I’m sure a lot of owners that have family parks deal with tenants that will not keep their lot clean, trash picked up, stuff organized. And their home is also in disrepair and a big eyesore as you drive through the park. How do you address this issue after you have already given the tenant violation notices and had the manager get on their case?We have owned this park for approx. 1 year and its a nice park overall. There are just a few tenants that refuse to comply with our expectations. Do you simply non-renew and get them out now? Or as I’ve heard Frank suggest, hire someone to clean the lot, fix skirting, etc and then bill back the cost to the tenant?I don’t think its likely that these tenants will change their ways, so I’m most likely going to non-renew them.
Rob,If it was a matter of money for the skirting, you might work with the tenant. In the case, you have several tenants who refuse to comply with the rules. I would non-renew with the proper notice (or evict for violation of the rules). You say that the park is nice overall and the homes are an eyesore. You may be losing good potential tenants (or even current tenants) if you allow these few tenants to try to turn the park into a dump. The other tenants will respect you for getting them out and marginal tenants will start to behave better.Howard
Kick them out. It’s like amputating a limb – the whole point is to sacrifice the micro for the benefit of the macro. “Trashy” people are a cultural problem and you cannot solve it. If you think they are hurting the park terribly then kick them out. If you don’t want to lose that much money (you’re going to lose the value of each occupied lot becoming vacant, and then it will cost you $25,000+ to re-fill that lot), then you can try to salvage them by making the necessary minimum repairs, and riding it out. Personally, I’d try every path but kicking them out, because if you boot three tenants, that’s probably $75,000 of value out of your pocket. Make sure you are not over-reacting to the perceived damage to the park – do the other tenants really care or is it just you? Kicking people out is a very expensive proposition just because of aesthetics.Kicking people out for non-payment of rent, on the other hand, is always the right thing to do. It’s the only way to make them pay.
We do not have leases but when faced with your issue I have raised their rent 75% and keep it there until they either moved or cleaned up and you can reward the clean-up by giving some or all of the increases rent money back. You must have penalties for violating your guidelines or get rid the guidelines if you are not willing to enforce them. The people in your park will hear about that person’s rent raise and the rest will be nice sheep.