Handling Tenant and Roommate Disputes

Tenant and roommate disputes can have a significant impact on your real estate business by stealing your time from you and possibly by impacting your cash flow. As hard as you may try to not get involved, bitter roommate disputes can and do ultimately involve you to varying degrees.

My first line of advice is to not get involved in these kind of disputes. Your tenants are adults and must handle themselves as such. Having said this, you MUST be diligent in getting to the bottom of the problems in order to identify your responsibility as a landlord. If someone is breaking the lease by causing a disturbance or other forbidden act it is your responsibility to actively work to stop the activity. There is likely more than one other person who is being affected even if they don’t come forward.

Tenants in multi-unit buildings or roommates sharing a unit who are having a disagreement will often look to the landlord as a mediator if they are unable to reach a resolution on their own. Generally, tenant disputes that reach this level are difficult at best to resolve. If they are coming to you for resolution they have usually exhausted their own communication endurance with one another. If you find yourself in this situation is first important to not get involved as a go-between, if possible, and second, to document every interaction, whether involuntary or otherwise.

Furthermore, a tenant which comes to you claiming they feel threatened or victimized must be immediately referred to the proper authorities. You should NEVER be making decisions where health or life is in harm’s way - leave that to the police or public safety and specifically state this in your lease. Again, document your experience and get the correct people involved immediately.

As a landlord, it is important to keep your actions related to tenant disputes as concise and consistent as possible. Following a simple three-step process will help you navigate most tenant disputes:

1. Identify the problem
2. Document the problem
3. Enforce the lease And/Or Notify Authorities

Keeping the lines of communication open with your tenants is important but you must be able to do so without getting entrenched in the personal problems that often come along with tenant disputes.

Always remain objective and take a stand which supports your lease and ultimately protects your investment.