Tenant:  Why do you keep sending all of these bills to me?

Me:  The rent statements?  You get those every month as a reminder to pay the rent.

Tenant:  Well, I don’t have to do that anymore.  I sold the business.  Quit sending these to me.  It’s not my problem anymore.

Me:  You sold the business?  No one told me about that?  You’ll need to get the lease contract assigned over to the buyer in order to transfer the rent responsibility to them.

Tenant:  Then go talk to them about it.  I’m no longer involved.  It’s your problem now.

Me:  Actually, it’s your problem.  The lease contract is with you.  You’re obligated to honor the terms of the contract regardless of who runs the business.  You should have contacted me during the escrow so we could have done the assignment paperwork at the same time.  I can send everything to you now but it really should have been done earlier.

Tenant:  There wasn’t any escrow.  This isn’t my problem.  I. Sold. The. Business.  Hello?  What part of that don’t you understand? Go talk to the buyer about whatever stupid thing you want.  I’m done with you.  You just don’t understand how business works.

I sent a letter to the tenant and to the buyer explaining how to transfer the lease contract.  I included a copy of the contract and all the paperwork needed to complete the transfer process.  I got an angry call afterwards from the tenant.

Tenant:  Why did you send that stuff to the buyer?

Me:  You told me to talk to the buyer about transferring the lease contract.  So I did. You just need to complete the paperwork and we’ll get started on the transfer and you can get on with your life.

Tenant:  No I can’t!  You screwed everything up!  Now the buyer wants me to give him back some money in the deal because of all of the rent he has to pay!

Me:  What?  He didn’t know he had to pay rent?  Didn’t you disclose that there was an existing lease contract?  Didn’t you disclose the business income and expenses?  Did you tell them the rent was free?

Tenant:  That was supposed to be your problem!  Not mine!  You were supposed to go make him pay rent and leave me out of it!  You don’t know how anything works!  Now I have to hire an attorney and it’s all your fault!

Yeah.  MY fault.  I wonder if there is an apology card for “Sorry I ruined your scam to rip off me and the buyer!”

Ultimately they did do an assignment of the lease and the buyers turned out to be really nice people.  Lesson to you all – open an escrow when you make a huge purchase like this, get an attorney or real estate professional involved from the start, don’t let important disclosures (like RENT!) get overlooked!