Tenants trashed my rental

[Ben Cochran]

So my tenants trashed one of my rentals and moved out. Carpets were soaked in pet urine and engine oil. Countertops were damaged. Fist sized holes in every room. Doors ripped out of the wall and left the house full of their stuff. I’ve taken plenty of pics to document the damage. I spoke with the tenant and she admitted in a text that she knew she’d be forfeiting her deposit due to the carpets not being able to be cleaned.

All the damage has been repaired. The total is roughly $9k before subtracting her deposit.

My question is how do I present the bill? Do I just mail it to her new address or should I have it written up by an attorney and have it served?

[Nathan Gesner]

Yes. I normally mail it to them certified and include a deadline for payment in full or negotiation of a payment plan. I normally won't allow a payment plan of more than six months, but you may need to offer a year to give them time. Odds are, they won't pay you a dime because they obviously don't care about being good people.

If they don't meet the deadline, then you'll take them to court and seek a judgment. Then you turn the judgment over to a collection agency where you'll likely collect exactly $0.00 from them.

That's the sad reality of our business. You may get lucky and collect something, but don't expect it or you will be severely disappointed. The best thing you can do is learn from this. Find the flaw in your screening process. Are you inspecting? Did you accept someone with red flags when you shouldn't have? You can't stop everything, but you can stop 99% of the problems if you have the right processes in place.