Filling up a vacancy can be a lot of hard work. You have to check every little detail to make sure the property is in its most pristine condition. You also have to advertise your property, but that part is easy when you use Padleads to create your property listing because you can easily syndicate it to other rental websites.
Probably one of the hardest things to do is decide who to accept as your tenant. The tenant you choose will be responsible for taking care of your property. Maintenance and repair is mainly your responsibility, but they need to do their part as well. Choosing a tenant is not only a one-step process. There are interviews, background checks, and verifying all the information they gave you.
Although you may find the perfect tenants, they may still cause problems without them noticing. I’m talking about if they invite guests over. You might be wondering about how a tenant guest can be bad for business. Well, they can be one of the reasons for your financial loss in several ways:
- Tenant guests can do damage to property.
- They can be dangerous to other tenants.
- They can get injured inside the property and will blame you.
- They can be a nuisance and scare away other tenants.
- They can commit a crime inside the premises.
Some tenant guests can be a little reckless because they know that they have a chance to get away with it. They neither signed a lease agreement with you nor formally promised to follow your rules.
Like I have said many times before, you should have this specified in your contract. Having house rules for tenant guests can help prevent any possible issues and will regulate your tenants. Here are a few items that you should include in your house rules:
Guests are a tenant’s responsibility.
They should know that if their guest commits any dangerous acts that can affect the property and other tenants, it will also reflect negatively on them, and they will also suffer the consequences. If they invite guests and asked for your approval, remind them of the safety rules and to control their guests’ behaviors.
Be specific on the maximum number of people allowed to stay for more than one night.
The number of guests should depend on the capacity of your rental unit or home. Specify the number of days that guests are allowed to be in the property as well. For example, a tenant can have a maximum of 3 guests and will only be allowed to stay for a maximum of 14 days.
Disallow long-term guests. If they are unable to leave after the allowed duration, they should apply for tenancy. They will also have to go through tenant screening, sign a lease agreement, and pay the rent.
Perform routine inspections to check if your tenants are hiding long-term guests. You can state in the lease agreement that you will be conducting these inspections so they cannot complain that they were not made aware of this.
Be sure to put up safety and hazard signs inside the property.
You should also maintain a safe and clean property to avoid injuries. If an accident occurs due to a structural problem that you neglected to fix despite knowing of its existence, you can be held liable to everyone who got injured.
Be aware of some of these legal issues and exceptions:
- You can’t evict a tenant who is a victim of domestic violence caused by a guest.
- You can’t restrict caregivers who assist disabled tenants for the same reason you can’t ban service animals.
- You have to enforce the rules equally. The regulations should apply to all tenants.
Now that you know the importance of a guest policy, you can start writing one of your own. Remember that rules are not there to limit your tenants, but to maintain order in the property.