All Forum Posts by: Wade Penner

Quote from @Andrew B.:

Check your lease. It should outline required notice, i.e. "Tenant must give 30 days notice to cancel lease." 

Depending on your lease they may owe you 30 or 60 days notice. Now you do have an obligation to mitigate your losses. That means you must work to re-rent the unit in a reasonable timeframe. If you find a new tenant, prorate any fees they pay you so you are not collecting 2 rents on the same day. 

If your lease says nothing about required notice, you may be able to hold them to the extra month if they told you in writing. If you have nothing in writing, the lost rent is your tuition fee to school of hard knocks. Use the opportunity to improve your lease.

It appears they needed to give notice since they were on a one year lease - would you agree? If so, then are they on the hook for 30 days rent, or whenever the next resident moves in (whichever is shortest)? 

I have a 3BD with great tenants that have lived there for the last three years.  They wanted to stay past the original lease-end date of 6/30/24 through end of summer, so I told them they could go month-to-month through end of August.  However, I got a call from them yesterday saying that they had some things fall through and need to stick with the original 6/30 lease-end date.

I now need to do a quick turnaround on renting the place out.  I use Oregon's multi-family NW forms, but it's unclear to me exactly how to proceed.  Are they on the hook for 30 days of rent starting from when they called me, or since their lease ends in two days are they good to go without any additional fees?  If they are on the hook for any fees then would I just deduct that out of their security deposit?

Thanks!

Wade

That sounds great, and I'm in Oregon - I don't believe the tenant needs to be present here.  Thanks for the input @Nathan Gesner and @Peter M. - I'll proceed with that advice.

I have a singular move-in/out inspection form, which the tenants fill out upon moving in.  It has signatures for the move-in portion, and then below for the move-out portion.  Most of my forms are electronic, however this is a paper form. 

1. Do I need to meet the tenant(s) for a move-out inspection, or can the inspection be done after they've moved out?  It appears either will work, but just wanted to double-check.  I would prefer to do it without the tenant present if possible, which would give me time to go through without the added pressure.

2. If I do the inspection after they've moved out, then I have no way to complete the signatures on the move-out portion of the form mentioned above.  I do have a different form that details the security deposit disposition though... will that suffice? In that case I wouldn't send them the move-out portion of the move-in/out form mentioned above, and I would only send the security deposit disposition.

Thanks!

Thanks for all of the advice - I think that all makes sense.  I'll go ahead and adopt a more hands-off approach then, however I'll likely still touch base with them beforehand to cover some of the major points since some of these college students are renting for the first time and may need some "coaching".  

Is it necessary to meet (whether in-person or virtually) to review the lease with the future tenant, and then sign during that time, or should I simply send them the virtual lease to sign?  The units I manage are primarily rented to college students given the close proximity to campus, so I just wanted to provide that information in case it impacts the answer.  Historically I've met with the soon to be tenants and taken 30 or so minutes to walk through and sign the lease, but I'm starting to wonder if that's even necessary. Thanks.

Originally posted by @Andrew B.:

My policy is that I collect first month and security deposit if the lease is signed. If they want to give me security now and first month rent before move in, they can sign a deposit to hold agreement which forfeits the deposit if they don't move in. Then, we sign the lease when they provide the first months rent.

I also dont accept either of those through cozy. I only take certified funds before they move in.

Do you give them the option to sign now or later then?  I was thinking I may have better results if I make it a more standard path (i.e. either you sign holding agreement now, or lease now), rather than give them the option.

Appreciate all of the insight - that's all very helpful information.   I was already thinking I might just create an instruction form for future listings/applicants, so glad to hear you say that @Nathan Gesner . 

I did uncheck the "required" box for the credit/background checks in Cozy, but forgot that the applicant could still purchase them anyway, which in this case they did.  Moving forward I'll have more clear instructions prior to sending them the application link.

Still on the fence as far as the refund goes, but I've got enough information to make that decision now.  Thanks!

I would normally vet the basics (rental history, income, etc.) prior to actually having applicants pay and run credit and background checks (these would be last step).  However, I made the mistake of forgetting to tell a couple applicants to disregard the credit/background check portion of the application (through Cozy), and they both completed them ($40 per applicant).  

Both are nearly qualified (a couple more prior landlords to call tomorrow), however I can only proceed with one.  They're both excited about the unit based on my conversations with them, however I will need to tell one of them they did not get the unit.

Should I refund the losing party their credit/background fee since I forgot to tell them not to request the checks, or is that somewhat standard that they might lose out on that money? 

I have tenants moving out 6/30, and I listed a couple units to be safe.  I'm nearly finished vetting renters for both units, and now I need to determine 1) I will for sure collect the security deposit at the lease signing, however should I also collect first months rent given that their lease won't start for 2.5 months? 2) One applicant lives on the other side of the country - would it be safe to collect these funds through Cozy given that there is plenty of time for the payments to clear?  If not then what method would be advised to obtain long distance funds?