For a rental business to become successful, the most crucial thing is a healthy landlord-and-tenant relationship. It is not enough that the landlords will do their job as property managers. The tenants should also do their part in taking care of the landlords’ investment. Unfortunately, not all tenants have good relationships with their landlords.
Because they don’t get along with their tenants, some landlords will harass them to discourage them from staying in the rented property. Although, sometimes it is not only the landlords. There are instances wherein it’s the other way around.
Your job as a rental agent is negotiating between landlords and tenants. You know how important it is that they get along. It is an advantage if you identify landlords and renters who tend to victimize people. You would not want to recommend someone like that. Therefore, you must know what the forms of harassment are and if any of your clients show a tendency to commit them.
We are going to look at some actions considered as harassment from both the landlords and tenants.
Landlord Harassment
• Ceasing amenities like the use of laundry room or swimming pool
• Delaying property maintenance and repairs
• Refusing to accept rental payment
• Sends a notice of a made-up violation
• Coming into the property without informing the tenant before the date
• Verbal and physical threats to scare them away
• Sending notices for offensive behavior while ignoring the other tenants’ faults
• Causing a disturbance like loud noises to deprive the tenant of having a quiet environment
• Sexual harassment
Most of these strategies will drive the tenant away, which is what the landlords want. Some are doing these to get revenge, while some just want the tenants to leave the property without having to go through the eviction process. Whatever the reason is, it is wrong to harass someone to get what they want.
Tenant Harassment
• Refusing to pay rent and reasoning that a repair problem is a cause
• Sending threats to the landlord
• Noise complaints about the tenant are often received by the landlord
• Shows up at the landlord’s residence
• Refusing to pay the rent increase despite the landlord conducting the correct process
• Physically assaulting the landlord
• Insists that he paid rent through the mail and refuses to pay now
• Refuses to follow the rules
• Makes up an issue and reports the landlord
Sadly, this is happening everywhere. Sometimes a tenant will report a landlord, and the landlord will harass the tenant to get back at him. The landlord can try to evict the tenant, file an unjust complaint against them, or raise their rent. It becomes a vicious cycle and ends up being a toxic partnership.
Actions to take
If the landlord harasses the tenant, the latter will have to file a case against the landlord if he wants the harassment to stop, but he should have sufficient evidence to present.
If it is the other way around, the landlord will have to evict the tenant, but he will have to suffer a vacancy.
If the landlord needs to fill in a vacancy because he evicted the tenant harassing him, you can help him. The first thing you can do is to sign up for Padleads. You can then create a property listing for the vacant unit. You can even syndicate it to other similar websites to reach more people.