Property Managers Owe Fiduciary Duties to Their Clients at Minimum

“Fiduciary” is basically defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as a term derived from Roman law which means, as a noun, a person or legal entity, holding the character of a trustee, with respect to the trust and confidence involved as scrupulous good-faith and candor towards another’s affairs. A fiduciary also has duties which are described as involving good-faith, trust, special confidence, and candor toward another’s interests. Typical fiduciary duties are imposed on and include such relationships as executor, administrator, trustee, real estate agents, attorneys, and, of course, property managers. A person or company who manages money or property, i.e., the manager, for other people must exercise a standard of care in that the interests of the money or property owners are placed above and beyond those of the property manager. In some states, like California for example, a property manager is statutorily defined as an individual or entity which has the same duties as a trustee, i.e., a fiduciary.

The way I always explain it to clients, using my hands to demonstrate, is that my interests end at the top of my head (one hand at the crown of my head), but the client’s interest rise above and beyond my head and take precedent over my own (holding both of my hands above my head in a clasped position). Most people understand the gesture and comprehend that as a property manager and a lawyer my interests are much lower than those of the clients in our relationship.

Common Fiduciary Duties Owed by Property Managers

Since a property manager is a fiduciary they must act with the highest good-faith and fair dealing with respect to the owner’s asset, disclose all material information that may affect the owners decision-making with respect to that asset, and can’t in any way, shape or form act adversely to the owner’s interests. This may sound easy, but there are situations that arise that tempt even the best property managers to sometimes not act in their client’s best interests to suit their own self-interested convenience. Unfortunate as that may sound it happens regularly.

The following is a short list of some common sense duties, rights, and wrongs when a fiduciary relationship exists between a manager and an owner.

A manager should have a written agreement with their clients and may even be legally entitled to profit from services for which they provide to the owner, however, a manager may not secretly profit from this relationship. For example, a manager may charge an eight percent markup on materials and services provided by vendors to the owner’s property. This is legal and acceptable provided that the agreement between the parties is in concert with the markup. If this markup was not in the agreement then the law requires a property manager to disgorge or relinquish any and all secret profits derived from the relationship. There are so many possible examples of this, but a common one is a manager making a percentage profit on work and services provided to their clients but not disclosed; like a new roof, bathroom remodel, repairs to interior walls, etc.

A property manager is required to disclose any and all rental offers received along with documentation of those offers such that the property owner is well informed about all potential tenants. It is easy for a manager to fail to provide names of potential tenants that don’t necessarily qualify or are poor credit risks as this would involve more work for the manager.

A property manager is statutorily required to act for the sole benefit of the asset owner in matters that evolve from the relationship, whether or not those matters are seemingly insignificant or they are significantly material.

Information about a tenant whom falls behind on their rent must be immediately communicated to the asset owner. If your management company is using a software system that allows an “Owner Portal” then this information is readily available to see and anytime one has access to the internet.

If a manager receives information that a tenant has caused damage to a property the owner should be notified as soon as feasibly possible. It is easy for the manager to not disclose this information for fear of confronting the disgruntled owner or just not wanting to deal with the conflict associated with that situation.

Trust Account Duties

A trust account which holds deposits and rent monies for the benefit of the asset owner is a common ground for fiduciary duty breaches. The law precludes a manager from commingling of the client trust funds with broker or manager owned funds.

Additionally, it is a breach of fiduciary duty to make mortgage payments on broker owned properties from a trust account even if the broker quickly reimburses the account for the payments. The statutory prohibition against conducting personal business from trust accounts is strictly enforced.

Surprisingly another common example of commingling of funds occurs when the property management fee is not timely withdrawn from the trust account. Sometimes a delay of twenty-five (25) days could be considered commingling.

Trust funds must also be deposited with expediency. Some states require that deposits must be deposited by no later than the next business day.

Commingling of Trust Funds is a Serious Offense

Commingling of trust and broker funds is such a serious offense it can be grounds for revocation or suspension of a broker’s license in most states. Thus, this sole issue must be of paramount importance to a manager and property management company.

Conclusion

Managers owe fiduciary duties to their clients – this is the minimum standard owed. There are many ways to breach these duties which form the basis for the relationship between the manager and the client. It is important to hire a property manager who understands and abides by the statutory framework, understands fully what a fiduciary duty entails, and can both clearly communicate those duties and at the same time live up to them. It is important for owners to make sure they hire property managers who abide by these minimum standards.

Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

Education Career – How to Succeed in Education

Success in an education career can be planned, but it has to be part of your attitude. You cannot teach unless you have a knack for explaining knotty subjects in clear and simple terms. Moreover, succeeding in education is not related to a certification even though you require one to work in schools. You can light up your life if you harbor a secret passion to teach and deliver lectures in an engaging way.

Certification

You best bet for embarking on a school career would be to go for a certification that will allow you to enhance the value of your resume. Teaching certifications are the first step as without the qualification, your CV is likely to be swept aside. You would automatically stand a better chance with a degree. Teachers are in a best position as the government is pumping in more money than ever before and making it easier for many students to pursue and complete their education.

Planning

Even stay at home moms are being encouraged to get back to college and pick up the lost threads of their past life when they gave up on higher education. Like old times, a teacher’s job is very taxing and if you can surmount the odds and gel with the students, you could be a greatly admired teacher and a rave with students inside and outside the classroom. For a school career and also in education planning, you should make sure to enhance your selection chances.

Match standards

Get a hang of the education programs before you go in for a job interview. If you are planning to embark on an education program in a school belonging to your district, get to know the job requirements. It is all about education career planning and your best bet would be to gear yourself to the standards demanded. It would be easier for you to sail through the interview if you know exactly the ethos that the school stands for and the type of students you would have to deal with.

Your education career can start off with teaching jobs in K-12 grades. There have been loads of developments in the teaching sector which has made it possible for people with an inclination to teach to find their dream jobs. Times have changed and a teaching career demands a lot more than it did a few decades ago.

Fine tune lessons

Even for an online education career, you have to fine tune your lessons. Fine tuning to specific needs of students will test your mettle as you have to teach students coming from different socio economic or even ethnic backgrounds. You have to tailor lessons to suit different learning levels as well. Not all students are bright. There would be many students who would require special care and a different sort of approach towards learning, a skill which can com e in handy for an education career.