Tenant won’t vacate due to health issues
Littleton, CO · Member since 2013 · 30 posts · 7 votes
We have a tenant occupied property in Detroit that is coming up on the end of the lease with the current tenant. The elderly tenant has been struggling health wise the last year and has been struggling to make her rent payment. She is now late and needs to get out by February 1st. She is stating that she won’t be out by the 1st of the month. She no longer has a job and is on disability. Has anyone dealt with health issues with a tenant? Insight?
I would suggest a different approach. if you have a tenant who paid regularly in the past and is now facing hardship it may be a good idea to help them locate temporary assistance such as the State Emergency Relief Program https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs... You have to remember that in order to evict you have to stand in front of a judge and if you build a reputation in the 36th district court as a heartless landlord you will likely draw the ire of judges who can become sympathetic to your tenant(s) in the future.
Running a good rental business sometimes requires that you NOT throw out the baby with the bath water meaning sometimes its better to stand with people who have a track record of paying you but run into financial or health issues.
This is a difficult situation all around and I don’t envy your situation....
The fact remains that life happens and you can’t let things out of your control destroy your rental returns. Many people have provided good ideas and suggestions, but at the end of the day, you need to manage your rentals like a business and stick to agreed upon terms, regardless of your tenants hardships.
Many investors have buy rent default insurance to recoup lost rental income from bad tenant outcomes and for certainty in their rental results.
Hope you’re able to get this situation resolved soon!
@Leroy K. Williams. Lots of tenants will tell you they are sick or whatever. Trouble is when I tell the bank I’m going to be late with the payment because my tenant is sick they laugh at me. Same thing when I tell them I’m sick. Insurance company’s county tax assessor’s also don’t care. Point is your running a buisness. It takes a couple months to evict and turn a unit. The longer you wait to start the more you loose. It’s a poor business decision to wait. If you want to survive the correct answer is start the eviction. In the case of a late paying tenant there’s no telling the baby and the dirty water apart. They never repent and see the error of their ways. RR
@Mallory Guerrero. Mallory you are most likely going to end up evicting this lady. I know it’s tuff when you start out but I have 15 or 16 doors and a 36 unit storage facility. I been doing this for 12 years. I have yet to collect full rent from a tenant that falls behind. They may pay you a time or 2 but they will eventually fall behind and you will end up evicting. Your first loss is your best loss. She can’t pay rent what makes you think she can pay the deposits etc required to move? This is your first lesson as a landlord. Try to keep the expense down. I bought 10 or so units OOS. In different cities. The other lesson if you haven’t learned it yet is get a PM. It’s very difficult to manage OOS properties from long distance. RR
I would suggest a different approach. if you have a tenant who paid regularly in the past and is now facing hardship it may be a good idea to help them locate temporary assistance such as the State Emergency Relief Program https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs... You have to remember that in order to evict you have to stand in front of a judge and if you build a reputation in the 36th district court as a heartless landlord you will likely draw the ire of judges who can become sympathetic to your tenant(s) in the future.
Running a good rental business sometimes requires that you NOT throw out the baby with the bath water meaning sometimes its better to stand with people who have a track record of paying you but run into financial or health issues.
I disagree 100% - this is a business, not a charity... succeeding in Detroit is VERY difficult, there is no time for weakness. As far as the judges go, know how to do a proper eviction and there is ZERO leeway for the judges. The judges are there to uphold the law, I couldn't give 2 ***** what they think of me. I spent almost 5 years in Detroit to develop the ruthlessness it took to succeed in this city.. I lost a lot of money in those 5 years. As soon as I wised up I made it all back and continue to prosper.
I couldn't agree with you more. Not everyone is destin to be a landlord.
We have a tenant occupied property in Detroit that is coming up on the end of the lease with the current tenant. The elderly tenant has been struggling health wise the last year and has been struggling to make her rent payment. She is now late and needs to get out by February 1st. She is stating that she won’t be out by the 1st of the month. She no longer has a job and is on disability. Has anyone dealt with health issues with a tenant? Insight?
I'm now a very low income senior tenant. I used to manage many apartments and I have a law degree. So, I think I am qualified to address your dilemma.
First, business is business. Think in terms of - would her cable bill care about her health problems? Her insurance? Any other service providers? The utilities? Her car registration? On and on? No. She knows that, too. As does her family, if she has any.
Not to say her problems aren't real. But, her inability to pay her rent does not automatically make her housing your problem.
So, continue with any eviction you need to do. If she qualifies for help, she'll get it. I'd wait to see if you really need to help her in any way before offering.
I live in subsidized senior housing now. I see how some tenants will really "work it." Many with more problems than others ask for nothing. Just because someone is crying wolf, doesn't mean they need help more than others.
There's nothing wrong with sticking to the law. If the law says they get evicted if they don't pay the rent - then evict them.
Remember, the law is really fair. It took many highly educated legal minds and lots of arguments on both sides of the aisle to get a law passed. If the law then says that someone should get evicted because they haven't paid the rent, etc., then you don't need to question it.
@Ralph R. Thank you for your input. I appreciate it. We actually go have a PM company but they are not the best and we are ready to part ways with both our tenant and PM company.
@Sue K. Thank you for your input. I appreciate your knowledge.
@Mallory Guerrero. I've been down that road a couple times. I learned not to buy a house until I had good management. I got to where I vetted the pm first. It takes a while and if I couldn't find what I wanted I found another city. After I had a pm I liked located I asked them if they knew anybody that wanted to sell a rental. I bought a couple like that. If they didn't have a lead I asked for the name of a realtor. Now I had everything in place before I started looking. I never bought a house off the MLS until I started buying in the city where I lived. Be sure to vet the new pm thoroughly before you quit the current one. Avoid any that want you to sign a contract that has a monetary penalty if you leave before the contract expires. Good luck ! RR
The worst monster wearing the skin of a human being that I ever met ran a private language school in a foreign country. One of the teachers who worked for him had a drinking problem. She came to work for him when she was in her 30s and temporarily sober. Just a few months in, she had a relapse. But did he fire her? Oh no.
He HELPED her. She kept teaching in his school. He gave her a place to stay. He sent his son to buy her necessary groceries every week. She had some spending money, given to her on Friday night. Of course she bought the cheapest rotgut whiskey she could find with it and drank herself into a weekend coma. But she was fine by Monday to do the lessons for the week. And the school director promised he would hold on to what would be the bulk of her compensation and "take care of her" if she needed anything.
This went on for twenty years.
I met this woman when she was in her fifties and had throat cancer due to her lifelong drinking. The country she was in had socialized medicine. The school director didn't pay a dime for her treatment.
The doctors chopped her voicebox out and she couldn't speak. The cancer came back. They ran a tracheal oxygen tube. The tumor grew around the trachea and squeezed it shut over a period of many heavily medicated months. She died gurgling and gasping for air, with her cancer relentlessly choking the life out of her.
The school director shed a tear at her funeral, before he manfully steeled himself and mentioned to her friends that he was sure that what had happened "was for the best."
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Many times, when you think you're helping people, you're really enabling an unsustainable lifestyle, and enabling them usually does more harm than good over the long run. This is always the mindset I approach possible evictions with.
As to bad property managers - unfortunately, some will actually move problem tenants in because they make more money when there are problems. They get extra fees for every problem. I've thought if I end up hiring a property manager down the road (getting an inheritance after probate hell is over from my mom's estate), I'd write my own contract that would include a bonus based on the profit I made with their management. I think the way the traditional PM set up is now is just designed badly. There should be financial rewards for doing a good job as opposed to only making a decent compensation when there are problems. It's understandable that some will milk it with a bad tenant.
Aside from your need to file for eviction when needed or maybe trying to offer her cash for keys push her in the direction of social services. People with specific issues can jump the line in senior housing or other housing services. If she is on disability there may be things available that are not available solely as a result of age. I don't suggest you find her housing just that you impress her with how certain her situation is (she is losing this housing) and encourage her to share her circumstances when calling senior housing or social service organizations.