Unusual Tenant Issue-- What would you do?

[Adam M.]

Howdy BP,

Right so this is a bit of a long one but I will try to keep it brief! 

We have been very fortunate in our RE careers to not have any serious issues with tenants at our properties. That being said, we have now run into a strange situation where I am not quite sure how to proceed.

The tenant in question funnily enough happens to be my neighbor, as I own several units on the lot and for this reason, I have managed it personally over the years unlike other assets in our portfolio. I have generally had no problems managing it myself until our long term tenant moved out 15th of December (typically a slow month to find leads for leasing in our market) and our new tenant moved in on New Year's Eve after a slog of hardcore interviews and showings.

Let's call this new tenant Kevin. Kevin moves in with his girlfriend and is extremely communicative from day 1, proactively keeping me updated with his move plans and the like. I do my due diligence on Kevin (and his girlfriend) and he has zero evictions, zero criminal history, great credit score, referrals etc... ticks all the boxes. The only quirk was that he wanted to pay for the year up front. He showed me his cash statements and had a quarter of a million dollars in his checking from a recent inheritance of a deceased family member. We negotiated a 7 month lease (his request... which I thought was fine seeing as if he chose not to renew, it would be easy to find a tenant in Summer) with a condition in the lease that if wanted to extend to the end of the year, he would need to let me know by the end of February. He paid for the security deposit and the 7 months up front no issues.

Kevin typically is a great neighbor, even doing (approved) home improvements to the unit (he repaired a fence that was damaged due to weather conditions for example) as he was moving around a lot beforehand and was excited to settle down somewhere and call a place "home". 

A few weeks into the tenancy something strange begins to happen-- I am suddenly hearing very alarming arguments between the two of them from next door (which is saying something as noise does not find its way into my house easily). These arguments happened several times to the point where we almost considered calling the police as there was clearly violence involved. Since these arguments ensued, Kevin has not replied back to any of my texts, deadlines, or anything else that relates to letting me know he wants to extend his lease agreement to the end of the year. He has already paid until July when his lease is over, but is now completely avoiding me. I know having been a landlord for many years that this is not right, but clearly, may be a sensitive issue. Whenever I send a message regarding rent terms or lease information, it is a given that  we hear arguments next door.

I am considering soon placing a penalty notice on his door for "failing to communicate by the deadline I had provided him with (end of Feb)." What would you do in this situation?

Assumptions:

1. I am either thinking that the arguments between the two are sadly making them rethink extending the lease together which is why he is avoiding speaking with me about the matter.

2. Since he has moved in, there has been a myriad of sports cars and expensive motorcycles that have adorned the driveway. I am not one to assume personal finances but perhaps he is worried about extending due to financial constraints? I failed to mention he doesn't have a job, he is solely living off this lump sum which I thought was fine considering all the great references I received. 

Any help or advice would be much appreciated as always and hope you are all having a great Tuesday so far.

Many thanks,

A