Conducting business at your rental

[Sam Leon]

There is an ongoing thread about day care at a rental:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/109391-advice-needed-residential-tenant-w-a-daycare-insurance-headache-help

I didn't want to hijack it but I thought a more generalized discussion would be helpful to me and a few others.

I also made it a point to tell applicants I do not wish to conduct business at my property

However there are some gray areas, and I basically made my rules looking at the nuisance factors...not so much liabilities, and now looking at that thread, I may have to rethink this.

You see, I would not have allowed the day care simply because a half dozen moms picking up and dropping off at the same time would cause a parking jam and inconvenience.

On the other hand, I have told tenants who occasionally allow "friends" to drop off a kid for them to babysit its ok. I use the term friend loosely because they are not friends but more like younger kids at school her daughter goes to and her daughter is the babysitter and is being paid. Now isn't this technically daycare with the same liabilities?

Another ex-tenant, has a full time job, does a lot of shopping on eBay, he has half a dozen packages for UPS every day. I didn't have a problem with that.

But one applicant was a hair dresser, says she have clients who are closer to her home then her salon, or may be wanting a cut after hours would come by to get their hair done, I declined. Mostly thinking parking issues, people coming and going.

One other time I had an applicant who is a massage therapist, again client visitations at home, I declined, because she can't provide income verification, so its either an all cash business and she isn't paying uncle Sam, also she wasn't licensed with the department of professional regulations so I was wondering if these massages are legit or she might provide other offerings that are questionable.

Bottom line, do you guys prohibit business being conducted at your rental properties period, or is it a subjective rule based on how frequent or if it creates any inconvenience such as added traffic or parking situations to the building?