One Tenant Pulled a Gun on Another. What Would You Do?

[Jason L.]

I recently bought a duplex with one inherited tenant with a lease through May 31 and the other side vacant. The vacant side tenant moved in a few days ago, but there was already an incident (duh, you've read the title!).

As my management company described it to me, the new tenant's girlfriend (not on the lease) went for a walk, cut across the backyard on her way back, where she was confronted by the tenant on the inherited side for trespassing. I'm assuming they had never met. The inherited tenant pulled a gun, but there was no violence thankfully. A police report was filed by the new tenant.

It should be noted the inherited tenant's lease with his previous manager is extremely loose with the language regarding keeping the peace, but I do think there's enough to file a 30 days to vacate notice if we wanted to. I don't really know if that is the prudent move since the tenant could trash the place or force an eviction, but I am admittedly worried about another incident potentially occurring at some point before the old tenant's lease expires in May. My property manager wants to send a sternly worded warning and see if there is any backlash. What do you guys think?

I do worry about if I have any liability as well. My home insurance policy has $500k personal liability coverage, but does anyone think I should get an umbrella policy on top of that to cover potential future liability?