Convincing a tenant to leave before the lease is up

Convincing a tenant to leave before the lease is up

Rental Property Investor · Douglas County, MO · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

Most of our tenants are fantastic, but we have one that is, well, needy. Older couple that loves the house and says they want to live there until they die. Always pay early, so no issues there, but they drive us nuts with requests to do stuff to the house. Their lease is up in February, and we have been seriously considering not renewing.

So we got a call from our RE agent a couple of months ago wondering if we would consider selling that property and for how much. She said someone wanted to buy the 6 or 8 houses on that part of the block and do something (I forget what) with the property. We gave her a number and never heard anything more, so figured it fell through.

She called back today to get a firm number and said the people have their finances all set and are ready to make it happen. They aren't going to want to wait until February to do whatever it is they want to do with the land, so we need to come up with a plan to get the tenants to move out in 60-90 days. I'm thinking maybe we can buy them out of the lease, but not sure how much it would take. They pay $500/month rent. The biggest issues are that they will probably have a very hard time finding another rental house and they have a LOT of stuff to move, including garden plants.

So how would you approach this? Would you offer them a set amount, say, $1500, or ask them what it would take to get them to move early?

0Reply
14 views

Most Popular Reply

Member since 2016 · 13k+ posts · 12k+ votes
9y

If the buyer has not asked for vacant occupancy yet you do not have to do anything. You are getting ahead of yourself  and the tenants may end up being the sellers problem not yours.

See this reply in the discussion

7 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Member since 2016 · 13k+ posts · 12k+ votes
    9y

    If the buyer has not asked for vacant occupancy yet you do not have to do anything. You are getting ahead of yourself  and the tenants may end up being the sellers problem not yours.

  • Rental Property Investor · Douglas County, MO · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    Possibly, but the buyers will at least want assurance that the tenants have agreed to vacate by a given date.

  • Investor · Bethel, AK · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 852 votes
    9y
    Sylvia B. The key word in your last post is "will". You didn't say "have asked for". Have they told you or put a contingency in their offer the house must be delivered empty?? Like the other poster said the tenant may be the new buyers problem. If they are buying 8 properties it may be many months before they need your property empty. Perhaps they would want it occupied until they are ready to do something with that house. I would never give up a tenant based on what I thought some potential buyer may or may not want as far as occupancy is concerned. I would worry less about it if I had not yet recieved an offer on the property. RR
  • Real Estate Agent · Newport Beach, CA · Member since 2017 · 259 posts · 293 votes
    9y

    @Sylvia B. I wouldn't stress about preparing the property for your buyers. They've contacted you looking for an off market deal. If someone is looking for an off market deal, they typically know that they don't get to be too terribly flexible with how a property gets delivered. More often than not, they're dealing with sellers like yourselves: could sell, but really don't need to. 

    Just say that you are selling the property as is and keep it that way. Who knows, maybe they want to keep the tenant because they're more comfortable handling whiney tenants over no tenants. Everyone has their deal breakers. If the buyers don't have whiney tenants as one of them, let them deal with your tenants. 

    Just remember, they want what you have. Let them have it if you got your number.

  • Oakland, CA · Member since 2017 · 133 posts · 58 votes
    9y
    I inherited an older couple tenants long time ago. The lease was supposed to end on July 31st. I gave them a move-out notice 9-months before the lease agreement end. I told them that they can break the lease anytime without any penalties as soon as they find a new place. After I gave them the move-out notice, it took them 7.5 months to look for a new place. They moved out on mid-June. I was happy. ==== Even the lease won't end until February 2018, I would suggest you give them a move-out letter immediately, that you won't renew the lease in February 2018, and give them the option to break the lease anytime now without any penalties. They may start look for new place since they know you won't renew their lease.
  • Rental Property Investor · Douglas County, MO · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    9y

    I understand that nothing is set until it's in writing. We don't intend to say anything to the tenant until we have a signed contract, but I like to have things worked out in my mind well ahead of time. :-)

    I learned a little more about the deal. The company that wants to buy it intends to build office space. It is adjacent to land they already own. The houses are coming down, so they definitely don't want tenants.

    We added $3k to the price we need and gave that number to the agent. That should give us plenty of wiggle room if we have to pay the tenant to move. As long as the other owners are agreeable, it looks like the buyer will want to complete the deal before the end of next month.

  • Rental Property Investor · Douglas County, MO · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    8y

    All's well that ends well, right? 

    We gave them 2 choices:
    1.  2 weeks free rent ($250 value) + $1000 compensation for breaking the lease + their full security deposit refunded without requiring them to return the property to us in the condition they received it IF they were moved out no later than October 2nd. They would get a cashier's check when we got the keys. 
    2. They vacate the property at the end of the lease and must clean up the property to get their deposit back.

    They went to see a lawyer. He called us & we explained the situation. 

    He pretty much told them that they could stick it out until the end of the lease, but this was a really good deal we were offering, so they should take it. They signed the lease termination agreement and started packing. About a week later they tried to talk us out of more money, but we said no.

    They were out 2 weeks early.

    They took the shower head, the grab bars off the shower, the towel bar and tp holder, and the bathroom windowsill (??). They also cut a rectangle about 18"x24" out of the vinyl in the living room. Not sure what the point of that was.  We were so glad to see them go, we didn't care. The buyer didn't care either.

    So we closed earlier than planned, we have our money, and no more pita tenants. Yay!

Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.