Common Rental Problems

[homealone]

Here are a few problems that most often occur when renting out an apartment or a house.

These are things that should be thought over and clearly stated in your rental agreement what your wishes are. That way there are no questions that later can cause problems.

1. At times there are tenants who invite others to stay with them without prior permission from the owner or landlord. If this is something that you don't want to happen then it should be clearly stated in your contract with your tenants.

2. Failure to pay rent or the inability to pay rent. For a course such as this, you need to be able to either work something out or state eviction notice in the contract. For example if rent is not paid in such and such time then eviction proceedings will begin.

3. Property damage. This is something that no owner or landlord wants to deal with but sad to say it does happen. In your contract with the tenant or tenants you need to clearly state that all damages must be reported and so on. You always need to make sure that you cover yourself when it comes to something like this.

4. This is something that most landlords don't require tenants to have and that is renters insurance. Personally this is something that landlords should require tenants to have. It just seems to me that it would be a very good idea.

Of course this is not everything that a contract should cover. There are many other things for landlords or owners to consider when renting out either an apartment or a house.

There are a lot of things to consider when your renting out a home to someone and each of these things should be considered carefully. So before sitting down and making up a contract think carefully of everything you want to have happen and of course all the things that you don't want to happen and clearly state each of them in the contract.

[luv2flip]

I think landlords get away with to much, they sure want the rent, but do not want to ever fix anything.

I have had to many landlords like that, ones tell you just to fix it, and do want to take any money off the rent for it, if I have to fix it with my own money might as well own it, the reason I wanted to rent was for them to fix it, but out of my last 3 or 4 land lords none of them fixed anything, not even big things like electric problems.

[Eyeofngt]

So True Luv2flip!!! You should have the one I have. geezz he will not do anything and will not let us do it and take it off the rent.

The only way I can get anything done is to hold the rent and tell him when this or that is fixed you will get it. I shoul;d turn him inot the Landlords asso. He is an butthead. I have never had this problem before and it is so fustrating.

[homealone]

Well when you come up against a landlord who is lazy there are things that you can do to make sure that you are protected and get the things that need to be fixed finally fixed.

First off start by checking over your contract carefully. Make sure that it is noted in there that the landlord is responsible for repairs to your rental.

Bring this to the landlords attention and still if nothing is done in a timely manner then head to the local court house. File a claim against your landlord and begin making your rent payments to the court house. Your landlord will not get a dime of rent money until the issues have been taken care of.

Save receipts of ALL repairs and things that you do to the place and take pictures if possible as well. Then if need be you can sue your landlord for failure to hold his or her end of the contract and you can get your money back for all that you have done.

There are things that you can do, you just have to be willing to take those steps.

[flippinout]

I have read all of your comments and one stated about holding the rent until the landlord fixes the problems.

You cant just "hold" the rent as this will null and void your rental contract. Instead, go to your local court house and talk to someone in the know there and check to see if there is somewhere that you can leave the rent payment at the courthouse.

In our state, you can pay your rent at the courthouse and the landlord cannot kick you out but in order to collect the rent, he has to prove that all repairs have been made.

Everything must be done legally to keep you from suffering any consequences from your actions and keep you from being evicted.

[flip_it_fast]

LOL, Homealone said to take the payments to the courthouse, not don't pay at all. That would definitely get ya in trouble and right quick too!

The first thing I would do is to talk to a lawyer. If you have low income you can get a lawyer at no cost through your county. He or she will set everything up as far as where to take your rent payments and get the ball rolling.

Many landlords are a-holes but there are great ones out there too.

[troubles74]

I have gotten in rentals with land lords that will not do anything to fix the house.I mean I have had rotten wood to the point that there are holes in the outside of the house.

I have had breakers trip on me daily,the wiring was so out of whack that half of the time it would not even work in certain places.Receptacles that are not anchored to the wall so when you pull a cord out the entire box will come out of the wall.

The entire time the land lord is talking about raising the rent on me to.It sucks.

[homealone]

That sounded like a death trap Troubles. I do hope that your in a better place now.

The things that you described in your post are some serious issues that the landlord should have taken care of right away. Some one could have gotten seriously injured or even worse. These are the kinds of landlords where your money for rent should have been taken to the court house for them to hold until your landlord got off his or her lazy ass and did something to make your home which you were paying for livable.