Begging City Hall for mercy (2015)

In February 2015 a friend and I bought a duplex in Reading, PA, 50/50. He’d come into it through a note. The owner had given the deed back to his fund in lieu of foreclosure, and his investors wanted a quick sale, so we bought it as a buy & hold.

In April we finally made time to fix up the vacant second floor. We hired my dad as our general contractor, and he brought one of his crew. In a day and a half we stripped the carpet, replaced 3 windows and opened up a section of the kitchen wall to let in some light. On the second day we met a woman outside the house whose lease next door was ending. She applied, made it through our vetting and moved in by the end of the week (we really got lucky - that almost never happens).

By May the headaches started. The first floor tenant was over a month late on rent, and the second floor tenant got a notice that her power was about to be shut off.

My other rentals were within a mile of home and a few blocks from Borough Hall. I knew the rules there. In Reading, we quickly found out we didn’t even know what we didn’t know.

One phone call to City Hall and we learned we owed over $4,000 in fines and fees. The power shutoff was tied to an occupancy inspection we’d missed. We’d never registered the rental, and we didn’t have a business license to operate in the city. We were operating like fly-by-night, lawless scoundrels - not a good look.

So we begged for mercy. Phone calls have their place, but we knew showing up in person was the only way to dig ourselves out. On the drive into town we stopped at the tax bureau and got the business license, then walked into City Hall with it in hand.

The people at the counter were totally reasonable. They understood the mistake was unintentional and that we were committed to making it right. They wouldn’t have done anything about it if we hadn’t asked, though. We did a lot of apologizing and left owing $615.

When I wrote it all up the next year, the lesson got capital letters - ALWAYS ASK.