Scenario #1: Melissa has been in your rental home almost as
long as you’ve owned it. And it’s been a
good ride! It started out as a standard
tenant-landlord relationship with formal calls for repairs and rent checks sent
solitarily in the envelope. But over the
years, Melissa (now “Mel”) has really grown on you and vice-versa.
It started when she had some tough financial times and asked
for you to allow some late payments. You
assented and wound up having some deep conversations after the initial rental
payment was discussed. A few years later,
the water pipe blew and ruined many of her things. You promised to make it right; Mel paid her
rent diligently and never complained about all the workmen coming in and out of
the house for a few weeks. She really
could have!
Over the years, Mel started sending some pictures of her
kids having major life events in with her rent check every few months. Oh, how you looked forward to seeing what had
become of her family. You were so proud
of them! But now, with Michael, Jr.
graduating at the end of the summer, Mel has told you that she needs to
downsize. And that means she’s moving
out.
Mel has been a tenant for 12 years. And you have to admit that your stomach has
been in knots since that phone call. On
one level, you knew this day was inevitable.
On another, it’s almost like losing a family member.
Scenario #2: Wally
moved into your Uptown Charlotte rental condo right after his internship at
Goldman Sachs ended in Manhattan
so he could take a job with Bank of America.
You knew Wally would never be Mel.
This condo was clearly a stepping stone for him to get used to the area
and figure out where he wanted to live in Charlotte
(or elsewhere in the world).
Wally was very cordial and business-like when you met him to
sign the 1-year lease. “You’ll probably
never hear from me!” he joked. And he
was right. He set up his on-line bill
pay and his rent checks showed up on time every month (sans any other
correspondence). And, expectedly, about
40 days prior to his lease expiration, you got an e-mail from him giving you
his 30-day notice to let you know he was moving out.
Two of your tenants are leaving and you’ll have to do two
walk-throughs so you can disburse the security deposits. Personal feelings aside, do you treat these 2
tenants differently from each other?
Absolutely.
Tenants should be charged for any damages beyond normal wear
and tear. The amount of normal wear and
tear for someone who lived in a rental unit for 1-year versus 12 years is
substantial.
Fix-up expectations for a 12-year rental:
1. Probable
repainting of entire home
2. Probable carpet
replacement
3. Professional
cleaning
4. Replacing
miscellaneous worn out items throughout house
Likely charge to tenant: $0.00
If a tenant lives in your property for 12 years, that’s a
lot of normal wear and tear. It would be
difficult to justify charging them anything (short of them detonating a bomb in
your home prior to move-out).
Fix-up expectations for 1-year rental:
1. Minor touch-up
paint
2. Carpet
steam-cleaning (hopefully already performed by tenant prior to move-out)
3. Professional cleaning
4. Any damages beyond
light wear and tear
Likely charge to tenant: That depends typically on how dinged
up the walls and flooring are and if there are any major items of damage. Tolerance for rental unit abuse is low.
Sorry, Wally, but you need to be really careful to keep
things nice if you’re only sticking around a year. But, Mel, you don’t need to worry so much and
thanks for staying so long (I’ll miss you!); just because you moved away
doesn’t mean you can’t keep in touch!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential
Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte
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