Property management, listen to what your tenants has to say… bla bla bla. To lease a property in our market you need a 14 page lease agreement, a 2 page pet addendum, if there are pets, a 6 page inventory check list and a 5 page application. If the property was built before 1978 you will also need a one page lead base paint addendum and 16 page report on the hazards of lead paint.All of this is designed to fully cover landlord and tenant relationships. This is a binding agreement for both parties to follow. It a tenant pays on time and maintains the property there is usually no problem. The lease agreement come into play when an “issue” arises. When the landlord and tenant disagree, the solution becomes what does the lease contract say? Unless it is a commercial lease I would say that 80% of tenants don’t read the lease before they sign it. They may look at the term and the amount, but don’t go much further. Tenants have their own ideas on how they are going to do things and how this lease is going to work out. Which leads to the bla bla bla. The most common violation that I see are pets. If there are no pets in the lease agreement, there is a clear remedy in writing for this situation. The landlord is allowed to remove the pets. The landlord did not collect a pet deposit and pet damage can be great. The tenant seems to justify the reason for having pets. Even though the lease allows for removal of the pets, local law enforcement won’t do it, the animal control people will need some court order or other legal premise to physically remove the pets. If you able to remove the pets, the tenant can and may take you to court.
Paying the rent: Both tenant and landlord have an agreement about where and when the rent is to paid and the amount of rent. The tenant also has their own opinion about this. To avoid paying, the tenant will come up with an infinite number of reasons on why they can’t pay or shouldn’t pay. The landlord or property manager must be clear on all provisions according to the lease. When following the procedures set out in the lease, it is likely that the nonpayment of rent will end up in court. This sounds clear and concise, except each judge has his or her way of doing business in their courtroom. The judge could throw out the case on some notification that he or she deems was done incorrectly. Then you have to start the process over again from the beginning. A lot of time, energy and money go into doing things the right way and a whole lot of bla, bla, bla go into the other. So the solution is; continue doing things the right way, explain in advance the remedies for violations of the lease and be firm in your resolve to run a profitable business.
Until next time,
Matt