tenant making alterations repeatedly without permission

[Sasha Leans]

Hello everyone,

Just wanting some feedback- as I manage my rentals alone and don't have tons of people to ask for advice. I have a tenant who has lived at a property since 2021 or 2022 with his children. He is a general contractor and when I did a walk through in 2025 I found he had added a wall and door to an open room to create another room for one of children. He said he was dealing with contentious divorce, needed a room for each child and it was an emergency. He said he would not modify the home again. ANd with the leasing company we added a stipulation addressing this issue and that it would be returned to move in condition at move out. When I did the walk through this month, I noticed he added 2 window AC units- without permission. When I brought it up, he said the kids weren't getting any air to their rooms- so he did  that. We are coming to when the lease will be renewed- within the next 3 months. The market is very soft and finding a new tenant is a headache. This tenant has paid the rent on time and otherwise no major issues. His rent is currently 100-200$ above the market. 1. He just asked me to reduce the rent. 2. I am planning on having the AC person take a look at the units to make sure they are propertly installed and will not cause any potential damage to the home. 3. I want to deal with his repeated behavior of not communicating- doing what he wants and then excuses why later. I contacted the leasing company for advice and to tighten the lease for renewal.

Any other suggestions on how to deal with this? And anyone have input regarding window AC units- I don't know enough about them to know if they  can really cause any home issues. thanks

[Peter Mckernan]

A couple things here, one is the alterations that really are against code (or not depending on how the wall was setup). Sounds like this is against code, and something that needs to be the biggest red flag. Adding a room, adding electrical panels/sub panels as an example and all.. That is something that I would be calling the tenant and having them removed, and if not I would be working on getting the tenant out. Soon, he will move an extra family in there and say he needed them in there to make ends meet.  

It sounds like even though as I have heard in Florida the rental market is soft and the housing market in a lot of parts is soft; there needs to be a boundary. If not, think about the worst case situation with this tenant; he builds something that is illegal and then there is a fire and someone dies (this is extreme). I just think that this tenant seems to be going down the path of stepping over boundaries and this never ends well. I would rather be 100-200 less in rent and have a tenant that is not endangering your liability as a landlord verse just hoping that he gets on the right path. I would be starting to look for a new tenant come lease end, and that is my gut feeling that with this person/tenant.