A friend of mine recently purchased an apartment building and several of the tenents have broken their lease due to financial reasons. They forfeighted the deposit for their last month’s rent, but there were still cleaning and repair costs involved after they left. What is the best way to prevent this from happening in the future?
Michael Karpie
My 2 cents.
- Charge an added cleaning cost to the deposit and refund
it when the place is left in good condition. - Charge 2 months rent as deposit - may not work quite well if there are a lot of vacancies around.
- Reaction - File judgements for small claim against these
tenants to recoup the damages. One can even garnish
wages as a creditor.
-krish
Thank for your response, Krish. There are a lot of vacancies at this time. Four in a seven-unit apartment. She has tried requiring additional deposit but then gets no takers. Rental amount is competitive.
Michael Karpie
Always start the eviction process as soon as you legally can in your state. You can always stop it if you want, but the time you waste getting started can come back to haunt you.
True,
Quick eviction is the way to go.
I also network with their previous landlord and make
sure they did leave on good terms. Any tip i get helps
me streamline and stay cautious with problem tenants.
I will also add tenant performance reports to the
national tenant network, so the next landlord can be
on the watch.
I also check the county courts they used to live in the
past for any possible black marks.
-Krish
I also use http://www.ntnonline.com/ an am very happy with the service. You have to have the tools, and use them to be effective.