All Forum Posts by: Ihe O.

 Couple of hundred bucks once they are month to month and I just have to give 30 days notice.

B4 assuming that the longer the wait for the rent the less likely the tenant will pay one would do well to look at things from the tenant point of view, because as a delinquent tenant once said to me when I offered to let her out of her lease "It costs money to move".

Here's the math. If you stiff your landlord you'll lose your security deposit (at least a months rent), you will need at least 2 months rent to put down on your new place and it could easily cost you a couple of grand to move. That could easily amount to 5 months rent,  plus you have the inconvenience and uncertainty of not knowing where you are going to be living and the consequences of a bad tenant reference and maybe an unpaid judgement against you. 

So while there is a point at which the numbers favour the tenant stiffing the landlord it certainly isn't within the first 30 days of being late and even within the first 60 it probably still makes more financial sense for them to pay their rent than walk away unless they won't be paying rent at their destination. So there is an  economic rationale for a landlord not to be too quick to rush off to file an eviction.

You keep criminal out of your property with criminal background checks.

A no guns policy is because I don't want guns or people who will brings guns in my rental whether they are responsible or not. I'm not going to rummage through looking for one but I want a policy in place that allows me to remove a tenant if I encounter one and I want a tenant to know that before they sign on to rent from me. 

I'm happy that there are landlords who will allow guns because that means  gun owners don't need to rent from me.

Different analogy for you. Just because the police are not going to go door to door rummaging for crime it doesn't mean there is no point in having laws.

With respect. I never said I had a problem. My tenants have all been with me for at least 3 years. All those situations were easily brought  under control and I don't go to the hood where my rentals are feeling I need to pack heat. 

People don't tend to start out being intentionally non-complicit, it something that may happen over time and with change.

The contention that I am dispelling is that there is no point in having a rule that isn't going to be complied with because if that were true then there would be no point in having rules against late rent.

So your tenant is 5 days late or whatever and you are a business not a charity, time to crank up the only remedy in your arsenal, it's off to the courthouse to file eviction.

Evictions - I've had a few - they both took 4-5 months from start to finish during which time no rent was collected. One was a holdover who refused to vacate after an acquisition and was thrown out by the sheriff the other stopped paying and sat in the house until eviction day and then left peacefully before the sheriff showed up.

But of course it is going to take  ages to get a date for an eviction case,  the system is clogged up with filings from landlords against tenants who are "5" days or whatever late and who are in effect abusing the eviction process to get their tenant to pay. 

Yes I said abusing the eviction process, because the remedy in an eviction case is not the unpaid rent, it is the removal of the tenant. So the people that  genuinely need to get a tenant out have to wait ages and lose lots of money because of the volume of frivolous eviction suits brought by landlords who are really trying to get paid.

Does that attitude work for the betterment of all, or are landlords by aggregate of their behavior actually shooting themselves in the foot.

Here is an analogy for you. Suppose there were a limited number of doctors in your locality and everybody asked to see one whenever they had a headache. What would be the collective effect on the health of the community as a whole.

Good for your tenants. Why not just abide by the law. It's there to protect both of you.  

 Do you ever have a solution other than evicting people?

I've seen a gun, smelt weed and seen cigarette ash and an unmentioned pet in all but one of my rentals. The thing is people don't hide these things, the gun was lying on the dresser, the tenants teenage daughter let me into the parents bedroom to inspect something while they were out and I saw it and she saw me see it.

That's not how deterrents work.  You don't go looking for non-compliance.  You state them and oftentimes those that don't want to abide, be it no smoking, no pets or no guns will find somewhere else to live.