Hi,
One of my tenants is a single mom and her boyfriend watches her kids for her at night when she works. I had 2 complaints from tenants that he has a felony for robbery and speeding in the park. I do not mind the felon part because I do not want to keep losing tenants. I am not making much money as is. We asked tenants to provide co-occupants names to us for a background check. She is keeping him secret but other tenants see him. What should I do? Risk offending the other 2 tenants and losing 2 lots rent or give single mom material violation for keeping a boyfriend a secret from the Park? Any ideas? Please help.
Interesting fact: we acquired a park full of felons and people with prior evictions on their records. Two years later I ran a data look-back. ALL the felons had paid all their rent. The evictees were people with minor or no criminal records but who had a record of defaulting on financial obligations. A couple of the felons told it to me like this: “You know how hard it is to find housing with my criminal record? The prior manager let me in this place and I’m never leaving. Of course I’m paying my rent.” Take it for what you will.
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Thanks for the reply. I don’t care if someone’s a felon, the park is doing poorly after the turnover, as long as they pay rent and don’t cause trouble I want them to stay. So the question is do I risk offending 2 other paying tenants because they already complain to management about the felon who is not a registered guest and speeds thru the park? What’s your take on a solution? Give the actual tenants who brought him in a material violation. A small warning? how to bring ti about to not offend anyone? I just want people to register their co-occupants that’s all.
It sound like you have difficulty actually managing your community/ being a good landlord. If you have community rules you must enforce them. If you do not have rules get some printed up and distribute them to all residents. Then you enforce the rules to the letter. When you enforce rules you will offend no one except those breaking your rules. Rule breakers don’t count.
You sound despirate which will prevent you from ever being a responsible landlord if your priority is to not offend anyone. The pandemic is essencially over. Time to start collecting back rent and evict undesirables.
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Hi Greg, Thank you for the wise words. We gave the tenant a material violation. We can evict with the 2nd material violation. Yes, you are right we have been making idle threats. It’s of no use.
To the point Greg makes: enforce your rules without exception, to the letter. If you don’t — if you enforce some but not others, on some tenants but not others — you’re opening yourself up to all sorts of discrimination accusations.
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