Inherited Tenant Arrest

[Yesenia Tomas]

Hello I have a quick question and by the title I'm guessing you have a vague idea already of what it is.

My husband and I have recently bought our first investment property and so far we haven't had any problems with the inherited tenants except for smell, which I've been able to subdue thankfully, but this morning one of our tenants has been taken in under the law and we're not sure how to proceed.

What I mean is do we let them keep living here and is there a risk of it happening again? Can we serve them a notice to vacate to avoid risk of possible damage in the future? We were already thinking of terminating all leases at the end of the month, but we're rocky on how to handle these situations.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Colleen F.]

People get arrested for all kinds of reasons. I think there are 3 things to be concerned about when a tenant is arrested. There may be some others but these are the main ones.

1.  Are they doing something illegal out of your property?  If so get rid of them in any way you can under the terms of your lease.

2. Did damage occur to the property due to the arrest? They need to pay for that damage.

3. Does the arrest remove a significant part of the tenants income ? Either by removing a breadwinner from employment or changing who can live in the property (in cases of domestic abuse).  This is trickier because you don't want to wait until they can't afford the property. You want to have a frank conversation about if everyone is planning to stay and how they plan to afford the rent. If they are month to month  you could terminate with appropriate notice. 

Is there a risk it could happen again sure but it really depends on the reason for the arrest. There is a big difference between an arrest with a 1-2 day detention for a failure to appear warrant vs. 6 months for weapons possession.