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10 Signs Your Tenants Are On The Way Out |
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Are Your Tenants On Their Way Out?
Recognizing the signs that a tenancy is beginning to sour is helpful, especially before making plans to renew, increase rent, or non-renew the lease agreement. What Are "10 Signs My Tenants Are On Their Way Out?"Sign # 1: Rent is getting later and later!Is your rent becoming later and later each month? Although late rent is usually a sign of a deeper problem, it sometimes is merely a matter of the landlord failing to have a proper late rent procedure in place. Does your lease agreement provide for a late payment penalty fee? If so, do you enforce the late fees when tenants pay late? If not, see my article on Late Fees. Late rent can also be a sign that personal or financial circumstances in the tenant's life my have degraded in some way. If this is the case, the problem may not be as easily remedied as it might by enforcing late fees and a rent collection process. You may have to plan on ending the tenancy before problems worsen to a point beyond repair. Sign # 2: Breakdown in communication with tenant. All successful tenancies include a healthy method of communication between the parties. When communication becomes extremely difficult between the landlord and tenant, it is often a sign of problems. There should never be a reason the tenant feels he or she must avoid returning a call or any other correspondence with the landlord. Sign # 3: Lease Violations Lease violations are sometimes a byproduct of the tenant not knowing what is in the lease simply because the landlord neglected to inform the tenant of the requirements in the lease agreement. Lease violations can also be a blatant disregard or disrespect of the terms of the agreement in the contract. When the tenant decides to just do whatever he wants, despite the terms of the agreement or the landlord's rules, you should have your eviction plan ready because your tenancy is in a downward spiral. Sign # 4: Behavior: Tenant is no longer respectful to the landlord Obviously a disrespectful tenant is a problem that is not acceptable. When a tenant disrespects the owner , he also disrespects the agreement and also the property itself. Sign # 5: Tenant asks to apply security deposit as rent This is usually a sign of financial problems because the tenant is unable to raise the rent money. Some tenants try to apply the security deposit to rent when they plan to move. This is a method of guaranteeing that they receive their deposit back, while the landlord in the case of one month deposit, ends up with nothing to pay for damages and other costs incurred by the tenant. See my article What Do I do When my tenant wants to use the security deposit as rent?
Sign # 6: Tenant maintenance responsibilities are being neglected When your tenant is neglecting the agreed maintenance responsibilities, you'll need to enforce your lease with a lease violation notice or grounds violation notice. If you don't bounce the tenant back in line, things will only get worse and your property and its value will suffer. One remedy that sometimes helps is a Grounds Violation Notice that warns the tenant the problem needs to be solved or the landlord will correct the problem at the tenant's expense.
In many cases these problems can be preempted with a signed Property Condition Report & Checklist which is a great way to start a tenancy with the tenant acknowledging and attesting to the condition of the rental property.
Sign # 7: Unauthorized Residents Most of the time, an unauthorized resident situation is a sign of a combination of problems, ranging from Sign # 8: Unauthorized Pets In many cases when the lease states "No Pets", tenants ask for a pet after they've already acquired one. When the answer is "no", the tenant and the landlord often have issues that result in the end of the tenancy sooner or later. Sign # 9: Disputes with Neighbors
It is never a good sign when your neighbors are at odds with your tenants. When you have a tenant that aggravates neighbors through uncooperative behavior, inconsideration or other types of lease violations, you have problems.
Sign # 10: Tenant Complaints on items that fall under tenant responsibilities As I've often said, the lease agreement itself is like an instruction manual for what is expected from the tenant on how to be your tenant and take care of your property. This includes tending to certain tasks, maintenance or duties under the contract. Tenants will often forget what they agreed to when it suits their purpose and call the landlord with requests or complaints about issues that they themselves are responsible for. There are many other danger signs that a tenancy is in trouble. Feel free to share them if you can think of any on the LPA's Landlord Q&A Forum under the Subject Title "Signs Tenants are on the Way Out".
About the author: More information on The Landlord Protection Agency is available at www.theLPA.com |
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Have you seen the signs?
It happens all the time. You have a great tenant, things have been fine... up until certain things start happening and all of a sudden, you realize that this isn't the great tenancy you once thought it was.