What do you do about properties with lead- What's going on YouTube? It's Matt Faircloth.
Today we're going to talk about lead-based paint. This is mentorship Monday, by the way. Thank you
guys for watching. I appreciate you guys. Today's question comes from Kim and Dave. Kim and Dave are
looking for federal or state grant programs for flippers, who are looking to deal with properties
that have lead-based paint. Kim and Dave, if you guys find these programs, tell me about it.
Love to hear about it. There are historic tax credit stuff you can get. If you are restoring
properties, they're on historic registries, or are super, super old properties that are
really ornate or like lots of units as well. You can get multifamily historic tax credits.
But for just flipping single-family homes, I have not seen this. If it does exist, please let us
all know. Definitely not any programs or grants for remediating lead-based paint. Every other
state that I've ever seen makes that an owner's issue to remediate and deal with on their own.
As a flipper, I think that all you need to do is disclose that you ... just that you didn't
test the property for lead-based paint if you didn't. If you did, that you did the right thing
and remediated the lead-based paint. Now, each state has different laws that are remediating.
Some states let you encapsulate it, where there's a special, thick paint you can put on the walls
that can encapsulate the lead-based paint. Other states require you remove it completely,
to make it certified lead free. That's a thing in certain states. That's a stamp that the state
gives certain properties to certify them as a lead free property. It depends on the
state you're in. That's for flipping. In every state, there is a ... you can get
something called a lead disclosure. You tell them whether or not you know there's lead,
whether or not you remediated it, whether ... if you didn't, what ... there's a lead-based paint
booklet you can give for just a ... it's like a 30-page book. You can get it online. You can get
it in different languages if your tenants speak different languages or if your buyer speaks a
different language. You can get them this booklet to give them. All these things cover
your own rear for lead-based paint claims. If you are a landlord, there's more things
you need to do. That's all if you're a flipper and also you want to do that lead-based paint
disclosure thing and make your tenants sign off on stuff if you're a landlord. But further action
you should take if you're a landlord, because it's just you own the property for longer and there's
longer opportunities for liability that may come up. So number one, talk to your insurance carrier
about a rider on your insurance policy that will cover you against lead-based paint claims. They're
not going to pay to remove the lead. Don't even ask them. But they will pay you, if you put the
right rider in there, against a liability claim, meaning the tenant's kid most likely
went and ate a lot of lead-based paint, so much that they developed a toxicity like high blood
levels of lead or whatever and the tenant's now making a claim against you to deal with this.
So most insurance companies, if you put the right rider and the right language in there,
will step in and defend you against that and deal with the settlement with the tenant if
it comes up. But, they're not going to pay to remove the lead or whatever. So there's a couple
options. Number one, you can have the tenant sign off on a disclosure, like I mentioned,
which is disclosing your knowledge of the lead and giving them this booklet that tells them
how to properly live in a property that may have lead-based paint. That's number one. Number two,
you can remove the highest propensity places where a child could eat lead. And so obviously go and
inspect it as a landlord, make sure the paint's not flaking. If it is, paint it, scrape it,
clean it before the tenant moves in. And the second place that most tenant's kids will
consume lead-based paint is on the windowsill. If it's a wooden windowsill that sticks out like
that in front of the window, just cut it off. Cut it off, seal it, paint it. Because, the kid then
can't go up and chew on the windowsill. But if you look on the records online,
that's where most kids will consume lead-based paint is on that windowsill on a property if
it's a wooden windowsill. So just remove them, just cut them off. So that's the things
you can do as a landlord. Or if you want 100% no liability, you can do what they do in some states,
where properties are certified lead free and all the lead's been removed,
zero lead on the whole property. No problems of a toxicity concern or anything like that.
Lead is a concern in our world. It's been proven that if you consume enough of it,
it can cause conditions. It can cause even brain damage and stuff like that. It's a really,
really concerning thing in our world, and unfortunately we didn't know about it and we
stopped using it in the 70s, in the US anyway. And now it's banned because of those things. But you
still need to be aware of it, because anything built before the 70s is probably going to have
it somewhere in the walls. So there's no right answer. It just depends on what level
of remediation you guys want to get into as landlords and what risks you want to take.
So that's it guys. Thank you guys for watching Mentorship Monday. Don't forget,
subscribe to the channel. Check us out on Facebook. Subscribe to our newsletter if you
guys want to hear what the Derosa Group's up to. And don't forget to leave a comment, especially
if you guys want to get into some chatter about lead-based paint and what you guys have done to
remediate it on your own properties. So thanks for watching guys. Have a great, profitable week.