All Forum Posts by: Alison P.

I'm a new landlord and just rented out a newly refurbished SFH in June of this year to a great tenant. She just texted me to tell me she got a promotion in another city and needs to move before school starts, this month! She signed a one year lease and has already paid me for August rent. I know that legally, I could hold her to the lease, but I'm not going to do that. There will be a little bit of touch up work needed to cover and repaint nail holes in the walls (she did the place out really nicely but there are a lot of pictures and decor up on the walls) Other than that there is no damage that I saw when I had to go in a couple of weeks ago to repair a leaky toilet valve.

My question is this.  I now have to re-advertise the place and go through applications again and it could take a couple of months to get another tenant in there.  Should I keep her deposit to cover this inconvenience and loss of rent? Or should I just make the transition painless and wish her well?  Really would appreciate your opinions and comments.

I only have insured contractors work on my rentals.  Mainly for the liability standpoint. But a situation happened just recently to cement this.

I'm dealing with a headache of an inherited tenant who I'm probably going to evict. He pays late until I threaten eviction, and is basically an all around pain in the butt. He told me the hot water heater had gone out but that he could fix it, "because he could fix anything".  I had a feeling it was a scam to get the rent reduced for that month.  I politely told him I only use insured contractors because of liability.  He grumbled and said he was not happy about the 1 day wait before the plumber could get to him "especially as he could fix it himself."  I politely explained my policy again.  When the plumber went in, the only thing wrong was that the thermostat on the heater had to be reset by pushing a button.  Hmm, so if he could fix "anything" he couldn't see that all he had to do was push a button...?

Also, if they are dealing with electrical and got shocked, or got hurt doing anything on your property, they could sue the pants off you.  I would not allow a tenant to work on my rentals, it's far too risky.

@Michael Badin Thank you for posting that clause.

Thank you all for your responses.  Thank you @Wesley W. for posting the wording from your lease.  Much appreciated.  This has given me lots to think about.

Thankfully all my units are separate so I don't have to worry about bugs going from one apartment to the other, which I know can be a big issue.

Do you pay for pest control?  I just purchased a mobile home park ( I own and rent out the mobiles, all tenants are inherited) and have now paid for pest control for 2 separate units that were having issues with roaches.  When I follow up with the pest control guy, he tells me their places are very cluttered and a perfect breeding ground for roaches etc.  After 3 sprayings on one unit, I sent a letter to the tenant to tell them because of their clutter, I will no longer pay for pest control as the pest company is telling me they cannot solve the situation when there is so much clutter.  I am about to send the same letter to the other tenant. 

I have since found out that other tenants on the park pay for their own monthly maintenance sprayings and have been doing this as a matter of choice since they moved in to make sure they don't get any issues in the first place.

I also have 3 SFH and 2 of those tenants (also inherited) have their properties sprayed on a monthly preventative basis.

I would be interested to hear how other landlords treat this issue and who's responsibility do you believe it falls upon.

Thank you all for the advice. I'm glad I didn't contact her. I will send a letter about keeping her children from being a nuisance to the neighbors. (Causing a nuisance is a breach of my lease). But if I get contacted again from the guy with the truck, I'll tell him he has to sort it out with the neighbor.  

Last night I got a call from a tenant who saw his neighbor's child stomping all over the hood of his truck and has done quite a bit of damage.  He had suspected something was going on so the day before had put up a security camera and caught it all on camera.  There is a twist though. This is on a mobile home park that I recently purchased.  The mobile where the child lives had a back door that was screwed shut because it was in such bad shape.  2 weeks ago I had a new back door installed to the tune of around $400 (it had to be a special order). The tenant has young autistic twin boys, who are very hard to control.  As soon as the back door was installed, the boys quickly figured out how to unlock it and started to escape and run off. I was told by another of the tenants that they kept going over to hers. At this point she didn't mind so I didn't pursue it.  Not once have I been contacted by the mother of the boys to tell me there is an issue.  BUT now they have willfully damaged a pretty expensive pickup truck belonging to another neighbor.  He called me last night to let me know what had happened and that he had filed a police report but couldn't get a hold of the mother because she was working.

The mother works all hours and the boys are being looked after by their teenage sister.

My question is: Is any of this my responsibility?  I don't feel like I have any responsibility for this tenant's children and that it is wholly her responsibility to control her children and pay for the damage.  I did my due diligence by making sure they had a safe exit to use in the case of an emergency. I haven't yet contacted the mother and don't know if I should get involved at this stage or try and stay out of it.  Surely it's between the mother and the man who's truck her children damaged.

I would appreciate any advice, opinions, comments. Thank you.

Thank you all for your comments, I appreciate it.  In my situation, I do pay for the water, sewer and trash, which obviously increases as more people are using it.  I agree about charging for the unit and not the occupants, but may decide to do an amendment in my lease for the future to charge a little more for the utilities if additional people move in, as that is directly affecting my cash flow. I'm new to all of this and the learning curve is huge.  It seems like every week another situation comes up that I hadn't thought of before, but I guess that is what experience is, learning all this stuff and looking back on it in years to come. As Robert Kyosaki says "Some you win, some you learn" :-)

I would appreciate any comments or experience.  My lease states that if someone additional lives in the property for more than 48 hrs, the tenant must get written permission from the landlord.  I drive by my rentals several times a week to keep an eye on them and noticed that an additional vehicle was parked at one for over a week.  I contacted the tenant and asked if anyone else had moved in and that he needed my written permission if this was the case.  He confirmed that he had moved in a woman and her child.  I got their details and I'm okay with it because the lady has tidied the place up much nicer than the single guy was keeping it.  

When I mentioned what had happened to a landlord friend of mine, she told me they have it stipulated in their lease that if an additional person moves in, there will be an additional amount of $100 per adult and $50 per child per month added to the rent.  This would certainly make tenants think twice before sneakily moving in a new girlfriend etc.

What are your thoughts?  Do any of you do this? Do you think it's a good idea, bad idea?  Would love to hear your opinions. Thanks!

@Anna Maher

Hi Anna, I use US Bank. There is a branch centrally located in my little town, which is perfect. All my LLC accounts are set up with them (I have a separate LLC for each rental for asset protection) so there are no fees to transfer the money. I do use a small local bank for my loans but I don't do my day-to-day banking with them. In my opinion, US Bank has the best online banking that I have used and that's why I prefer them because I do most of my banking online. The local banks online systems pale in comparison and are pretty clunky to use.

Unfortunately, other than writing the unit number on the deposit slip, there is not much else you can do to determine who has paid.  Several of my mobiles have different rents that were grandfathered in, so that helps, but several are on the same rent and occasionally someone will forget their printed deposit slip and just go to the bank and hand write one out and not put the unit number on.  Then it's a case of waiting until everyone has paid and do a process of elimination.  It's not perfect but it's a lot less hassle than collecting cash in person.  

I don't think Cozy would work in my situation because of the different backgrounds. ie. some tenants are elderly and don't understand that stuff, I have a tenant who is mentally disabled and wouldn't be able to do it and several that are low income and like I said before, only deal in cash.  So, for now, this way seems to be the best way for my situation.  Hope this helps.