The enforcer: Jeff Cronrod takes on deadbeat tenants.Evicting tenants is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. And as long as others don't have the inclination inclination, in astronomy, the angle of intersection between two planes, one of which is an orbital plane. The inclination of the plane of the moon's orbit is 5°9' with respect to the plane of the ecliptic (the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun). or the resources to deal with it, why shouldn't Jeff Cronrod make a few bucks for himself?. Cronrod, whose company offers tenant screening and eviction The removal of a tenant from possession of premises in which he or she resides or has a property interest done by a landlord either by reentry upon the premises or through a court action. services, first realized what an integral part of the business eviction is when he couldn't get rid of his own dead-beat tenants. "I've been an apartment owner for 28 years, so I come from that direction," he explains. "About 14 years ago, I found myself with $100,000 in eviction judgements and no one to help me collect them. So in 1992, I formed Fidelity." A union between an investigative business and a technology operation, Fidelity runs several inter-related sites--www.anewtenant.com, www.tenantmail.com and www.abadtenant.com. The first offers credit and employment checks on prospective tenants, the second allows landlords to automatically notify their tenants about upcoming rent fees and the third offers eviction and debt collection services. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Cronrod, the sites make a landlord's life a lot easier by letting him concentrate on the leasing and management of the property, rather than on aspects of the business he is not qualified to deal with. "Fidelity, essentially, does several things--we sell information, such as tenant and employee screens, and also collect debts." "In fact, we are the largest landlord collection agency in the country," Cronrod notes. "It is not a part of the business that landlords usually deal with, so a lot of companies outsource someone to do it. We have a fairly unique niche in the real estate industry." Cronrod also points out the advantage of running his business through the Internet, an innovation that saves his clients a great deal of time and aggravation Any circumstances surrounding the commission of a crime that increase its seriousness or add to its injurious consequences. Such circumstances are not essential elements of the crime but go above and beyond them. . "I am an Internet junkie junkie Popular health A popular term for a person, usually an IV narcotic abusing addict, whose life is disorganized vis-á-vis family and societal structure, whose existence revolves around obtaining–often through theft, prostitution or other illicit and in my spare time, I used to do e-trading," he explains. "It was so easy and it dawned on my that if I could be my own stock broker, someone could be their own debt collector debt collector n → cobrador(a) m/f de deudas debt collector n → agent m de recouvrements debt collector debt n . So the rent recovery service was the grand-daddy of all the other sites." According to Cronrod, though the screening and eviction business has an ugly image, it actually takes a lot of skill to deal with non-payment issues. For one thing, because the company operates in more than one state, his staff has to know how the laws vary. And they have to know how to handle the various types of tenants--some shape up and pay their debts after the first warning letter and some have to be pressured for months. In the most dire cases, however, Fidelity uses quite aggressive measures to protect the landlord's interests. "In most states, we are allowed to garnish garnish v. to obtain a court order directing a party holding funds (such as a bank) or about to pay wages (such as an employer) to an alleged debtor to set that money aside until the court determines (decides) how much the debtor owes to the creditor. wages and recollect rec·ol·lect v. rec·ol·lect·ed, rec·ol·lect·ing, rec·ol·lects v.tr. To recall to mind. See Synonyms at remember. v.intr. To remember something; have a recollection. personal property," Cronrod says. "Of course, you have to find out where [the personal assets are] and that takes a level of expertise. We have a complex team, which includes private investigator and lawyers." At the same time, Cronrod recommends that landlords use his other website--www.anewtenant.com--to make sure that they never have to deal with debt collection. The site, which gives the landlord information about the tenant's prior history and provides a statistical analysis of debt evasion EVASION. A subtle device to set aside the truth, or escape the punishment of the law; as if a man should tempt another to strike him first, in order that he might have an opportunity of returning the blow with impunity. likelihood, can help weed weed, common term for any wild plant, particularly an undesired plant, growing in cultivated ground, where it competes with crop plants for soil nutrients and water. out bad applicants. "It's a seamless tenant management service," Cronrod says. Plus, the site researches a prospective tenant's criminal history, so landlords can avoid renting to someone with a violent past or a child molestation Child molestation is a crime involving a range of indecent or sexual activities between an adult and a child, usually under the age of 14. In psychiatric terms, these acts are sometimes known as pedophilia. record. "It allows us to access credit, criminal, eviction history," Cronrod notes. "And it also has a totally color and gender-blind scoring process [so you can't be accused of discrimination]" Fidelity, which now operates mostly on the West Coast, might soon be opening up an office in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . And the company is currently developing several other websites, including a fully automated eviction service. "A landlord will go online, pay for the service, and with one click, he will be able to take care of the whole process," Cronrod explains. "But we will test this service for a good year before expanding it. There is a lot of work that goes into making something like that [run smoothly.]" |
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