Tenant Renewal & Reconfirming Income before increase

[Brittany Lindvall]

We have a 3 bedroom duplex unit that we rented out for $1300 in March 2021 to 8 people (4 adults). They asked at the initial signing if 8 was the maximum they could have in the unit and we told them it was as it was already over the recommendation. Six months after that they asked if a family member moving from overseas could live with them for a couple months. We agreed to two months and if they remained after that time frame their rent would increase by $50 a month (they stayed and have paid $1350 since). 

At their lease renewal walkthrough we discovered that there were actually 11 people living in the unit as the "one person" had two teenage children that moved in as well. We went through with the renewal but now their lease is up next month and we are planning to raise rent to $1500 (this is about market value right now anyway, so not super high for what they have). We would like to reconfirm their income before we sign another lease as they haven't been as good about paying on time and there was an issue with them requesting rent assistance last year but they didn't get it. 

Has anyone gone about this and how did you? We'd love some advice. They're not bad renters at all but because of the number of people in the unit there have been a lot more small repairs that we've had to deal with. We wouldn't be heartbroken if they moved out, but we also don't want to kick them out necessarily. They couldn't find two units to rent that would be as cheap as ours right now so we don't anticipate them leaving, but if they can't pay we'd rather just give notice rather than signing again and causing issues later.