails(protecting my property). I provided them a website(blackmold.awardspace.com) that lists other cleaners to
use against mold.

Like I said, I’m not spending 3 hours of my time doing their job unless they want to pay me. It doesn’t say anything about maid services in my lease, but it does say the house must be safe and habitable(hence they clean the mold and provide a hotel if the home is inhabitable for even a day). I’m sure the mold isn’t dangerous, but it is still nasty to have on a ceiling I’m paying $995 to look at. They haven’t gotten back to me since I gave them the web site. I’ll be calling them tomorrow and will not be doing business with this company again. I’d like to say thanks again for everyone’s time, sorry to vent. None of the answers stand out, so I’ll put it to a vote.

I am not a lawyer. But not an idiot either.

"black mold" would not grow on your ceiling. It requires raw, untreated wood, dampness and COMPLETE darkness.

Normally basic instructions on how to clean a house are not included in a lease. 1% bleach is enough to kill both mold and mildew (you have mildew). You are right, you do not have to clean this if you do not want to, however, unless maid service is part of your lease no one else will clean it either.

And no, the apartment will not reimburse you for a ladder. If you want a ladder you buy a ladder. Who doesn’t have a ladder?

You are not legally entitled to pay for cleaning your own house. I have never heard of a case where you were paid for basic cleaning, even that article you reference does not talk about cleaning, it talks about a dishwasher in the contract. If your contract states that the landlord cleans your apartment then yes, you could enforce that. If has to be in the contract though.

A BPO is a "Broker’s price opinion" of real estate. Typically this will be ordered by a bank looking to foreclose or as a preliminary estimate of a property before a refinance. The broker gets paid about 50-100.00 from the bank to go out and take exterior pictures of the home, look up comparable sales and current listings and fill out an estimate and send it all back to the bank or finance company. It is kind of an informal appraisal.

Most attorneys don’t charge for an initial consultation, but you should ask about the attorney’s policy when you call for an appointment.

The callous greed of these benefactors is evidenced in their obdurate opposition to any contribution on their part to rebuilding our economy. We helped the wrong people.

We would have acted much more prudently had we bailed out most of the people who have lost their homes to foreclosure. The banks and other speculators holding questionable mortgages would have been paid off and thereby avoided bankruptcy without the hundreds of billions we poured directly into their coffers. Millions of homeowners would still have their homes; these houses would not be flooding the market depressing the value of residential estate.

With millions of people able to keep their homes and their equity, personal spending would not have fallen as precipitously as it did. Portfolios would not have lost their value; as a result, the big banks, insurance companies, etc., would have remained solvent and would have been able to keep all (or most of) their employees. With more people able to spend money, fewer businesses would have lost their customers. With more businesses solvent, fewer people would have lot their jobs.

The bailouts accomplished very little beyond quickly restoring to a few ultra-rich speculators and to monopolistic Corporate America the wealth (and much more) that they had lost in the early part of the recession. Now these corporations sit awash in $2 trillion, which they do not invest, their promises to do so notwithstanding.

We can still salvage our economy. Since the greedy elite will not invest this immense treasure without assurance of immediate profit, we should take much of that idle capital through taxation and spend it on rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure. Doing so would not be MAKING work; it is doing work that is long overdue. In the process, we could put millions of Americans back to work–and back to spending and restarting our economy.

So after talking to a "friend" he was telling me that he’s in realestate and that he could help me get on my feet while improving my credit score, so when I graduate from college I would qualify for things! So I was to purchase a house and receive 6000 at closing 2000 of which would be invested in order to pay off the taxes for the year. I wasn’t planning on living in the house for two more years, until I graduated from college. I used the 4000 to pay my rent in my apt for the rest of the year and that made my bills a lot more manageable for the time being, that was until I found out that the "management company" was not collecting the rent. Although I had been receiving NOTICES and receipts for payment! From what I understand the house went into foreclosure, I never even had a set of keys! I had known this guy since i was a little girl and I can’t believe he scammed me. He’s a close family friend!

After reading up on the situation, Iearned that I was in the wrong for saying that I was going to live in the house when I wasn’t planning to. Now I have a foreclosure and debt because of the furniture . I was just trying to make life normal for my little brother and I, but I ended up ruining mine! I don’t know what to do, where to go, who to turn to! I dont have the financial stability to hire a lawyer and at this point I am being sued by HSBC for the furniture, but I have no way to pay them, nothing to pay them. I can’t even settle because I don’t have the money. I live in Michigan and finding a job is virtually impossible, literally I have applied everywhere from department stores to office buildings and no one wants me because of my lack of FULL TIME job experience (I have been a student and worked 35 hr/wk for the last 4 years) . Please help me!
2 days ago – 6 days left to answer.
Additional Details
If I don’t file for bankruptcy, how long will this foreclosure loom over me and what are my responsibilities concerning the foreclosure? How will the taxes pay out? I don’t even know who to contact on this

HSBC has already served a summons, how can I handle it from here. I regret the fact that I let myself get screwed and in so deep in this matter Ive been fending for myself since 17 (right about the time when I was supposed to learn how to properly transition into adulthood) I dont want to make another stupid mistake, I am already in over my head!!!

As for bankruptcy as an option, what does this do to the foreclosure? I think that with all of this stuff added up I’m over 100,000 in debt, not to include the student loans that I have to start paying back ( I know I can’t get rid of those).

I’m only 22, and I dont want to ruin the rest of my life! The last five years have been horrid enough.

Your questions are too complex and with too much at stake for Yahoo Answers. The definition of insolvency or bankrupt, is that you owe more than you are worth. Many people will fall into this if they are upside down on their house note and they still owe a lot on their cars. If you are renting and owe $100K, you are by definition, insolvent and bankrupt. You need to speak to a bankruptcy attorney who can tell you the details of exactly what to expect after bankruptcy. Until then, my unprofessional opinion is that the HSBC collection process will be halted, your school loans will remain, the foreclosure and other debts will be eliminated, you will owe no tax on the write-offs, and your credit history will be mud. School loans are generally kept intact with long payment plans. Credit card and other consumer debt is usually wiped away. Debt writeoffs are considered taxable income, unless you go through a bankruptcy or are otherwise declared insolvent. If your school loans exceed the value of your assets, you will not have to pay any taxes on the writeoffs, but will have to pay all income taxes you still owe from previous years. The foreclosure and HSBC collections will ruin your credit, so clearing the debt with a bankruptcy will not hurt you any more, but will instead take the place of the mountain of other defaults it can prevent, then it will fall off in 10 years and by that time, you should have greatly improved your situation and had years of manageable expenses that will give you good credit. While that seems like a long time, your second chance can allow you to accumulate some good credit history that will outweigh the bankruptcy because older events are shown, but count less the older they are. Also, you show no signs of being able to pay off the $100K plus student loans in 10 years. Keep in mind, that some creditors can file the petition to force you into bankruptcy, but that is unlikely in your case because companies like HSBC would probably get less than what it cost them to file, if they get anything.

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0300-fraud/0100-fraud-division-overview/0300-fraud-claims-and-forms/upload/PublicFraudReportingFormReader.pdf

"Completed Online Insurance Reporting Forms are to be mailed to the following address:

"California Department of Insurance
Enforcement Branch Headquarters Intake Unit
9342 Tech Center Drive, Ste. 100
Sacramento, CA 95826"

"For further information, please contact the Department of Insurance, Fraud Division at (916) 854-5760."

Thanks,
Rich

You need to ask yourself whether the Title company issued Title insurance on the sale of the parcel that was split off.

Essentially the mortgae should have been paid off at the sale of the 5 acre parcel. I doubt that a Title company would have issued Title Insurance if that mortgage had not been paid off.

If there was a Policy of Title Insurance Issued then you will have to look to the Title Company for compensation for your loss.