Tenant with 750+ Credit Score and 150k Income trashed my apartment... what's next?

[Alan Asriants]

I generally pride myself on choosing very good applicants but this one didn't sit well with me when signing the lease and I didn't have the greatest gut feeling

Like the title says, these tenants were very qualified. 

They moved in, paid on time and didn't give us any issues

Then we get a call that the dryer stopped working - they overloaded it and claimed it wasn't their fault - we paid for it

Then we asked them to change their air filters - They gave us an issue with it even though it was in our lease

Then the washing machine motor failed - they loaded too many clothes - they didn't pay for it and we continued to keep them

We then decided to visit their apartment because we got a bit suspicious and wanted to make sure things were not being damaged. To our surprise everything was super clean, well maintained within the unit. 

Then we had a discrepancy with rent payment - the check was literally lost in the mail. We explained to them that we didn't receive it, but they insisted that they will not be paying double rent for this month. We were lenient and even gave them a couple months to pay us back while they filed their claim with the bank. 9 months later they still havent paid

We gave them a 3 month notice that we are increasing the rent. They texted us 1 week later saying that this was their last month - 25 day notice - it is written in the lease that there is a 60-day notice

They left and gave us no information and since then they haven't answered any calls or texts

The trashed the place, have two outstanding water bills ($150), left trash in the apartment that I had to get a clean out crew, destroyed the walls, damaged kitchen cabinets, left spilled food in freezer, didn't pay for the missing rent, missed two trash payments, etc

Being in the business I have to admit this is not the worst thing in the world. I have seen much worse damage, but it still costs you time and money, especially when you delivered them the property in such great condition.

The course of action as follows:

1. Record all damages

2. Collect all invoices for damages

3. Send invoices and security deposit statement to tenant to remedy the situation 

4. If paid, we leave it at that, if not we will file a case with the city for damages

LESSONS LEARNED:

Give someone an inch and they will take a foot

Credit score and income don't guarantee the quality of the tenant 

To everyone out there wanting to be a landlord - This is all part of the business and this happens, with more units you will have these things come up, it is almost inevitable 

People can be great, but might become addicted to drugs while living in your place. Sometimes timing sucks and you can't predict it, but it is just the cost of running this business.

Good luck to you all!

[Ke Nan Wang]

Document all the cost and how much they owe you after security deposit and send it over to collection. If you have a judgement is better but they will work with anything (lease, ledger). There is no cost upfront with them but they take 33% of what's collected. It's best you have their full name, DOB and SSN, it's pretty effective. Usually this is where leverage comes against a good credit score tenants. When collection company contacts them with emails, phone calls, and text and present them the stick (ruin their credit score) and the carrot (work out some affordable payment plan), most good credit score people will come to their senses. 

Doing all that cost you nothing other than paying the collection company 33% of what you would have lost anyway. At the minimum, you get a chance to harass them for being a terrible human being even if you don't get anything back.