Our tenant occupied a SFH in a nice neighborhood, a recently divorced single mom who wanted her kids to stay close to her dad and was struggling financially.

During the course of 3 years, she has stayed with us, we have not collected late fees for all the months she had paid laid. We even moved the payment date to 15th to work around her job's pay date.

She has been 1 month late for the last 1 year and we have been giving her the benefit of doubt given that she is a single mom of 3 and struggling financially.

Her lease is set to end this month, and she was supposed to catch up her payment before she leaves.

However, we scheduled a walkthrough of the house before they leave only to find out that she has vacated the house, with the keys in the kitchen.

There is no communication from her, nor has she provided a forwarding address. If she wanted to work with us to schedule a 12-month payoff, we would have worked with her. But she decides to take advantage of our goodwill and being accommodating of her financial struggles.

Now I have no recourse in collecting the 2 months' rent, $3600 and half the deposit will be lost in fixing the house to lease again.

What have you all done in this scenario? Any guidance is appreciated.

I posted on the original post as well.

Update 5/20: Hi all, I wanted to give an update on this. As usual, Reddit was right. I’m pretty sure I was taken by a professional squatter. Or actually I don’t think they were that professional or smart about it if that’s who they are. I kept getting some bs about their bank account being frozen because their bank thinks the transaction is fraud. On 5/8 they send a portion on the rent - not even 50% and stated their bank will release the rest on 5/20 - today. I reached out to them to find out what’s going on because needless to say I have been very patient with them. Came 4:30pm they stated they’re contacting customer service to see why their account is still frozen. Banks close at 5:00pm. The account is still “frozen”. Now time for the hard conversations. I told me I need the remaining payments by this evening the latest. Got some sob messages about how frustrating it is and never missed a payment before and can’t give when they don’t have. I politely stated I’ve been patient enough and I have bills to get paid as well. If I cannot receive the payments they need to vacate to home by Monday. They responded with how are they supposed to move within 4 days, no assurance of hey I will pay. So yeah that tells me I’m not getting my payment. Since I’m in NC I saw some comments that I may need to wait for 10days notice. But I definitely going to begin the process. Lesson learned, can’t be too nice in business and always take guarantee funds up front.

5/21: I keep think why would a bank hold someone’s account on the basis of “fraud” even after you confirm it’s not. If they are indeed “professional tenants” what’s the game plan in trying to get only one month of living space?
Thinking back to when I used to work at a bank, the only times I saw the bank freeze an account is due to a court order. Could this be on what’s happening to this person? I know they’re not being truthful with me at all. They had evictions on their records and obviously the court ruled in the favor of the plaintiff. Could it be that they owe that money to the other landlords and it’s a court order hold on their account. I’m just not understanding the advantages of their plan, and how are they so okay with their account being frozen for so long. Like there seems to be no sense of urgency on their part. At this point I reached out again and same lack of communication. This has all been a frustrating process.

I have a small cabin that I normally rent for $1k. It was empty when I found out about a woman I knew that was about to become homeless, so I let her rent the cabin. She was on SS disability and could only afford to pay $400 a month.

She was a very private person and only texted me to let me know she had posted rent (always a money order in an envelope taped to the door). She didn't text me the first of April. After a couple of texts with no response I called the sheriff for a wellness check and they found her dead. The coroner estimated she had been dead for a week.

I had to hire a bio cleanup crew. The had to remove tiles, flooring and a section of sub-flooring. The bill was $4k. My insurance deductible is $3.5k and insurance paid the rest.

Her stepmother came from out of town to get her things, but only took a couple of items of value and left us everything else including her beat up old car. My wife and I are a bit overwhelmed. We took her non-perishable food to a food bank, and made several trips to the local charity with her other stuff and a lot of stuff to the dump. I have a guy coming tomorrow to give an estimate on repairing the floor.

We found the title to her car, but I don't a clue how to transfer it. It is a 2007 Kia Spectra worth approximately $700.

Any landlords that can give any advice at all would be appreciated. Like I said, my wife and I are a bit overwhelmed. I've been a landlord on and off since I was 27 (I'm now 67), but I've never had to deal with anything like this.

TIA

Hi, the PM I am working with has $50,000 in delinquent tenant fees. I asked them how they are going to collect it. They said it will go to court, and they will try and collect it. After asking they wiped the past 8 month records from Yardi.
Should I forget going after this money? I want the records, and I want to hold them accountable, but I guess that will be hard? Does anyone have experience with this?

I have a great prospective tenant that wants a tour and I don’t want to lose them. The current tenant is snarky, entitled and spews lots of attitude towards me at every interaction of the current lease. So I worry during the tour they will scare the prospect off with either lies or just attitude etc. 

Should I warn the prospect that we are not on the beat of terms to give them a heads up about whatever they say or do is to be taken with a grain of salt? 

How do I approach this so I don’t lose out of this prospect? 

First tours are required as a part of the lease with proper notice. I gave proper notice already. A week notice which was more than fair. 

Second I have been given a notice to vacate already by the tenant. It was their choice to leave. 

Third I have asked the tenant what time would work for them and they won’t respond. They don’t think I should be doing tours while they live there. 

California: Purchased occupied property, eviction process.

Location: California

The property was foreclosed, owner died in 2020 with a home loan on the property and defaulted in 2023, recorded with a judgement to the bank.

I see in 2025 a Trustees deed upon sale to the bank from the default servicing corporation to the bank.

Two homes on one APN, occupied.

One with occupants having lived there more than 1 year (let's call this person W) and the second less than one year (let's call this person C).

This is my fist time starting an eviction and my questions are:

I have yet to speak or meet with W / C, no contact at all.

I'd prefer not to go to court, I will likely be offering cash for keys but I'm not sure if that will work. So:

• What papers will I be serving them?

60 day notice?

I can see on the pre-lim paperwork that W filed in 2024 these records:

Affidavit of death, and Quit Claim deed.

This person is stating an executor of the deceased and claiming their property.

What does this entail for me?

I have reached out to local real estate attorneys, have not heard back yet.

Thank you.

Hi All,

I rent out a SFH in the DFW suburbs, as some of you know, wind/hail is a problem here in the Spring and its likely that you may need to replace your roof due to this eventually.

I am getting ready to send out a renewal notice to my tenants but over the last year both my property taxes (homestead fell off) and LandLord insurance skyrocketed, and left me with a higher mortgage payment due to an escrow shortage. I currently pay $3065 a year for insurance with a $5000 all peril deductible (based on the dwelling protection, this works out to like 1.25%?)

I am trying to get the cost down so that I can cash flow a bit on the rent and I got a quote from Honeycomb for $2991 with a 2.25% deductible and from Steadily for like $181 a month but with a 3% deductible.

Now, I know in the short term it would save money by increasing the deductible but it seems to me that one hailstorm with a 3% deductible and that savings goes right out the window.

So should I just keep my current insurance, call them and ask if there is anything they can do? Or switch to a cheaper but higher deductible plan?

My tenants are looking to move out in "a few weeks". They may move out in 2 weeks, or they may not move out for a couple months.

I'm trying to be fair; they've been good tenants.

In terms of getting rent paid during the holdover period, do I ask for a full month's rent, and then refund the difference when they actually vacate? Does the answer change if they have a firm anticipated move-out date?

I signed a lease at the end April to rent a place starting June 1st. During the lease signing that land lord said we could move in Memorial Day weekend at no extra cost. So I was like cool. I asked him multiple times afterwards if he was still okay with us moving in Memorial Day weekend. I was grateful that I offered to let him keep some of his old furniture in the garage while he tries to sell it so he doesn’t have to pay for storage or throw the items away. He accepted the offer. Fast forward to 8pm tonight I get an email saying we are good to move in two days before June. I said sorry we were under the impression Memorial Day weekend was our move in.

He then stated he was confused. He didn’t realize that Memorial Day weekend was earlier than that. He blamed me for not pointing it out to him. Now he’s saying we can still move in but he’s going to charge a prorated quarter months rent.

I already paid for a moving truck and for plane tickets for my family to come help me move so changing dates is not an option. But I wasn’t expecting to have to pay 400-700$ extra on top of 1st months rent and deposit for him mistaking when Memorial Day weekend was.

[Landlord US-CA] How do you protect yourself after a tenant causes $15k in damages and moves out of state?

We’re landlords in Moreno Valley, CA (Riverside County), and we just had a nightmare tenant situation. Looking for advice from other California landlords on how you actually protect yourselves from this happening again.

A former tenant caused around $15,000 in damages to our property.

Some of the damage included:

• Ripping out all bedroom doors
• Ripping out closet doors and shelving
• Breaking windows
• Damaging cabinets to the point we had to repaint/fix/replace parts of them (looked like someone had been punching them)
• Damaged walls (holes/punch marks)
• Broke concrete/pathway area leading to the front door by driving/parking cars where they shouldn’t have been (we have before-and-after pictures)
• General destruction that required major repairs/remodeling

Just the repairs ended up being about $15k total. Their security deposit was $4,000 (rent was about $2,000/month and we collected 2x rent as deposit), which obviously didn’t come close to covering the damage.

The biggest issue: the tenant moved out of state, so now collecting feels impossible.

A few questions for experienced California landlords:

1. How are you protecting yourselves from situations like this? Are you requiring cosigners/guarantors so if a tenant disappears or leaves the state, someone else can still be held responsible?
2. Walkthroughs: I was thinking about requiring a move-out walkthrough with tenants, but what happens when tenants avoid it or refuse to show up? Do you schedule/document everything and move forward without them?
3. Small claims: Do you file in small claims immediately after move-out? Or do you start the process once notice is given? How are you serving tenants who move out of California?
4. Enforcing judgments: Even if you win in small claims, how are you actually collecting? Wage garnishment? Collections? Is it realistically worth pursuing?
5. Security deposits in California: What’s the best way to legally protect yourself now that California has limits on security deposits? Any strategies you’ve found that actually help reduce risk?

We have extensive photos/videos from before move-in and after move-out, invoices, receipts, and documentation of damages.

Looking for practical advice from landlords who’ve actually dealt with destructive tenants in California.

I’m 24 years old, no college degree and no debt, residing in upstate ny. A year and a half ago, I landed a job with the railroad. Standard 40 hour work week, salary works out to be roughly 85,000 per year. I’ve been doing research on multi family investing for years now and I’ve always wanted to retire as soon as possible. I currently have 27k in a high yield savings account, 11k in my Roth IRA, and I like to keep as little as possible in my checking, usually around 1 or 2 thousand. I live in an area where buying a 3-4 family home for 3-400k is possible, and that’s the direction my brains been headed. Live in one unit, make (maybe) 4-500 bucks per month after all rents are paid, move out a couple years later, and buy another. I can’t wrap my head around throwing 1500 a month away renting when I could be having tenants contribute to equity in a property. Seeing everyone on social media being my age and millionaires just motivates me to get there on my timeline… hopefully by early to mid 40s. Stocks are definitely the safer, less stressful way to go about it, but I’ve always had this dream and I want to try to make it work. I’m aware of the hassle that comes with being a landlord, but I’m ready to deal with it. I’ve never made a Reddit post but just decided to see if anyone had any feeback they’d be willing to share on if this is a good plan, or if I’m just way better throwing it all in the s&p.

Hi. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what charges I can pass to tenants.

Tenants complained of a sweet smell in the house and thought it was carbon monoxide. Although we have CO detectors installed in the dwelling, we purchased a handheld CO meter/detector, tested it at the exhaust of our vehicle, and then proceeded to show the tenants there was no CO leak.

Tenant complained again. Sweet smell causing them headaches. Said it’s likely an AC Freon leak.

Called the HVAC. No leak. Unit working fine. No signs of any Freon leaking. Service fee of $125.

Can I pass this charge on to my tenants or am I just on the hook for this? If there was a real issue, I would absolutely cover the cost. But I feel like I’m chasing a ghost smell here.

Thx

I’m a resident physician finishing up my training in Chicago, with my full time employment starting soon after I graduate in a few months. My salary will be ~$300,000/year and I can provide my contract for verification.

I will be upfront and state that my credit is not the best (569) due to medical school and residency application expenses in the last 5 years. I have been a renter for over 10 years, have never been evicted or late on rent, and no bankruptcies.

I know that my credit score will be a big red flag, but would my income and job possibly offset the negative ding from my score?

Many of the places I've looked require a minimum of 650 credit score with no exceptions.

My tenant is supposed to be out 5/30 but I went by the property the other day and no evidence of packing. It's a 2k sqft townhouse. They said they have another place and plan to be out on time but I am worried he is going to be moving out a few days past the lease period. His kid gets out of school on the 29th so it will be a lot for them to move during her year end but that is not my problem, I gave them 90 days to prepare. I have the property being painted on June 1st and it's going up for sale June 8th. I already served the notice to vacate making it clear that there will be no hold over period.

Should I do the walk through a week before on May 23rd or should I do it on May 30th? At what point would you start freaking out that a tenant isn't moving out on time?

I own a small 1 bedroom condo in New Orleans, LA, that I rent for $1350/mo. When I was looking for a new tenanting, several people passed on it because the apartment does not have a washer and dryer in unit. I have started researching what it would take to have washer/dryer hookups installed. The lowest price quoted is $3,500 to install water lines, drain, venting, and power.

Now I have a few of questions:

1. How much more can one ask for rent with an in-unit washer/dryer?
2. Is it worth getting a hookup installed if it takes ~3-5 years to recoup the cost?
3. Can a small all-in-one combo unit work for a rental unit? These require only require 120 volt power and are ventless, but I am dubious of reliability.

Trying to figure out the best way forward t make my unit more marketable. Please note there are coin-op laundry facilities in the building. Thanks.

My tenant:

1. ⁠Ignored my request to remove trampoline for months. Is now asking for addendum.
2. ⁠⁠Frequently pays rent late for months at a time. Pays late fee. (Also had questionable credit 630 ish)
3. ⁠⁠Is very handy and helps with repairs
4. ⁠⁠Takes good care of the house

Hopefully this is okay to post in this sub. First of all, this is a situation that is going on next door to me. Around May of last year my next door neighbor died. Her family abandoned the house, she was a renter, the landlord of the property hired a guy to clean out the house. I never really saw him cleaning much of anything. The backyard was full of stuff and he was pressure washing the sidewalks.

Fast forward to November and this same guy moved into the house. He’s what I would classify as a junk hauler that collects stuff, he has hoarding tendencies. Around ten cars and the front/ backyard is full of junk now. They are also noisy and have told me they don’t care what neighbors think. I highly suspect drugs and the guy has a long rap sheet. In January of this year, the property sold to a guy that is an investor. I decided to give him a call to see what was being done about the property. He told me the property was being managed by a property management company and that he’s doing everything he can to get the people out of the house. He also shared he was forced to buy the place because the owner wouldn’t sell another piece of property he wanted to buy. So he was sort of strong armed into this situation.

It’s now May and the collecting of junk continues, lots and lots of people coming and going, noise at all hours; a real neighbor from hell situation. So, I decided to call the property management company to see what is being done. She told me that they are working with the city and owner to clean up the property. She would not share if the tenants would be out of the property soon. Why can’t she share that? This is the part I am confused on, she called me back and asked me to call code enforcement. She wanted me to tell code enforcement to call the property management company? It makes no sense to me. I did do it and I’ve called code enforcement plenty of times on this property. Not much has been done. I did notice that junk vehicles were tagged for towing today but the neighbor swapped licenses. I reported it to the police. Do you think this owner/ property management company are/ will evict these tenants? Please share some insights if you have them!