How to go about telling a tenant rent will be raised

[Wences Lopez]

I bought my first investment property in August, and let the seller stay and be my tenant for 3 months until he bought another property. He hasn’t had any luck buying anything. Current rent i charge him is $975, basically just paying my mortgage for now. Rents around the area are around $1375-$1550. What’s one way I can tell him Im planning to raise rent?

(Reason why I let him stay at the mortgage rent price was cause he fixed all issues that came back after the inspection, around $6k in expenses & sold me it at the price we first agreed on)

[Greg M.]

Where is the property? If in Los Angeles or CA, you might have problems. Sounds like you have a tenant, not a seller staying in the building.

• Is it under rent control? 
• Can you raise rent due to the State of Emergency? 
• If you can, is it 30/60/90 days notice of rent increase depending on how long he has been there.
• Can you even remove the tenant without paying them relocation fees?

You may want to talk to an attorney in case this gets ugly.