Landlords – No Dirty Tricks!

One of the worst things for a landlord is a non-paying tenant.  It creates a crisis in your business as the revenue you need to pay for the mortgage, insurance, taxes, repairs, etc stops coming in.  In years past, landlords had all sorts of dirty tricks to deal with non-paying tenants.  Tricks you had better not even think about doing today.

Tricks like:

1. Taking off the Front Door – This is one of the older more creative tricks landlords used to use.  If a tenant fell behind or did not pay, the landlord simply removed the front door, leaving the unit and the tenant’s possessions out in the open
2. Changing the Locks – The ultimate in “no pay – no stay.”  If the tenant wanted the new key and access to their stuff, they would have to pay up.
3. Shutting off the Heat – This worked especially well in the colder months, but the landlord ran the risk of frozen pipes.
4. Shutting off the Water – How long would you live in a place with out a flushing toilet, or the ability to take a shower?  The hope of many landlords was not for long.
5. Blocking Up the Sewer Line – Taking a 2×4 and jamming it in the sewer clean out line was another tactic.  It did not take long before the toilets stopped flushing and the showers stopped draining.  Can get pretty smelly fast.  Of course once the tenant is out, the landlord was left with a mess.

Like it or not, a landlord can get in a lot of trouble if they use any of the above tricks.  There are just too many lawyers out there waiting to sue you to take the chance.  Can you imagine what a judge would say in this day and age if they heard you shut off the heat on a family in the middle of winter or that you had removed their front door?  Instead of solving your problem and getting the tenants out, you have created a huge pay day for them, plus they get to stay.

Don’t let that sense of crisis you feel because you are not getting paid allow you to succumb to bad advice or do something stupid.  In years past, landlords had a lot of dirty tricks up their sleeves that they could get away with; some are still using them.

Today however, the best alternative when dealing with a non-paying tenant is to offer cash for keys.  This technique gets them out as quickly and as cheaply as possible with little or no mess to clean up later (or doors to put back on). Proper screening will also solve a lot of these problems.  Learn these two important techniques rather than resorting to dirty tricks.