Ahhh, for a perfect world. 🙂

Great article! Tenant’s are your customers, not your friends. Treat them with respect, but don’t be a doormat. Fair but firm.

Well said Kevin, and Andrew’s comment about fair but firm is also right on. It is, in fact a business relationship. Friends is not something I want to be with a tenant–not because they’re not nice people, but because it starts to cloud the relationship. There is a whole lotta room between being a nice person and being pleasantly professional.

Well said Kevin, and Andrew’s comment about fair but firm is also right on. It is, in fact a business relationship. Friends is not something I want to be with a tenant–not because they’re not nice people, but because it starts to cloud the relationship. There is a whole lotta room between being a nice person and being pleasantly professional.

Roger that, I probably don’t do any of the above as I would ideally want for myself, I do try to manage things as they happen quickly. Most of those crisis situations I am pretty sure are better dealt with in the proactive sort of way. Thanks for the reality check.

Kevin – Nice article. You asked for the rules that I live by as a landlord… Rules that I use: – Rent is due on the first, late on the second. Everyone plays by this rule – no exceptions. Late fees and eviction processing is consistently applied in all situations. This is a business. – Never lease to friends or family. This is a business. – Land lording is a business relationship as defined by a legal document. Your business relationship is defined by the lease.

I can’t remember if it was Leigh Robinson, Jay P Decima, or Robert Irwin, but I picked up a similar, simple mantra from one of their books in regards to ideal landlord relationship with tenants: “always friendly, never friends”..

Nicely done! I’d like to borrow your “A Tenant Should” part and make it into a handout for our move-in packet. I’ve told tenants these things, but you have put it in succinct and good form. We noticed a broken window yesterday that we must address with the tenant, so very timely for me to read this now. I’ll create that handout and it will go along with my invoice for the broken window. The “A Landlord Should” part is good as well and we practice in that manner. If I post these at my desk, it could serve to keep me on my toes. If these points are not kept at top of mind, one can slip up. I know I have slipped up a few times in the past 20 years and doing so came back to bite me. If I weave this into my pact with the tenant, it will hold me accountable. Occasionally we have a tenant who does become a friend. That has been quite rewarding for all of us. A friendship starts with mutual respect and being nice to each other. One such friendship led to our tenant becoming my property assistant. She passed away this summer and as I made preparations for her memorial service, I reflected on how marvelous it was that she came into my life, her wisdom, her laughter, the vacations we took together with my family, and the love. The only hard part is getting to the point where I can let go of the house, where she had made her home, so I can prepare to rent it again. Her belongings are gone but her spirit is with us. I decided to lightly furnish it and use it for lodging for visiting family, friends and as a short-term vacation rental for the time being. Had to convince my husband to do that, but he is on-board now and we are taking the time to do some renovation work on the house to make it even better.

I am a new landlord and need some advice on the following issue. Tenant wrote me the other day stating… “Now that it’s getting darker earlier and winter is approaching, I am noticing that we really could use an outside lantern/ light at the back door. Also, if we could do a sensored flood light at the corner of the house by the back door/ driveway- that would be very helpful. Now that the two families mostly use that as an entrance, there is no lighting there and I am worried for all of our safety.” I do agree with the tenant but these are not simple repairs but upgrades to the property. Since I will need to hire an electrician I am anticipating costs to be $400 – $600. Thoughts?

Lots of good advice and common sense in all of your comments. I think “being human” is the one we should add to it. Not considering a possibility of being a friend with a tenant is relatively restrictive thinking. Friends come in all shapes and colors, sometimes tenant may turn into a great friend if you give it a chance. Don’t make it a rule of a thumb but keep the window open. It happened to us few times, without deteriorating landlord-tenant relation. Having only 1 day for paying a rent is kinda over strict too, isn’t it? What if the 1st is on Sunday, or my pay is late a day or two? Assigning rent payment from 1st to 5th may be more reasonable? And yes, I totally think you need to put it all in writing, what ever you expect and bring to the expectations, write it down and include it in the move-in package. There is no one way relationship in the world, so both parties should be equally responsible.

Great write up. I think being professional and respecting your tenants goes a long long way to a smooth relationship. The biggest facet of that respect is getting repairs done in a timely manner. If a tenant asks me for an upgrade or to change something and it is reasonable I try to accommodate it. Such as installing a blind, or painting an accent wall.

Great stuff here Kevin. Respect from both landlords and tenants will make the relationship truly great. I believe in being nice and cordial but remaining firm and strict with the polices. After all this is a business and it should be treated as such.

Enjoyed the article. I am not a landlord yet but have been learning tons from BP listening to podcasts and webinars and reading these articles as much as I can. I am wondering how to obtain a thorough lease agreement. Do you write your own or are there examples on BP I just haven’t seen yet? My parents and in-laws have rental properties but NEVER had a lease agreement. Needless to say, it was/is a headache/hassle from day one. This has inspired us to have a detailed lease. Anyone willing to share an example? Thanks so much!

Kevin, Nice article. I have rented to friends without problems in the past, but now I have one that is going to bite me. He has been a pretty good tenant for about 3 years but has a job that has had salary reductions due the slowness of the oil industry. To make matters worse I know his wife has been fighting some health problems and cannot work. I know he has had at least a 30% cut in salary and he has 4 kids who I know by first name. He has been on the volunteer fire department with me for about 10 years. Nice guy. He has been late and a few hundred short and has caught the rent up, but I don’t think he will be able to now. I have needed some work done and have had him do some work for me to take off his rent. He does good work and I truly need a handyman but even that may not be enough to get him out of his mess. I have already figured out how far I will go before yelling uncle and starting an eviction. In small towns I probably know at least 50% of the people who apply to rent houses on at least some level. Saying is easier than doing.

Great article with concise information. Short, sweet and to the point, I love it. A ton of great info on the comment section as well. “Your property is now their home.” Very powerful statement that should always be kept in mind when considering cutting corners on repairs and other upkeep maintenance issues that come up.

I see alot of posts from landlords pointing the finger at tenants first and foremost. There is a clear deterioration of a landlord/tenant relationship and it is truly because you, as landlords, don’t understand the tenants side. Can tenants wreck a place and cause you issues? Yes. However, all of the renters i have rented with and known, keep their place nice, exxept for one. It is THEIR home. Landlords have an incredibly unrealistic expection of wear and tear, which usually limits their market. That, and they don’t understand life. I have met many landlords who are just ridiculous when it comes to their expectations about life and circumstances. Remember, you have the option of having a home, of buying one. And your are pocketing extra money by renting. I have been a renter for years because I cannot afford my own home so, its either rent or be homeless. That is the situation us renters face. HOMELESSNESS. I’m sure you, as a landlord, can’t fathom how scary that is. If we ask you, as a landlord, to fix something it will almost every year increase our rent and we cannot afford that. Thats probably why the tenant did not disclose the broken window. Because a repair would up his/her rent. And $5.00 and up can make or break a person’s budget. Also, when you are not willing to renew a lease, now, the tenant has to pay security deposits, etc to another place THE SAME MONTH as your rent is due. You complain about money yet, do you have 4,000 + dollars to throw around? I doubt it. We have a recession and wages are stagnant. Also, this one kills me, what does credit checks have to do with bad renters? NOTHING. Credit was set up for credit cards, I will pay my rent first and foremost and go late on a credit card bill before I skip paying you. Because it is, again, MY HOME, and I face homelessness if I don’t pay. Duh. Get with the programs landlords, I have only encountered 1 bad tenant in all my years, the rest of us are truly good people who have either hit a bad time or can’t catch a break. If we could, do you think we’d be renting from someone? NO!

Ray I am somewhere in the middle. I agree – mostly except for the fact that many landlords are intact providing a service and its not uncommon to have a low cashflow situation where the owner is juggling bills to maintain the property as well. Having spent most of my life as a tenant I didn’t hesitate to paint, fix locks, repair minor damage, re caulk edges around sink and tub when there were water issues, unclog drains, sweep leaves and trash from the sidewalk. I thought that making your living place functional and you surroundings pleasant was just what you did. Years later, acquiring property with (nice enough) tenants, I assumed that everyone maintained their living space as such but quickly learned that this was not true. There were so many times I encountered issues where I had to hold back from saying “really folks?” Ignoring and not reporting dripping water for years to the point that bathroom needs a complete demolition for example. The list goes on. I have no resentment for the tenants as they are good people and always pay on time, but there is a disappointing level of apathy. I am going to suggest that the problem is systemic and what is needed is actually more affordable home ownership or partial ownership such as land trusts so that people feel enough sense of ownership to take greater responsibility for their surroundings.

Excellent article. Mutual respect is key for any relationship.

There really is no hard and fast rule, and while most of the points made are simply common sense the fact is that you do, as a normal human being, have situations sometimes where you invariably end up feeling like you have to take on the burden of someone else’s life out of sheer decency. We’ve had our fair share of nightmare tenants, but we also have people currently in our rental properties who we care very much about, and yes, one particular couple are considered friends because we’ve come to really appreciate them, not only as decent people but as renters who go above and beyond in terms of looking after the home as if it’s their own. Example? We gave up years ago expecting tenants to do the right thing by mowing the lawns, even with financial incentives in place to encourage them to do so, so I took on the mowing myself, partly because we couldn’t get a reliable lawn service for a couple of the homes (same again for one house that has a pool) and partly because it helps keep me fit and I get to see how well the houses are being maintained. This particular couple told me not to bother, bought a mower themselves, and not only do a good job with it but have also worked heavily on the gardens, even though it’s not their own property. The husband keeps tweaking things (asks first) and basically they’re making little improvements here and there that essentially benefit us in the long term, and often they won’t even ask us to reimburse them for the little things they spend money on, even though we’re always at them to give us the receipts. A few months before Christmas we ended up shelving our normal attitude towards maintaining a professional distance (as much as we can!) by inviting them out for a drink with some friends from the area (Daytona) to sign the new lease, and ended up having a whale of a time with them. Hasn’t changed the nature of the relationship so far as the property is concerned, and I think when they eventually move on they’ll remain friends. Of course though, we do realize that this isn’t the norm for us, and I think what has helped in this situation is that they used to own a home up in NY state which they rented out as well, so they’re trying to be sure not to be ‘typical’ renters. Just great people. Furthermore, with other renters who do stay on past the first year we have a little tradition of going round to the house with pizza for the signing of the new lease, and we ALWAYS reinforce the point with each and every renter about keeping the lines of communication open and simply being honest with us. We’ve had one woman (still with us after 6 years) who’s husband left her soon after they’d moved into one of our houses. Within months she was falling way behind on the rent, so much so that she eventually got to be behind by three months. By rights we should have evicted her long before that, but my wife and I kept looking at each other and asking ourselves how we had ever reached a point where we would countenance putting a mother, her two young children, and her frail old mother out on the street! Thankfully just at the time when we were considering have little other option but to actually put up the eviction notice she found herself a job, her church and family chipped in, and with a payment structure we drew up for her the tenant took to paying us every two weeks, instead of monthly, with extra thrown on for the back rent, and over the next year she gradually caught it all up. She’s certainly not the most ideal tenant, and we could probably write a book on the myriad excuses she’s given us for being late with the rent or why checks have bounced, but one way or the other we invariably get our money. We have another family, wonderful people, who lost everything they had when their young son was involved in a car accident that nearly claimed his life – and wiped them out financially, including losing their home. They’re usually meticulous about paying on time, but once or twice a year a new medical bill might come up and the tenant will call and ask us if we can wait a week or two or three for the rent. Every time she promptly gets it paid and everything’s back on track. They’ve been with us now for three years, and we hope they’ll stay longer, though I constantly joke with my wife that the house will eventually fall down the day they decide to move out from all the damage the kids are doing! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our fair share of nightmare tenants, and there’s more than a few I wouldn’t have minded taking a baseball bat to! In those cases we’ve had no problem handing out eviction notices to, or simply not renewed leases with. We had one woman who came in with two kids to a house I’d spent months rehabbing only to abscond owing us a month’s back rent, doing considerable damage to the house (including to a freshly refurbished pool her youngest son left gouge marks in via the end of the pool-cleaning pole) and leaving behind pets that not only made a mess everywhere, but would have died had I not turned up early to change the locks – we ended up re-homing them. We also had another family who decided to change the same house from a three-bedroom house to four bedroom by installing a partition across the formal area then kicked up a storm of hatred when we eventually found out about it and refused to give them a new lease – trashed the house, left behind most of the furniture, etc – chasing them in courts is almost pointless, as we’ve found out before. You ruin their credit and leave them with a financial black eye for years – they don’t care. The moral of the tale for us is that yes, we do try to maintain a professional relationship, but more often than not we take each case as it comes. In numerous cases where hard and fast landlords would have evicted people we’ve stayed our hand, used our judgement, and done the right thing by people who’ve managed to work things out. Other we’ve learned very quickly to move on as soon as possible. 90% of it boils down to making a good call when sorting through applicants – and perhaps not going for top dollar in order to maximize the pool of people to choose from. You may make a little less on a monthly basis, but how much money do you save at the back end by having tenants who look after a house and who you’ll happily keep on, instead of those who’ll trash a house beyond the security deposit and cost you more in lost rent while you’re fixing the place back up again? What we’ve really learned the hard way is that it’s this point in time when you really have to go with the head rather than the heart, no matter what kind of sob story you might be hearing or how well people may present. The worst moment I’ve ever had was when a man literally broke down sobbing in front of me after shaking my hand and proceeded to tell me how he and his children (the wife was deceased) had recently been thrown out of a foreclosed home that the owner had kept taking rent on right up until the sheriff had turned up to throw the unsuspecting family out. The man had farmed his two daughters out to a sister while he and his two sons were sleeping in their car. He practically begged me to let him have the house, gave me all his details, even asked if he and his sons could sleep on the bare carpet for a day or two while my wife tried to sort through his application. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was tell the man that I simply couldn’t do that, knowing of the ramifications once he had his foot in the door, but I promised him we would do our due diligence post haste to see what we could do. Long story short, the numbers didn’t even come close, the employer sounded dodgy, and I ended up having to call the guy in his car and say no – for weeks afterwards I fretted thinking I was going to read something in the local paper regarding the man committing suicide! Another thing we’ve learned as well is that there’s certain types of people to avoid, and we’re small enough that we can get away with ‘discriminating’ without being noticed. We steer well clear of ‘salesy’ people because we’ve been burned a few times by the type – they always end up being really arrogant, full of themselves, and just make life really difficult almost as a point of pride. We have also learned to run a mile from people who really lay on their faith when they meet us, especially if they spot my wife’s crucifix round her neck – I’ve taken to telling her to hide it when interviewing tenants! The woman who trashed our house and left behind the pets came in telling us about all her volunteer missionary work in Central America, her church, etc – ended up shooting through owing a great deal of money to people in the area. Same again with the people who put up the partition – double whammy there – the husband was a car salesman who really laid on their Catholic faith when we met them and always sent out emails with quotes from the bible appended to the bottom. Another point is that we definitely have a leaning towards couples with dual incomes, because the situation with single incomes is so fraught with peril, especially with working class or lower middle class families, that the situation can quickly go pear-shaped if a job gets lost. Finally, though we have in the past had a strong leaning towards couples with children (we tend to buy larger than usual homes for specific areas that are easy to rent out because families are always looking for that space) we tend to find that young kids do really take a heavy toll on newly rehabbed houses, especially if the parents don’t care, so of late we’ve taken to being a little more open to adult-only situations that simply give the houses a bit of a break from all the wear and tear. No more scraping off dried toothpaste or trying to paint over crayon on the walls! A final point. We are not typically hard arses about people sticking by the terms of the lease if they want to leave for some reason. Stuff happens sometimes, and as long as the tenant is willing to cover the appropriate rent until we can get a new tenant in place we’re always pretty flexible about letting people out of their lease agreements. We had one guy from Arkansas relocating to central Florida for business who fell in love with one particular house that we were renting, took a batch of pictures of the place to send back home to his wife in Birmingham, and agreed to rent from us a few days later. The minute his wife actually saw the house though she hated it (I was crushed – sob – I’d put in 6 months rehabbing a house my wife and I would live in ourselves in a heartbeat!) so we ended up letting the poor slob off from his wife’s ire by tearing up the lease and letting them go after a matter of a couple of weeks – shortest tenancy we’ve ever had! They did cover the rest of that month’s rent, and insisted paying for the following month as well.

I try to be respectful and considerate also I will honor the terms of our Lease. I want my Tenants to be respectful and considerate and honor the terms of the Lease. For peace of mind if I get a bad feeling about someone in my gut then I will not rent to them. I have told my family and friends that it always, always has bitten me in the butt if I am too friendly with Tenants. Friendly but keep a distance. I know it requires discipline.

These things are great and if they all happened in reality, land lording would be pretty easy. Unfortunately, most of these things start breaking down. I know there are bad landlords out there, that don’t respect their tenants. But every new tenant I try to put on a clean slate. While I do have the relationship described with some tenants, the others the relationship usually starts breaking down on the tenant side. 1. Tenant saying things they are going to do on x date, but don’t 2. Respecting the property 3. Respecting my time(I shouldn’t have to chase to get my money) 4. Telling lies After these start to happen the relationship starts to break down and while you continue on and try to put on a good front. I have loss respect for the tenant at this point, and I am simply trying to manage the relationship to cause the least damage to the business.

I once heard the adage ‘This is my house but it is your home’. I try to use this quote at the time when a tenant and I are reviewing the lease agreement together to re-enforce the concept of mutual respect for each other to set the right tone from the start in the tenant-landlord relationship. I have also made the comment to a tenant when they are moving out to please respect me enough leave the place as clean as when they moved in. It is never as clean as day one but have seemed to have had some success with not having tenants leave the units trashed. This is just a couple of anecdotes but in reality it is a series of positive tenant-landlord interactions that makes for a successful experience for both parties.

Some comments: Respect the Agreement They Signed – Having rented for a while I find that, (i) contracts are often illegal and unfair and (ii) the process by which contracts are “agreed to” is problematic. Contracts are long, often presented at the last minute, major or exceptional clauses are hidden, and the tenant has often invested a lot of time before agreeing to a contract. Entering into a free agreement with full knowledge is one thing, being bait-and-switched into something under coercion with no ability to negotiate is another. If you want people to respect an “agreement” it’s important to actually have them “agree” rather than just sign.

“I try to be respectful and considerate also I will honor the terms of our Lease. I want my Tenants to be respectful and considerate and honor the terms of the Lease.” You are willing to honour the agreement that you write. How strange 😛 My experience with rental agreements is that they consist of six clauses that are legal obligations for the landlord, followed by about 50 clauses, 5 of which are illegal.