Renting property is a responsibility that requires plenty of patience to achieve. Both sides of the business relationship must hold up their duties if this is to work well. As a landlord, you are both a mediator of upkeeping a certain standard of living and care. You will also be requiring your tenants to contribute to that. The life of a landlord can be stressful, as many issues can crop up (sometimes at all once,) that may impede you from being paid, or reduce your profit margin considerably.
One of the most cardinal fears of every landlord is a bad tenant. These tenants usually neglect to pay on time or at all. They may damage the property and will take time to become legally evicted. If you’re a landlord or tenant alike, it’s your responsibility to try and avoid these people or avoid becoming one of them.
Every tenant should bring a certain amount of stock benefits to the table. These benefits are explored in this article. If you’re a landlord, this advice should help you discern the best potential tenants to become involved with. If you’re a tenant, consider these the holy rules of renting property (particularly if this is your first time.)
What All Tenants Should Bring To The Table
A Good History Or Backup
It’s important for landlords to feel secure in the tenants they bring into their property. Once the documents are signed for the tenancy, the landlord must undergo plenty of official notification and paperwork before they can force a tenant out. Of course, they would never like to force a tenant out. This is usually the last case scenario. This end result can be happily mediated before it gets to that point.
As a new tenant, you should care about providing a good history to prove your worth. This might mean showing your credit report, your income and bank statements, on top of any positive testimonials you can find from previous tenancies. If this is your first tenancy, it can always be beneficial to call upon your parents or other trusted relative to act as a form of collateral if you do not pay rent. This is a strong method of gaining the trust of a landlord. Two dedicated payment sources are always more trustworthy than one.
Tenants should bring anything to the table they can. This might be a positive testimonial from a boss or professional colleague. Simply anything to confirm your character will help. This is what landlords look for.
Respectful Self-Decoration
While you own the property, you must also allow for your tenants to decorate their rented space while they are there. For all intents and purposes, this is their home too. This means that affording them space to express themselves how they want (provided they are keeping up with the payments and not causing any fire hazards,) should be allowed.
You should always give them the benefit of the doubt. You can tell a tenant you should trust by their ability to notify you of changes they hope to make within the property itself. Allowing them a little leeway (maybe even painting walls during long-term tenancies,) could really do a lot for the business relationship. However, as a tenant, it is your responsibility to ensure you conform to the landlord’s wishes and do not overstep the mark.
Transparency
Every landlord should be aware of news relating to their profession. For example, making yourself aware of the most important Residential buy to let stories will help you adapt your business strategy to the most effective methods the market is currently pursuing.
This should also quite clearly notify you of the difference between good and bad tenants. It’s becoming easier for fraudsters and scammers to take shorthold tenancy contracts for nefarious purposes. This is because less and fewer landlords are taking in-depth background checks in favor of earning money as soon as possible.
However, there are those times when you may have to hire the services of a trusted private investigator to pursue more information on ones background. This same service may help you as a landlord, to find a tenant that may have skipped off and owes you money.
Learning of the latest tricks, news stories of interest and other notable issues can help you choose the positive tenant over the bad tenant. A good tenant will submit to any and all background checks you require them to take. They will offer no excuses or strange stories around why their application is as it is.
Availability
There are times which your tenant will need to be contacted. If they fail to answer your repeated calls for contact, this can be an issue. This is true particularly if you need emergency access to the property. You can discern this by how upfront they are with the application process. How quickly do they have all documents in order? How rapidly do they return your calls? Are they prompt and on time for the property viewing in the first instance?
All of these can contribute to the overall seeming character of a tenant. They might help you make your decision. If documents take weeks to return, calls often go unreturned and you get the feeling that contacting your client is met with undue strain, you might be better suited to another option.
Honesty
Honesty is important. Unfortunately, there aren’t many ways you can track this without coming across as strangely overbearing. However, there are a few things you can do if need be. The next time you have a legitimate reason to visit the household, you might consider quickly scanning the place. If you notice dog bowls and food in a non-pet household, there might be something strange going on.
While this is quite a small and specific example, it’s not hard to see why many people prefer to take one lie as an indication that the whole business relationship is fragmented. Set up an aura of mutual transparency from day one. If the tenant doesn’t seem to reciprocate, you might have a problem. This can be best solved by keeping a list of either punishments or ‘no-go’ rules. These will explicitly lay out the penalties for acting in a manner contrary to your business relationship.
With these tips, you should find that your most appropriate tenant will find his or her way to your property. Do you have tenants on your homestead? Tell me what you do to ensure a profitable and successful relationship with them in the comment box below.