Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! - Landlord Forum thread 350248

Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! by Joel on January 20, 2017 @15:15

G, what's wrong with requiring the tenant to maintain the home they occupy.
Do you see a problem with it being in the lease and the tenant accepting the responsibility. The LPA doesn't.

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Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! by Garry on January 20, 2017 @16:48	[ Reply ]

Randi, the LPA lease is a general lease that is meant to be changed sometimes to conform to a state's particular LL/T laws. A LL can put in anything they want to in their lease, and the T can agree with it by signing the lease. But if a T takes a LL to court over something, the Laws of the state will prevail, no matter what was agreed to in the lease. In general, courts all over this country have said there are certain things a LL is responsible for "maintaining". Usually that means anything that the LL supplies as part of the place the T is renting-----roof, furnace, central air, water heater, and APPLIANCES if they came with the property on day one of the lease. If a T supplied any appliances, THEY would be responsible to maintain their OWN appliances, but not the ones supplied by the LL on day 0ne. And most state laws say a T cannot sign away their rights given to them under those state laws. All LLs need to know and follow their own states laws, because not everything in any given lease will conform to a give state's LL/T laws.

Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! by Joel on January 21, 2017 @10:38	[ Reply ]

Sorry G, I have to respectfully disagree with you. The LPA Lease is state specific and has the correct language to make tenants responsible for the appliances that may be left for the "tenant's convenience only". Why don't you read about it on the LPA website? I can tell from your postings that although you enjoy the free forum, you are not an LPA Member. Am I correct? The LPA Lease is not a large investment. You may want to watch John's video about the appliances clause... https://www.thelpa.com/lpa/videos.html

Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! by Garry on January 21, 2017 @12:28	[ Reply ]

You are correct that I am not an LPA member, but I thank them profusely for allowing me to be part of their free forum for non-members. I feel that my answers to many questions the past 2 years, have been a benefit to many LLs and Ts alike, and wish people such as yourself would come on the forum more often to offer your help and opinions. I am from Iowa, and am part of a local and state LLs group that teaches other LLs about all kinds of laws regarding LLs and Ts. We , locally, hold monthly meetings once a month, where we may bring in a judge, an attorney, someone from the city housing inspections dept, a civil rights person, someone from the Sheriffs, Sec 8, or police dept, etc, to update us on current laws, and all things regarding our business of landlording. At our state level, we hire a lobbyist to represent landlord interests in our state legislature. Then, every 1-2 years, we have an attorney re-make any forms, including leases, with up-to-date language that will conform to out state's LL/T laws. I can tell you, that if the particular clause we have been discussing about appliances, was put into an Iowa lease like was suggested, Not only would that clause be thrown out by any judge in the state, but it's a possibility (because of new wording last summer about items in a lease) that a judge, at his discression, can throw out the WHOLE lease. So, Randi, thank you for your opinion, and I hope to see your views many more times on this forum. G

Re: Help!! Tenant stole property! by P-Bone (NY and OH) on January 25, 2017 @09:02	[ Reply ]

I respectfully disagree as well. I have done the same thing, allowed tenants use of appliances, but take no responsibility if they no longer function. In my case, they were very old appliances, with no depreciable value, and no estimated useful life. I also had other replacements, also very old that I would allow them to use, should one of the ones installed go down. If I no longer had anything available, it would be on them to provide their own. Again, I'm talking cheap like $40 units that are 10+ years old, where if they died, they died, no big deal. The tenants I had, who didn't have their own washer/dryer, appreciated it, but also understood that it was no guarantee that I would always have a replacement ready for them.