18 September 19
SVPOPs
QUAL
COLLECTIONS
Occupancy Check Mini-Hat
Function: Occupancy checks are done for several reasons. Heres an example on why an occupancy check should be done. 206 Marks had a family in it that was no longer in communication with us and had fallen behind on their payments. On this instance we went ahead and had someone check the property. They reported that people were living in the house still, however it was not the people that were originally on the land contract. We were able to get a hold of the mother who gave us the information that both Justin & Cynthia were not in fact living in the house. We were able to send termination papers out to the family and then we were able to re-secure the property. At this point at 260 Gloria, Jeremy was given 2 months of his loan pushed back due to financial and medical hardship. Once his 2 months ended, he became due on 1 Sept 19. His phone has been disconnected, and he is no longer in communication with us. This instance would call for us to do an occupancy check on the property, to see if he is still in the house. He may or may not be in the house anymore, but that is the first step in re-securing the property.
How to: Occupancy checks are very easy to explain to do. The biggest hurdle is in finding people to DO the occupancy check for you. There are several different ways to go about finding someone to do an occupancy check. (THERE WILL IN THE FUTURE BE A FULL HAT WRITTEN FOR FINDING VENDORS/SERVERS)
- Using the police. This is the cheapest method, because it is free. It is also sometimes the slowest way to get this done. You can call the police and ask that they “check” on someone. The police call this a “Welfare Check,” however they are not able to forcibly enter a premise unless they have reasonable cause to believe that something bad is happening inside the house. DO NOT ASK THEM TO PERFORM A “WELFARE CHECK”. This is pretty suspect. This is a little dicey and does require some finesse. You cannot call the police and tell them that you work for a real estate company and that you need them to check on someone who isn’t paying you. Something like, “Hey, I’ve been trying to get a hold of _______ and I can’t seem to reach them. We normally talk once a week or so but now they are not answering my phone calls, and not messaging me on facebook anymore. I’m really concerned about them and I wanted to know if you’re able to check on them and see what’s going on with them?” This is a much better approach. Also you need to have some background data on the people you are going to ask the police to check on. If you just spent 5 minutes explaining away how much of a close friend you are to this person and how you are concerned for them and want the police to check on them you better know what to say when the police ask you what race/color they are. The police will ask you several questions about the person(s) you want them to check on, such as Age, Hair Color, Skin Color, Height, etc. The police will also ask you questions about your relationship to the person, so you better have some good stories lined up, like, “I helped ______ buy their first house and I used to call them every 2 weeks to make sure everything was going good and now they are not talking to me. I’m worried.” So go into the Central Properties Folder, find the property, go into the Application folder, and look at the ID’s of the people living in the house. If there is only one ID in the folder, make sure to find out who sold the house and ask them if they have the missing one.