All Forum Posts by: Steve Zidzik

@Cole Fleishour

I'm going to echo a couple of the other posts that suggest moving these tenants out. They are displaying a complete lack of respect for you and your property. Allowing that type of behavior will create a constant level of stress that's simply not worth it.

For these tenants, I see the following red flags:

1. Refusing an inspection. If these restrictions existed, the tenants should have mentioned prior to signing the lease.

2. Aggravating factor for #1 flag. Not seeing a definite reschedule date for the inspection. They are basically telling you that your contract with them is meaningless.

3. Moving in pets without disclosing. They looked at the lease, they read no pets allowed and at no time thought that this was something you should know.

4. Aggravating factor for #3 flag. Not telling you about ESA/ADA pet exemption they are claiming until you asked about the pets.

5. Informing you that their health is being endangered by you because of radon. This is one of those vague threats of taking action against you if you attempt to enforce your rights.

Any one of these I would let slide on its own, but taken together, this is a pattern of behavior that will not improve with age.

First thing I would do is offer to release them from the lease because of the concern they recorded over the rain findings without penalty for early termination. I would advise them that you feel this is the most prudent amount because you won't know what steps will be necessary, how large the renovation project to protect the health of tenants will be our how long it will take. Now that the danger has been made known, you don't want them to feel that you are forcing them to leave in possibly hazardous conditions. It's important to make that offer before you retest or get estimates for the remediation so you can honestly say you don't know how long. If they choose to stay from here, they can no longer retaliate with hazardous environmental claims.

At the same time, advise them that you will be inspecting and retest for radon so you can verify hazardous environment. If they refuse, give them notice of violation of contract. Tell them they are free to leave the home and if they want to witness the inspection, they may watch the inspection through FaceTime. My suspicion is that they aren't concerned about what you would see on video, it's what you will smell.

Document the neighbors complaints about the loose dog and confirm what ordinance the tenant's are violating. HUD has issued new guidance in January tightening requirements for tenants who claim ESA status for their animals. The questionnaire is in a tree form and provides the exact questions you can ask and documents that you can request. If the tenant cannot produce these, their animal is not considered ESA and you can collect your additional fees. I would issue a cure or quit advising the tenants that complaints of the dog wandering loose have been made to you. Advise them that further complaints will be considered a lease violation and you will evict for those reasons.

They will either change their behavior or you will reclaim your property. There are no real questions here, so there isn't anything to have a legal battle over. You are simply enforcing your rights as agreed to under the lease both parties signed.

In my opinion, these are the worst kind of tenants. They create a few minor annoyances at every encounter with them that will create a Pavlovian response of dread every time you see their name. The final insult to the ordeal is the fact that they always pay their rent on time, in full, every time.

Good luck.

You are very welcome. If it helps even one person, the time was well spent.  

I switched to TC earlier this year to try to get listings, e-sign leases, rent collection and maintenance in one place that was simple to use and mobile capable.  For the most part, it delivers.

The things I dislike though keep me looking for another solution.  I love the concept of sharing a listing to Zillow, hotpads and other major listing sites, but I've found the process to be a complete mess for prospective tenants.  None of the marketing websites actually provide links to your applications, but do provide theirs with an email address being the only required field.  Since my listing provides the address rental terms, getting an endless stream of emails from prospects who don't even provide a name just wastes my time.  The only way over found to gain control is to create an account at each partner website to enforce minimum information requirements which defeats the under one roof idea.  Then, once the prospect established contact using Zillow or other bigger name, they tend to be highly suspicious of being asked to create an account on TC so they can submit an application.  Rather than manage multiple accounts, I briefly tried responding to initial emails by responding with my TC listing domain web page.  The partner sites very helpfully notify tenants that if they are given links or different websites to use, they should consider it a huge red flag and about the listing.  The number of prospects who followed my link and created a TC account was low single digits.  I was not able to determine how many failed to convert by refusing to follow the link vs. the number of people who couldn't navigate the TC 2 stage tenant account creation and rental application process.  This is incredibly frustrating as the process is simple if you understand it, but the directions for the tenants is very lacking.  I highly encourage new users to set up a test listing and go through the application process from the tenants point of view before you get comfortable with how TC works.  The process is not difficult at all once you understand how it's supposed to work.

What I finally found to have the best results was to accept the the emails from the partner sites and create a tenant account for the prospect.  Then I could use the 'Invite to apply' link to send an email from the TC domain with a link to confirm their account and then proceed to completing the application.  I would also immediately send a response email through the partner sites and give them a brief introduction to how to use TC, invite them to Google the company to confirm that it's legitimate and outline how once the account is created, the application, lease, payments, notices and payments would all be in one central, easy to use application. 

For all of my complaining, for every person who stuck with it and managed to get into the system quickly fell in love.  I have successfully rented 3 of my properties in a 2 month timeframe and was able to process most of the documentation electronically.  The only time I needed to print any documents was for a copy of the lease for a local utilities department that required it to turn on utilities.

Something that I had not considered, but became incredibly valuable was the in a communications.  When Hurricane Michael hit Panama City last month, all of my tenants were impacted.  With all cable providers knocked out and only 1 mobile company able to provide cell and data service, many of us were using temporary mobile devices for internet service.  The TC accounts kept all my communications together.  And now the maintenance feature where you or the tenant can attach photos and videos of particular problems is starting to shine.  A ticket request creates another chat line between myself and the tenant so I can inform them of upcoming work so they can better prepare for it.  And as they discover additional damages, they can immediately provide pictures and additional information that I can then forward to the various insurance adjusters.

The accounting module isn't great, but it will do the job. Since I still only have a cell phone available to record income and expenses, it serves very well. When I finally have access to cable internet again, I can expect my financials into Wave.  I've never done it before, but the beauty of the stopped down module is that the financial import has fewer points of potential error.

If something comes along that can provide the ticketing, communication, and document features AND fixes the tenant onboarding process, I'll seriously consider making a change.  Until then, the front end problems are easily outweighed by everything else.