10 Common Landlord Complaints About Tenants
There are dozens upon dozens of complaints that landlords have made about some of their more problematic tenants, but in the interest of time, we’ve condensed them down into ten o the most common and most frustrating acts. Here are the most common landlord complaints we consistently hear:
- Tenants who do not pay their rent on time (or at all.)
- Tenants who do not take care of the landlord’s property as contracted/expected.
- Tenants who do not pay untility bills (such as electric, gas, etc.), thereby causing unnecessary disruptions and further problems (like frozen pipes when water has been turned off.)
- Tenants who complain about their landlords or property managers via social networking sites.
- Tenants who refuse to pay penalty fees on late payments.
- Tenants who are impossible to reach for any reason.
- Tenants who repeatedly push boundaries (and buttons!) defined in the agreed upon lease.
- Tenants who either leave in the middle of the night, or on the other end of the spectrum, who are practically impossible to get to leave at all.
- Tenants who allow other people to occupy the space or “sublet” from them without permission.
- Tenants who grumble about everything, no matter how insignificant it may be.
How can a landlord avoid experiencing the majority of these kinds of tenancy nightmares? Three words: Always screen tenants.
If you avoid the tenants with a bad track record from the very beginning, you’re much less likely to have these frustrating problems later. For instance, a thorough tenant background check can uncover a host of items you might never have known before, including less-than-appealing credit scores, surprising criminal records, hidden evictions, landlord-tenant court proceedings and more.
Remember – if you don’t rent to bad tenants, you won’t have to ever deal with bad tenants. Tenant screening is a quick and easy process to avoid the headache of less than desirable tenants.