All Forum Posts by: Marc Cunningham

With a criminal history that recent you are potentially inviting problems to your property if you allow him, but if you don't allow him, he will most likly move-in anyway since he is the husband.

I would have a 'come to Jesus' conversation with him. Tell him that you know about his criminal history and normally this would disqualify him, but since he your good tenants husband (and b/c you are such a nice Landlord), you are willing to give him a chance (as long as they pay an additional security deposit). Tell him you are watching the property closely and if you get so much as one complaint from anyone he will have forced an eviction on his entire family.

You need to think of and treat the request for a service animal as a request for an ADA reasonable accommodation request which must meet three legal tests:

1. The person has a disability

2. The request (in this case - the pet) assists their disability.

3. The request is reasonable.

Proceed with caution as HUD is doing all sorts of national advertising to tenants asking them to call if they even THINK they have been discriminated against in any way (this includes by not allow service animals). A HUD complaint and investigation is a real life nightmare.

I have a pretty good 'reasonable accommodation request form'. E-mail me off-line and I will send it to you.

National surveys continually show that the number one reason tenants give for NOT renewing a lease agreement is 'lack of timely response to repair requests'.

Everything else you do for your residents is a distant second in their eyes.

In the Colorado market Loopnet is a very powerful marketing outlet. You can view property listings (for sale and lease) for free but you need a paid membership to post properties onto the site. We do commercial real estate so it is money well spent for us.

Use the free account if you are simply looking to search for properties for sale.

The property management industry is full of newbies so marketing is extremely competitive. Check out NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Managers) as they have great material and education on every aspect of property management. The national conference next month in Vegas will be excellent!

We do most of our marketing to local real estate agents and pay referral fees to them if they bring us new clients. If you become the local expert to the Realtor community on all things property management they will find you!

We manage apprx 600 doors in Denver, but I think you can be profitable as a small property management start up as long as you do it wisely. Check our NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Mangers). They are an excellent ground for you to learn from. They have an owner conference coming up next month (Fed) in Las Vegas. Our company has learned sooo much from this organization.

Good luck!

We just completed a federal HUD and state of Colorado discrimination lawsuit because because we denied a tenant a pit bull as a service animal (even though the city of Denver does not allow pit bulls in city limits at all). We ended up paying off the tenant several thousand dollars to make it go away, so proceed with caution!

The position of HUD is that you can NOT discriminate against the animal breed when it comes to service animals.

It was looking like we were going to be the test case for the city of Denver vs HUD so we paid out so that I can sleep better at night again.

Money well spent!

A black light will clearly show pet urine in carpet, along with many other things.

Wondering how others charge for allowing tenants to have approved pets. 

There are many different ways to charge a tenant for allowing a pet: Flat additional rent per month, higher security deposit, pet admin fees, fee per pet, fee based on the weight / breed of pet, etc.

We have tried several different ways and found that charging an upfront non-refundable 'pet admin' fee works best for us. We also charge a disclosed fee against their security deposit at the time of move-out for us to perform a black-light test on the property.

What works best for you?

Speaking as a property manager, I do not want owners contacting tenants directly as it can lead to problems. If nothing else, it gives the tenant another person to call when they want to complain about something, make unreasonable requests, ask to pay late..... etc. But if you can't reach the property management company, then I WOULD contact the tenants directly. Just be cautions is listening to what they say.