Thank goodness most people are nice, cooperative and want to do the right thing. Then, there are the rest… Luckily through a thorough screening process we have been very fortunate to have our properties rented by wonderful people but sometimes, people change.
There are a lot of definitions of “difficult” tenant. The most obvious is one who doesn’t pay the rent. As the owner, you count on that money to make your mortgage payment and having a non paying tenant makes not only your finances difficult but wastes your time having to chase them down every month to finally get paid. Another “difficult” tenant is one who complains about everything. You try as the landlord to make their living experience a good one but they continue to complain about all kinds of things and some that are out of your control. When you see their number on your caller id, you just cringe and maybe hit silence!
I’ll tell you a story about a client of ours who is so nice and accommodating but unfortunately got the wrong person in his home. I’ll call him “Bob”. Bob was moving overseas and rented the property out himself and was trying to manage from a distance. He didn’t go through a very strict screening process and was desperate to get it rented because it sat vacant for longer than it should have and Bob was getting ready to leave in a few weeks. So he accepted a tenant who was borderline and took a chance. For a while, things were ok, but very quickly they got worse. Rent was always late, things that were fine before now seemed to just break left and right. He catered to his tenant’s needs but then there were more- he gave and the tenant demanded more. They came to some agreements that if Bob made the changes the tenant asked for that the tenant in return would do certain things. Those things never happened.
It was getting close to the end of the lease and rather than end it, Bob let the tenant stay because now he was overseas and trying to get it re-rented by himself was an overwhelming task. In the end, Bob turned the rental and management over to our company and we have since removed the “difficult” tenant and have rented to a wonderful new tenant who pays on time and takes excellent care of the property.
Sometimes it’s really so much better to just cut your losses and lose a few months of rent if you have to in order to get the right tenant in place. Losing lots of money to tenant demands and feeling like you have no control over your own home is just not a good place to be. My advice. If you start to see things going in the wrong direction, stay in control and be willing to risk a vacancy because in the long run you will lose less money and be able to sleep much better at night!
