"About to inherit a tenant, with 3 pets!"

[Sandy Gabin]

Hello BP family! Long time that I don't write anything but now I am. I am about to buy a multi-family property and when I saw the units, tenants were inside. There is just one tenant that has one dog, one cat and two ferrets. The unit smells awful, and to top it off with a cherry on the top, the tenant smokes which makes the smell of the unit even worse! I found out that the lease will end in September of this year. Since I don't want any pets in the property should I ,

A. Once I meet with the tenant tell her that the pets would need to go 

or

B. Wait until the lease ends in September and tell her that I will not renew the lease because I don't allow pets in the property.

I don't want to look like the bad one, but I would like do this in a professional way. I understand that tenants have a relationship with their pets but at the end of the day, I might have to deal with the cleaning, etc. 

By the way, can I also add in that I don't accept any smoking inside the property? 

What would be best ? A or B?

[Nathan Gesner]

The unit is already damaged so why not keep the tenant and just charge her more?

Option 1: Rent is $1,000 a month. Renovation and cleaning will cost $5,000 and you'll have a one-month vacancy. That's $6,000 minimum if you get rid of the tenant.

Option 2: Keep the current tenant but charge her an additional $100 per month. If she stays for one years, that's an additional $1,200 you can apply towards the renovation. If she stays for two years, you've saved up 1/3 the cost of renovation.

If she's paying on time and can afford the bump, I would keep her. She's likely willing to pay more because it would be expensive for her to move and hard for her to find a rental that would allow her to smoke inside or keep the animals, particularly without a good Landlord reference. The damage is done so squeeze her for a little more and try to cover as much of the cost as possible.