Owning a rental property is undoubtedly a great way to generate passive income. However, when the rental property is damaged by the tenant, it can affect your investment. If you’ve recently faced this and expect such incidents in the future, here’s how you should handle it.
How to Handle the Tenant Destroying Property?
Step 1 – Identify The Reason
At first, you’ll have to identify how the property was damaged. If your rental property was damaged because the tenant threw a rowdy party or drilled holes in the walls, it’d be categorized as intentional damage. However, don’t think that all the property damages are intentional. Sometimes, your property can be damaged unintentionally. Also, you shouldn’t blame the tenant for wear and tear.
Step 2 – Document the Damaged Area
When you’re done identifying the cause, you’ll have to document everything. It’ll protect you from future disputes.
For documentation, you can list all of the damaged areas and utilities in your property or take pictures of the damaged area. It’s advised to hire a professional property inspector to document the damaged property.
Pro-Tip
As a landlord, you should take pictures of your house before the tenant moves into your property. This will help you determine the severity of the damage. Besides, if the tenant sues you, these before and after images can work as a piece of solid evidence.
Step 3 – Calculate the Repair Costs
After identifying the root cause and documenting the damage, you’ll have to repair the damaged property. If you need small repairs, you can hire a handyman. However, if the dimension of damage is big, you’ll have to hire a contractor.
While hiring a contractor, you should get a quote and compare. However, when you hire a property management agency for repair, they have a database of affordable contractors and handymen. You can talk with the agency and hire one that meets your demand.
How to Deal with an Agreeable Tenant
Having an agreeable tenant is every landlord’s dream. If the tenant admits that they have accidentally damaged the property, you should handle this issue cordially. Again, if the tenant isn’t in a position to pay for the repair costs or doesn’t have enough money in the security deposit, you can offer a favorable payment option to the tenant.
After settling on how the tenant will pay the repair costs, you’ll have to document everything and sign a contract between you and the tenant.
How to Deal with an Aggressive Tenant
As soon as you notice that the tenant is destroying your rental property intentionally, you’ll have to call the police. If you have photographs of your rental property before and after, this will be easier, and the police may charge heavy fines to the tenant.
Again, in some cases, property repair costs can exceed the security deposit. In this case, you can sue the tenant and claim the repair costs.
However, after several warnings, you must file for eviction if the tenant continues damaging your property.
Conclusion
As a rental property investor, it can throw you off balance when your property is damaged. If needed, you should talk to a lawyer and practice all the available rights in this situation. Also, while dealing with this issue, you must document everything.
