Passive new landlord in need of advice!
I am new to real estate and even though I researched tenant/landlord relations extensively before I bought this house I feel like I havent followed what I learned on this site and various books and am already getting into a bad tenant situation.
So I inhereted this tenant with a two family house recently. She is on a month to month lease, according seller , which I have never seen. So I kind of dragged my feet and after owning the house for about two months never created my own lease or really set up any ground rules etc. The first month she paid her rent with no issue. Now this month she is saying that she can only pay part of the rent because she is awaiting disability due to a recent historectomy. She said she should have the rest this week sometime. I know I probably should have established a new lease and penalty for being late. At this point I feel like maybe I am being a pushover but honestly it is sometimes my personality type. The business side of me tells me to have a frank conversation with her that if she doesn’t keep up with the rent I will quickly begin the eviction process. But the other side of me tells me that I should wait and give her a chance first. Any advice in any regard is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Most Popular Reply
@Robert Stack This comment is meant to protect you and help you before you find yourself in a worse situation, which you probably will from what you posted.
You should turn this over to professional management now!
You clearly know or have an idea of what you should be doing, or so you claim with the “I researched tenant/landlord relations extensively” comment but have failed to implement even the most basic processes.
Such as do I want to be in a month to month with this tenant or speak with her about signing an annual lease prior to and the day you take possession of the property?
Why didn’t you see/review the month to month lease for this tenant?
Why did you not do anything for 2 months? You probably wouldn’t have done anything if this issue had not come up.
You keep saying you know this, you should have done that, that you’re a pushover, and on and on.
Take appropriate action, set ground rules, wait... before that actually figure out what your ground rules are, then get your tenant to sign some kind of lease that was vetted by any competent person (lawyer/investor/broker/agent) and start implementing all the great advice you have supposedly learned/read.
If you can’t do that , then hire a property Mgmt co. and be done with it.