Poor relations with tenants

[Nat C.]

With all of my properties, I would rate my relations with my tenants as an A to A+ with regard to our correspondence, courtesy and on time rent payment.

I have only 1 tenant where the relationship is very poor. This is my only inherited tenant. I bought the property 4 years ago now and this lady and her family were already there. I will call her 'Mary'.

Mary never paid a security deposit, so I only have her monthly rent payments. Her rent is paid anywhere between the 5th and the 20th of the month. The lease requires a late payment fee but she refuses to pay a late fee. 

In general Mary is rude and abrasive in all correspondence. 

The one time I hired a PM to manage this property, matter severely worsened as the PM never chased up late payments and didn't attend to maintenance issues, which aggravated the tenant.

Conversely, I have always been prompt with maintenance requests and repairs.

Recently the stove stopped working. I bought a second hand stove online and organised delivery for $200. When they attempted delivery, Mary was not home, although she said she would be. Delivery was attempted a second time, with no success. 

Mary said it would be easier if she bought a stove and deducted it from the rent. I said she could source one herself and spend a maximum of $200.

The next rent payment was $700 short. Yes, she bought a brand new one for $700, despite our prior conversation about a spending budget of $200. I told her she needed to either return the stove or pay the $500 excess, which she refuses to do either of. 

After much deliberation, I have decided to just evict the tenant when I return to Florida in a few months (she is only on a month to month contract). Doing so will be a further financial disaster as I am sure she will stay on for as long as possible not paying rent. If anyone can please offer me any further intelligent advice or guidance, I would be grateful. 

[Marcia Maynard]

I'm sorry you're experiencing this. It sounds like this tenant has taken advantage of the situation for a very long time. She's firmly in the driver's seat, so unseating her will no doubt have consequences which could get grim for all parties involved.

I would create a written record of all that has transpired since you acquired the property, regarding this tenant. Documentation is key. I would forgive myself for being too lenient and for letting the situation get out of hand. Learn from this. Then I would reboot.

Arrange for a meeting with the tenant in their home, for a maintenance inspection and review of the rental agreement. This would be a sit down, face-to-face meeting, with someone else present as a witness and for your peace of mind. When a tenant is breaking one term of a rental agreement, they are likely breaking other terms as well. We would want to see if the place was in good shape and if there were any other things being done that were in violation of our rental agreement. We would also want an opportunity to review the terms of the rental agreement.

If a tenant is likely to bar us from entry and is not receptive to meeting with us, then we would make it a no choice situation by serving a legal Notice to Enter, at least to do the inspection. This generally lands us a face-to-face meeting with the tenant as well, because this type of tenant abhors the idea of anyone being in her unit without her there too.

This is where the negotiation begins. Is "Mary" happy living here? What does she like about the place? What does she not like? What do you as the landlord need for her to do to come into compliance with the terms of the rental agreement and to make good on past debt owed to you? What are you doing to fulfill your duties and also enforce the terms of the rental agreement? You may not like one another, but you may still be able to work with one another. What would it take for her needs and your needs to be met? Or are you too far apart on this to be able to save the tenancy? If the latter, then let it be known that it's time to talk about a move-out plan. I do this by keeping my cool, and politely informing the tenant that "This is not working for me"... "It's time to talk about a move-out plan." Try to negotiate a move-out that will mitigate the chances of more property destruction and monetary loss. 

If the tenant is cooperative and agrees to a move-out plan, have them sign for you a legal Notice to Vacate with a specified date. If the tenant is uncooperative and will not voluntarily agree to move-out, you will need to serve a legal Notice to Vacate, before they will budge. The key thing to do during this process is to document everything and to stay professional and polite. Also, serve any other documents necessary to memorialize the amount of money you are claiming that she owes to you. Keep in mind, if you have failed to enforce the terms of your rental agreement by not serving Notices to Comply regarding payment of late fees and payment of rent in full, then you may have difficulty collecting such at this time. You can however focus on the most recent occurrences.

As you know, it's not a good idea to allow a tenant to routinely pay rent late and it's not a good idea to allow a tenant to deduct anything from the amount of rent that is due.

The whole stove incident could have been handled better if after she failed to allow the stove delivery the first time, you had served a legal Notice to Enter for the purpose of installing the stove on your second attempt. Also, agreeing to allow an uncooperative tenant the opportunity to locate a replacement stove, purchase it, have it installed and deduct it from her rent was folly. Doing so by a verbal agreement that could be disputed by either party later, also not good. But you know that now.... right?

Are you certain that the stove had malfunctioned and couldn't be reasonably repaired? Did you check it out before deciding to have it replaced? The reason I ask is that some tenants may claim an appliance is malfunctioning, or even worse cause an appliance to malfunction, to get the landlord to purchase a new one for their use. In some markets, it's not uncommon for landlords to require tenants to furnish their own appliances. This takes the burden off the landlord for maintenance/repair/replacement of such. But it's not always feasible or legally allowable to do that, depending on the type of housing, how the appliances are installed and/or local law.

Hope his helps! Good luck!