New tenant claiming cat allergies causing allergic reaction! Help

[Paul F.]

We are first time landlords and our tenant is moving in this week. We already did the walk through inspection and gave her the keys. However, we Just received a text from her that the "cat smell" is causing a severe reaction. We had All carpets professionally steam cleaned the day after we moved out. We did have a cat but moved him out over two weeks ago!  What should we do?! We thoroughly screened our tenant and everything was seemingly going smoothly. In her text she mentioned tiling the floors at her own expense. That seems weird and not normal to me! Help!  Another strange thing as that we spent over an hour in the house during the inspection and she made no mention of the allergic reaction then or when touring the house during the showings, when the cat was still living there. UGH

[JD Martin]

Quote from @Paul F.:

Quote from @Paul F.:

We are first time landlords and our tenant is moving in this week. We already did the walk through inspection and gave her the keys. However, we Just received a text from her that the "cat smell" is causing a severe reaction. We had All carpets professionally steam cleaned the day after we moved out. We did have a cat but moved him out over two weeks ago!  What should we do?! We thoroughly screened our tenant and everything was seemingly going smoothly. In her text she mentioned tiling the floors at her own expense. That seems weird and not normal to me! Help!  Another strange thing as that we spent over an hour in the house during the inspection and she made no mention of the allergic reaction then or when touring the house during the showings, when the cat was still living there. UGH

The tenant wants to stay, and “make it work” but also just told us she smokes “only outside” (yeah right) So how do we break the lease if she wants to stay?
She did not tell us she is a smoker, and that alone is reason enough to break the lease! Btw she did not even move in yet. 

 Pretty easy - you tell her that you don't think that you and they are a good fit for each other, return their deposit and cancel the lease. If they haven't taken possession, that's even easier. You should have a clause in your lease somewhere that allows you to nullify prior to them taking possession without cost. If she objects, tell her that being a smoker disqualified her from the rental (you can legally discriminate against smokers, they are not a protected class). Just be sure that's in your policies somewhere, even if on a piece of paper or your advertisement. 

I actually cancelled a tenancy once while the tenant was at the bank. They were over there ostensibly making their deposit & first month's payment, and were to text me a copy of the receipt when done. They texted me a copy of a receipt for only half of the amount. When I inquired about the remainder, she said "Oh, I figured we would just pay that when we moved in". When I told her it didn't work like that, she got defensive and snotty. I told her directly on the phone to go back inside to the bank and get her money back, because I wasn't renting to them since they can't even follow procedure before they move in, and gave the bank teller clearance to give them their money back over the phone. 

Don't take any BS from tenants before they move in. That is the honeymoon phase. If you are getting it before they even move in, forget it once they're actually in the house.