Laser-Guided Smart Weapon: The Collections Agency

For those of you who follow this blog, you might recall a post from a while ago titled The Perils of Landlording: Canine Catastrophes.

That was a heartbreaking experience for me. I had to clean up my tenants filth and I knew that better tenant screening would have saved me the money and the hassle. The whole experience cost me about $3,000 in damages. Not fun.

Part of my problem was trying to recover the damages. The tenants balked when I told them they needed to pay for the carpet. They grabbed any excuse they could (all very poor ones) to try to avoid payment. My concern as a landlord was the learning curve involved with taking a tenant to collections. I had never had a damage dispute with a tenant nor had a reason to have one before this.

Fortunately, one of my property management friends suggested I contact North American Recovery Services in Salt Lake City. As a collections agency, they do all the work in hunting down and getting funds from deadbeat tenants. They don't charge you unless they collect. If the collection is pre-judgement then the rate is about 30%. If the collection goes to court (which you don't have to personally appear at) then their rate goes to 50%. Either way, its been a valuable stress-relieveing tool in my landlord tool belt.

As of today when I called to get an update, they had recieved a judgement from a court and also recieved approval for thier garnishment to start in the fall. I know I will be paid and I know when. Beautiful. Justice is served.

If you have trouble with a tenant damaging property or skipping on rent contact North American Recovery at 801-364-0777.