Tenant trying to add felon boyfriend to lease

[Luke J Nelsen]

Hey Bigger Pockets Family!

We are landlords in southeastern Wisconsin. We have a tenant that is trying to add her boyfriend to the lease after she has already lived there for a few months. The boyfriend does not have a job, he’s a felon and she has already started forwarding his mail to her unit. He is currently in a halfway house/correction facility. She has basically asked us if he can move in November 1st and has already assumed it would be fine with us…

We are not comfortable with the situation and are trying to figure out what our options are. His current felony case has not cleared the court system yet but he does have a previous felony from last year he was found guilty of as well. One is involving evading the police and the other is for narcotics.

Any insights are greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,

Luke

[Aaron F.]

The lease I use requires any added occupants go through standard screening process and boyfriend would fail that screen. Bringing him in anyway, which is likely, would be a breach of lease and I would evict. I would like to avoid all that ahead of time, though, by encouraging her to find acceptable housing before he moved into mine.

I would approach that conversation as being very understanding that she would want a good place to live with her boyfriend but that he just will not meet criteria to stay in her current home so she should start looking ASAP.