Breaking up payments with multiple tenants in one unit

[Kevin Kittilsen]

We rent to college kids often. We traditionally have all individuals sign one lease together. As far as collecting payment individual typically pays their portion of the lease separate to us. So we may have 5 separate payments for one rental house per month. Is this common practice or should we be requiring them to pool their money into one payment per month? Thanks for the advice!

[Jonah Hartsburg]

I invest primarily in a small college town. Depending on the property and season, my marketing will occasionally attract student renters. I've tried both rent-by-the-room and group leases. Since I'm not trying to break into a specific niche market of rent by the room, I stick to group leases. Like others mentioned, I'm not looking to triple+ the management responsibilities and sort out their roommate issues for them. I make sure to explicitly outline to the group that it is a single lease, and that everyone is wholly responsible for rent and other tenant obligations. They share a tenant portal and can each pay towards the balance, but if they're delinquent by just a little, the whole group is delinquent. I handle the security deposit in a similar fashion. Anyone added to the lease at a later time or wanting to be removed from the lease early has to be agreed on among all the roommates and myself.