Author Topic: renters having house guests  (Read 3290 times)

TheBeeKeeper

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renters having house guests
« on: July 13, 2017, 08:42:11 AM »
we have a single family rental, it's rented to a family who've generally been good tenants

a couple of weeks ago they brought in their friends, a young couple, and it turns out they're staying in the spare bedroom for a month or so.
How do you landlords go about situations like this? When we asked them they said they're good friends visiting , and "this is not a sublet"
The couple is about to leave in a few days, so not sure how we should approach it this time, or prepare for the next time this may happen

Jon Bon

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2017, 09:06:41 AM »
I dont feel it would be worth the trouble.

How did you even know that they had guests over? Did they tell you?

My rental strategy is I want them to tell me things, and I dont want to 'punish' them for being up front with me. I had a guy who wanted his GF's dogs to come over and stay the night type deal. I was glad he brought this up and told me, so we worked something out that was fair to both of us. Would I prefer the dogs not being there at all? Sure, could I have said absolutely not? Yes, but they are going to come over anyways right? And if I 'caught' him in the act what am I going to do evict a good tenant over it? No way.

I give them a gentle reminder, or "hey I'd appreciate a heads up next time" and leave it at that. If it happens again, or becomes and issue for some reason then I would take action.

Live an let live my friend!


jwright

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2017, 09:11:17 AM »
Our lease says that subleasing is not allowed without consent of the Landlord.  It then states that the tenant must have written consent for guests to occupy the premises for more than 14 days.

In practice, I don't know how you really police this though.  First, I don't know that we would notice unless there was a parking issue or complaint.  Second, they would still be following the letter of the lease if they had multiple people in and out, or visitors for the majority of the year at differing intervals or any other combination.  So long as the additional guests are not causing issues for the neighbors, and the vetted tenants are still in place, there's not much we can do.


TheBeeKeeper

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2017, 09:13:14 AM »
I dont feel it would be worth the trouble.

How did you even know that they had guests over? Did they tell you?


we live next door :) difficult to hide this kind of thing
They did tell us, only but after the friends arrived to town



Cwadda

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2017, 10:19:13 AM »
What does your lease say? My leases say the only persons(s) living in the house are the ones originally signed on the lease. Any increase in the number of occupants is subject to an increase in rent.

I'd try to get more $. Not a whole lot more, but more. Extra people living there is extra wear and tear on a house. It's also more of a liability.

Scortius

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2017, 12:02:54 PM »
If it's just a month and it's just visiting, then meh, I would be fine with it.  If it becomes a consistent issue, then yes, you should have a talk about it with your tenants and make things more explicit before the next occurrence.  If they're actually subletting a room, then yes, that would be another opportunity to have a chat with the tenants.  Otherwise, no, I wouldn't worry.

Overflow

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2017, 07:21:56 AM »
We own a duplex, and our lease says they have to get permission for any a guests staying longer than 5 days.

I told them it would mostly likely not be a problem if they had guest staying longer, but that I expected to be notified ahead of time. Mainly, I would want the names and contact info for their guest (especially if they were staying a month!). It's my responsibility to be aware of who is on my property for long periods of time, and to be able to contact them if a need arises. Since its a duplex, it's also my responsibility to the tenant on the other side to make sure that I am providing a safe and quality place to live. When new person starts hanging around the property for a month, I might even consider asking to run a background check first.

TheBeeKeeper

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2017, 07:28:30 AM »
thanks everyone for the replies, this is very helpful.
The contract does say no more than 5 days, but we also told them in most cases it should not be a problem
I will tell them they need to notify us in advance next time


sokoloff

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2017, 08:04:53 AM »
As a prior (mostly good) tenant, I'd have pretty much ignored whatever the landlord wanted to write in the lease about guests. I've had girlfriends staying over, one move in, and guests visiting and never had an issue. I certainly wouldn't want to contact the landlord if my brother was visiting for 6 days or if had a significant other sleeping over regularly.

If a landlord wanted to make a point over the matter and threatened to cancel the lease, I'd be more than happy to move out over it. (This is a tenant who always paid on time, fixed minor broken things around the apartment, brought in my own washer when the landlord's included-in-lease washer broke [after coordinating with him], etc. Other than ignoring the guest policy, I was pretty much exactly the tenant you dream about and I paid the guy's mortgage and then some for 5.5 years.)

I support the landlord putting in guest clauses and if I get into the business I will have such clauses in the lease, because you have to protect against the very worst tenant behavior (turning your rental into a meth lab and having 20 people crashing there and trashing the place).

But, if you want to whack me for extra rent because my girlfriend moved in and she's going to wear the place out faster, well, then we're not the right landlord-tenant match and I'll be moving out.

fredbear

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2017, 08:53:53 AM »
I rented to college students in groups of 5, and had a "shithead boyfriend/girlfriend" clause in the lease.  When we sat down to go through the lease and we hit that provision, I would tell them, "One of you will end up with a shithead girlfriend.  You know, the one your friends can't stand.  Your parents can't stand.  Your roommates can't stand." (They all turn and look at Dave, who says, "Ah, jees, guys, she's not that bad.")  If she stays more than 10 days in a month, any 10 days, the rent goes up by a fifth and you all have to pay for her.  Now, one characteristic of the shithead girlfriend/boyfriend is they are cuckoos.  They want to slip in to the place, and root somebody else out of the nest.  The rest of you are the somebody else.  When the shithead girlfriend or boyfriend approaches 10 days in a month, or if you just get sick and tired of running into him all the time, you just have to tell your roommate you are about to call me and you're going to make him pay for the extra expense you all incur.  It's just a way to help the one with the shithead boyfriend or girlfriend get chordate, because even they get tired of having him around all the time."

Usually at the end of a tenancy I'd ask them if they'd had to invoke the shithead girlfriend clause, and (nearly) all of them would grin and say they'd used it once or twice.  The one who didn't grin would say, "Ah, jees, guys, if you'd just gotten to know her...."  When four of them grinned and looked at the other, who looked sheepish and finally grinned, you knew at least one bullet had been dodged.

CareCPA

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Re: renters having house guests
« Reply #10 on: July 14, 2017, 09:07:50 AM »
thanks everyone for the replies, this is very helpful.
The contract does say no more than 5 days, but we also told them in most cases it should not be a problem
I will tell them they need to notify us in advance next time
If they warn you, are you going to tell then "no"? If not, why even bother.
If you say no and they do it anyway, are you going to move to evict or charge them more? If not, then again, why bother?

Make sure you define your process, and are willing to follow through with whatever that process is. If my landlord told me he was going to evict me if I had a long-term guest, and then didn't evict me when I had a long-term guest, I would assume he was a pushover in other areas as well.