Renting your home to strangers (or friends) can be and usually is a nightmare. We were against renting our home out because we have heard so many stories from friends and relatives about what their tenants did to them and their property. It's common knowledge that the law is on the side of a tenant. What you might not know is that if you leave something at the house the tenant can steal it, pawn it or do whatever he likes with it.
So if we were against renting, why did we decide to do it? We were desperate to leave the town we were in because of some situations we had encountered there. As is the case with many people right now selling our house was not an option since we owed more than we could sell it for. My husband happened to hire a man to work in his department at the factory and he needed a place for himself, his wife and 5 kids to live. We thought it was ideal because the guy would be working with my husband and therefore would likely pay the rent since my husband was his boss. Well we thought wrong. Within a few months the guy had quit and took a job elsewhere. When he quit he made accusations about my husband that caused problems for him at work then he stopped paying rent. He had not been very reliable with the rent payment when he was working for my husband but at least we were getting a little bit of money each week from him.
We started the eviction process right away. It took 3 months but they did move out. We expected damage to the house so we weren't surprised to find upon inspecting the house that the carpets were all damaged with stains, a ceiling fan blade was cracked off, the screens in the sun room were destroyed by their dog and a door was almost completely scratched through by their dog. We also found that they had stolen my $300 miter saw and some other tools we had left behind. We left the saw because the tenant said he was sort of handy and we told him he could build a partition wall upstairs in the loft area if he wanted to so his kids could have more privacy (he used it as a bedroom).
Remember when I said the law is on the side of the tenant? We went to court, paid the lawyer $600 to do a terrible job representing us and walked away with a judgment for the rent owed, the lawyer and court fees but no money for damages. The saw we discovered before the court hearing had been pawned and was still at the pawn shop. The judge would not take into evidence the pawn shop slip showing that the tenant had pawned the saw. He said it was heresay. The police would not take possession of the saw and give it back to us because there is no law forbidding a tenant from taking (and pawning or selling) any property left in the house. Basically, you leave it there for them to 'use' and they can 'use' it however they choose, including using it to get money. Landlords don't know this.
Of course we have not received any money from the former tenant and as we were in the process of getting his wages garnished he got fired from his job. So, there's no point going to court and wasting your money, unless the lawyer is willing to forgo payment until judgment is final and then they can deal with getting the money from the tenant if the judge orders that the tenant owes for lawyer fees. We lost money on the lawyer, we lost our saw, we had to spend several thousand dollars to replace all the carpets. Do NOT rent.
We talked to a couple at the courthouse who were suing their tenants. They owned a couple properties and were dealing with problems with the tenants at both of them. My sister rented a couple properties out and had problems getting rent payments from them and getting them evicted is a several month process. We ended up screwing up our credit because there wasn't any rent money coming in so we had no money to pay the mortgage. Although we were able to get caught up, after moving back into the house, we are still paying for it with a bad credit rating.
Renting is not worth the headache and hassle. If you have to rent then I suggest, whether renting to stranger or friend, take before pictures, have the tenants sign something verifying the condition of the house at the time they took possession of it and if you leave anything at the house for them to use write in the lease that it is there for them to use while living there, not to sell. The lease our tenants signed was one I pulled up online but it is suggested you have a lawyer draw up the lease. We didn't take before pictures and we didn't have the tenants sign a form re: the condition of the house because we didn't want them to think we didn't trust them. Don't worry about your tenants feelings. If they are decent tenants they will understand that you have to protect yourself.
I hope you have learned from our mistakes and if you do decide to rent I hope it's a better experience than most.
No comments:
Post a Comment