Rental Property Investor · Richmond, VA · Member since 2017 · 71 posts · 10 votes
After tenants moved out on June 30th, I discovered they had extra people & pets living at the house (both were explicitedly against the lease agreement). The house had excess wear and tear and damage that is above the amounts I collected for cleaning and security deposits. Is it possible or does it make sense for me to go after back rent for the extra people (there is a different monthly rate for additional people) as well as request funds for the pet (lease said no pets, but if one was needed additional fees and a non-refundable deposit was required).
Since I will have to go to court anyway (for the damages that cost more than the deposits collected), does it make sense for me to go after money not paid due to the breach of contract I'm only discovering (I have physical proof) after they move out? I suspect the additional people, but since you have to give notice before you can enter the property.....they always covered their tracks.
Please advise. I'm coming out of more money than ever due to tenant neglect regarding my property and would like to recover whatever I can within the confines of the law.
Can you prove how long they stayed in the house? What does your lease say about guests?
The pet thing would be hard to prove, because they may just say "we had someone come over for a few nights, that brought a pet-- but it's not our pet" ... as far as collecting rent from long term guests, unless you have a provable date as to when they moved in, I can't see it being possible to prove they lived there. The way we look at security deposits, is what can we immediately prove to a judge with facts?
Sorry you have to go through this! I'm local if you need any help cleaning up!
Welcome to the landlord business. Tenants lie and break things. Going after them in court will generally prove to be a big waste of your money unless you're talking about a high dollar class A property and high income tenants. Judgements will tend to go uncollected unless your state has favorable garnishment laws (mine does not).
Thanks LINDA D. there is some proof, but I honestly don't know (first time in this situation) if the proof is good enough or would even make a difference. Same thing when it comes to the pet. The pet is pretty obvious because of the urine stains / smells that I haven't been able to get out yet and the house has been a pet free zone. The lease doesn't allow for any pets.....even visiting pets. I've cleaned up the house (excluding the urine soaked carpet). I'm now working on getting repairs or replacements for the big ticket items that were damaged by the former tenants as well. I so appreciate your offer to help. I will post a couple of other questions about getting nonpayment added to credit reports and going to court for unpaid amounts (if I can't find them after searching some) so you may be able to provide some context given you're local to me.
Thanks RYAN for your comment as well. If the damage wasn't something that is now costing me thousands of dollars that will not be covered by the security and cleaning deposits, I wouldn't have even bothered to post this question. But since I may have to go to court to get the money not covered by the deposits, I figured I mind as well go after anything that is realistic for me to go after if I have to go to court any way.
@David Dachtera I haven't spoken to one yet, but it's on my list of to dos. In the 10 years of being a landlord I have only need the services of an attorney once so I do not have one waiting on retainer.
Good comet by @Patrick L. A couple years ago, I consulted an attorney in my state about the same. He said unless the tenant had assets or money, get over it and move on.
And this why landlords should do multiple inspections the first year IMO. If all is good, do them twice a year, and if all is still good, you can do them once a year. Put it in the lease. Also during "maintenance visits" check out the place thoroughly :) I use to have my PM send me pics from the inspections so I could see what was going on in the property. Its not bullet proof, but it is better than finding out the condition for the first time upon move out. Not saying you didn't check but I know people who get a tenant and never check until move out. I hope it works out for ya!
It's all fine and good to go to small claims and get a judgment for the damages (but you'll never see a penny of that). As for the pets and extra tenants? Use that experience as a deposit in your landlord experience account. Be more vigilant next time- you'll make new mistakes, I do it every day, just don't make that one again. Screen, screen, screen.
After tenants moved out on June 30th, I discovered they had extra people & pets living at the house (both were explicitedly against the lease agreement). The house had excess wear and tear and damage that is above the amounts I collected for cleaning and security deposits. Is it possible or does it make sense for me to go after back rent for the extra people (there is a different monthly rate for additional people) as well as request funds for the pet (lease said no pets, but if one was needed additional fees and a non-refundable deposit was required).
Since I will have to go to court anyway (for the damages that cost more than the deposits collected), does it make sense for me to go after money not paid due to the breach of contract I'm only discovering (I have physical proof) after they move out? I suspect the additional people, but since you have to give notice before you can enter the property.....they always covered their tracks.
Please advise. I'm coming out of more money than ever due to tenant neglect regarding my property and would like to recover whatever I can within the confines of the law.
How much was the rent? Are we talking about a $500-$800 unit or something much more costly? Typically it's not worth the hassle to sue for damages. The higher the rental amount the more collectible the people and the more worthwhile it becomes.
As for trying to claim additional rent for more people or pets that's insane. Don't do that. One can even make a case that it's discriminatory to charge a different rental amount to a different sized family.
Going after them in court will generally prove to be a big waste of your money unless you're talking about a high dollar class A property and high income tenants. Judgements will tend to go uncollected unless your state has favorable garnishment laws (mine does not).
This is bad advice. Small claims court, while different in every state, is generally quite easy and cheap. The fee for up to $10,000 is usually about $100, and lawyers aren't allowed, so you don't have to pay one. It's not nearly as hard to collect as some people think - very few people are actually "judgement proof". You have to remember the court is not a collection agency, but all it takes is filling out some more papers and you can garnish their wages, put a lien on anything they own of value, or even possibly have some of their belongings taken and sold by the sheriff to cover damages. So many people win a judgement and then stop there "because it's hard". Guess what...life is hard...making money is hard. Get used to it. If a person qualifies to rent at another property, chances are they can be collected from.
If you want to be lazy you can easily sell your judgement to a collection agency, who are experts on collecting and will report on the persons credit score. They usually take about 40-50% of the judgement, but don't cost anything if they don't collect.
Aside from all that you have a responsibility as a landlord to put all this on their record for the next guy. Wouldn't you want their previous landlord to do that for you before they became your tenant? Why bother doing any kind of background check if you can't be bothered to update their background for the next guy?
Personally, I'll sue somebody for as little as $500 if I can prove they owe me. It's worth the court fees and maybe an hour at the courthouse.
As for collecting back rent for the extra people/pets, I think that would be a hard battle. Collecting for any additional damages the security deposit didn't pay for shouldn't be that hard if you can prove what you say.
This guy! YES! I sent my trashy tenant from one of my rentals to collections WIT PLEASURE! Stupid loser called me all kind of insults after trashing my place, having unauthorized tenants and pets, not to mention all the other issues. Hope you don't have any trouble finding a decent place to live with that 2K collection on your credit report.
@Patrick L. Thanks for the advice. I completely missed your comment last night. I'm working on getting a final estimate so time and I will have to find out what equates to a class A property. My property is much better than most property rentals from what interested people / applicants have stated over the years.
@Terrell Garren the tenants don't necessarily have money, but I do have guarantors. One guarantor does contract work for the government and from what I understand if he has a bad mark on his credit then he will have a harder time getting work. So for the time being I'm working on getting an amount of charges so I can communicate it to the tenants and guarantors and see what they are willing to pay (or not pay).
@Daren H. I typically check 3x a year at minimum, but due to family health issues and work, it wasn't possible to keep to my routine. My handyman stopped by a couple of times for repairs and gave me updates on what he saw; however, with me needing to notify the tenants before being able to enter the house the tenants were able to conceal what I suspected but couldn't find any hard core proof. Not to mention there were three tenants in the house. Two have lived in the house for 2 years and the other one was new. I think my mistake was I had mentioned to a tenant my family health issues and so they took advantage and hedge their bets that I wouldn't be around as often.
@Account Closed absolutely agree on live and learn. This is one reason why I'm asking the questions.
@James Wise I'm talking about something much more costly. The renters in the property were friends and not family. In all of my advertisements and application fee there is a rental fee price differential when there is more than 3 tenants. The maximum allowed to live in the house is 4 tenants. All of this was explained during the application process and even later on when renewing tenants asked if they could bring on a 4th person. I told them it is possible, but the rental fee would increase. So if the house was always advertised as being a higher rate when more than 3 people are in the house, I doubt a discriminatory case would hold.
@Jack B. What are the steps to getting something placed on a person's credit report? In 10 years of renting I haven't had any type of real trouble with tenants until now.