Management Company forgot to get signed lease - Columbia, SC

[Alex Black]

I have a 5 bedroom rental property that I rent to local college kids where the lease terms generally runs from Aug. 1 to July 31. Because I'm renting to students, we start looking for tenants for the upcoming August in February of the same year. For the property in question, I asked that either the current tenants resign a new lease or we begin advertising the property. On Feb. 18, the property manager informed me in writing that the current tenants wanted to renew their lease and that they would send them the lease that day to have them resign. Fast forward to June, I get an email from one of the current tenants letting me know that they all would be moving out at the end of the lease. They also informed me that the management company never reached out to them about renewing their lease. I reached out to the management company and they informed me that since the tenants gave their intent to resign that they wouldn't ask them to sign a lease until July 1, 30 days out. They also admitted that they only talked to one of the tenants about renewing and took their word that the 4 other tenant would also renew. I have all of this in writing in the form of text messages.

After 2 months of advertising their has been no interest. Classes start this week. All of the students secured their housing a long time ago. The property will almost certainly remain vacant until next August. Does anyone have any advice for me on how I can mitigate my losses? Do I have any recourse?

[Patricia Steiner]

Alex, the second thing I would do is part company with the PM.  Surely the PM knows that this is a student rental and that it is either leased for the coming school year or it is not.  There is no waiting 30 days out to resign when it's student housing.  Recourse?  No.  There's no recourse for stupid and this wasn't legally an issue but it does demonstrate a lack of understanding about your property and the tenant profile.  

But the first thing I would do is aggressively market the heck out of the property.  Run an ad in the school newspaper ("Not to late to live off campus," Not to late to stop the commute").  Leave flyers in student hangouts, hold an open house, advertise to non-students - and there's always AirBnb for football games, visiting parents, etc.  

Stop everything and get your property rented.  Then dump the PM and get someone who knows that business to support your business.  Fingers crossed that you pull this one off successfully...