tenants just separated

HI, I would appreciate some tips please.

We self-manage a large family home and the tenants lease is due to expire on Friday. I sent them a new one on Saturday and I just got an email saying they have just separated but they still want to renew.

I will assume the worst and guess this will potentially become a difficult situation. What other information can you give me before we meet with them. They have school aged kids and dad works in the immediate neighbourhood. They have pets and whenever I look on realestate dot com there are hardly any houses that allow pets. The lady runs a family day care business and this is an extract from the email they just sent us:

We still want the new lease, but T. needs to know if she has to be on the lease to be able to continue running her DayCare from here. We are not sure if it would have any effect on the insurance etc if she was not on the lease.

She is not going to be running a business without major insurance and legal issues for us which were covered by Suncorp LL's insurance that we have through FDCA.


Thanks in advance
 
Hi

Yeah she definately needs to be on the lease.
This situation can become messy down the track, experience has shown that most of them do.

1/ Make sure you are fully insured correctly with your landlord insurance. Look at companies that specialise in landlord insurances which is generally not general insurers, some to look into are terri scheer or EBM companies like them.
2/ I would get her to fill in an application form with all her details, contacts and also income. If he stops paying can she afford to stay there?
3/ Keep him on the lease so that if it gets nasty they are both responsible.
4/ make sure your bond is up-to-date and you have collected the maximum you are allowed.
5/ think about if they have ever been late with the rent, if they have in the past it most likely will get worse.

An office I contract to had this situation recently. couple separated, he moved out and was to help continue to pay the rent, as she was looking after the kids, he then decided to stop paying rent, she couldn't afford to stay, so had to break her lease, she was depressed so the property was left in a poor state, he wanted to have nothing to do with it.

If you are correctly insured then your losses will be minimised if you follow legislation.

Personally I would avoid this if you can unless you are sure that she can pay the house on her own from her own income.
 
Hi

Yeah she definately needs to be on the lease.
This situation can become messy down the track, experience has shown that most of them do.

5/ think about if they have ever been late with the rent, if they have in the past it most likely will get worse.

An office I contract to had this situation recently. couple separated, he moved out and was to help continue to pay the rent, as she was looking after the kids, he then decided to stop paying rent, she couldn't afford to stay, so had to break her lease, she was depressed so the property was left in a poor state, he wanted to have nothing to do with it.

If you are correctly insured then your losses will be minimised if you follow legislation.

Personally I would avoid this if you can unless you are sure that she can pay the house on her own from her own income.



Sounds like my property Jenni! (but unfortunately it's not, just another example)
Mum, dad and 5 kids have been in my property for almost 2 years, and I bought it earlier this year. About a month ago a plumber who went to fix a leaking shower found out the parents had seperated and the dad had moved out. The plumber notified the PM.

Since then the rent has been at least two weeks behind, they've been issued breach notices and now a notice to leave. From the plumber's photos it appears the wife is taking anti-depressents. I doubt they will pay their large water bill which is due soon, the property is reportedly filthy (PM said when she turned up for the inspection there was garbage and dirty nappies lying around) and they recently blocked the sewer pipes with clothes/toys/electrical cables/toilet paper etc and cut a section of pipe away themselves to try and unblock it!!

If you're in an area with lots of potential tenants waiting to move in, I would not renew their lease. If you do renew, I'd recommend getting a PM just incase it gets messy and you need expert help. You might find once you say to the tenants you'll be getting a PM they decide your house is no longer suitable :rolleyes:
 
If you're in an area with lots of potential tenants waiting to move in, I would not renew their lease. If you do renew, I'd recommend getting a PM just incase it gets messy and you need expert help. You might find once you say to the tenants you'll be getting a PM they decide your house is no longer suitable :rolleyes:

Yeah, that's my thoughts too. They mustn't have liked the clause I ticked about them having to pay the water usage.:(
 
Yeah its a common one Allegria.

I like your last comment though you have nailed it when you say telling the tenants about getting a PM... LOL so true,,, so true... :)
 
Hi

Yeah she definately needs to be on the lease.
This situation can become messy down the track, experience has shown that most of them do.

1/ Make sure you are fully insured correctly with your landlord insurance. Look at companies that specialise in landlord insurances which is generally not general insurers, some to look into are terri scheer or EBM companies like them.
2/ I would get her to fill in an application form with all her details, contacts and also income. If he stops paying can she afford to stay there?
3/ Keep him on the lease so that if it gets nasty they are both responsible.
4/ make sure your bond is up-to-date and you have collected the maximum you are allowed.
5/ think about if they have ever been late with the rent, if they have in the past it most likely will get worse.

An office I contract to had this situation recently. couple separated, he moved out and was to help continue to pay the rent, as she was looking after the kids, he then decided to stop paying rent, she couldn't afford to stay, so had to break her lease, she was depressed so the property was left in a poor state, he wanted to have nothing to do with it.

If you are correctly insured then your losses will be minimised if you follow legislation.

Personally I would avoid this if you can unless you are sure that she can pay the house on her own from her own income.

Good advice.

We have this happen with our rentals, and it rarely works out good in the end.
Most times, it creates more cleaning/repairs when they vacate if you allow them to stay.

We try to be sympathetic, but it almost always has backfired on us.
 
new problem

Hi,

I didn't expect this to run smoothly, but I hadn't anticipated this one......

Today I received a text from the husband. His wife's young sister has taken over the business, apparently. Can we change the names on the lease - take wife off and add her sister. Sis has been living there the whole time as a younger dependant but now she is about 20 or 21 years old and not a child any more.
 
Sounds like my property Jenni! (but unfortunately it's not, just another example)
Mum, dad and 5 kids have been in my property for almost 2 years, and I bought it earlier this year. About a month ago a plumber who went to fix a leaking shower found out the parents had seperated and the dad had moved out. The plumber notified the PM.

Since then the rent has been at least two weeks behind, they've been issued breach notices and now a notice to leave. From the plumber's photos it appears the wife is taking anti-depressents. I doubt they will pay their large water bill which is due soon, the property is reportedly filthy (PM said when she turned up for the inspection there was garbage and dirty nappies lying around) and they recently blocked the sewer pipes with clothes/toys/electrical cables/toilet paper etc and cut a section of pipe away themselves to try and unblock it!!

Crazy stuff
 
Hi,

I didn't expect this to run smoothly, but I hadn't anticipated this one......

Today I received a text from the husband. His wife's young sister has taken over the business, apparently. Can we change the names on the lease - take wife off and add her sister. Sis has been living there the whole time as a younger dependant but now she is about 20 or 21 years old and not a child any more.

Simple answer is no.
Get rid of them all..or just add the sisiter's name.
We never delete anyone's name off a lease.
The more people we can do after for compensation, the better.
 
From your original post, "We still want the new lease, but T. needs to know if she has to be on the lease to be able to continue running her DayCare from here. We are not sure if it would have any effect on the insurance etc if she was not on the lease." are they running a day care from your IP?

If so, do they have all necessary permissions/licences, as the licensing requirements are pretty strict? Everything has to be super kid safe.

If they do not, and a child is hurt, then nothing will stop someone coming after you for some money, especially if you knew they were running the business (and may have authorised it).
 
Wow... this sounds so much like one of our past tenants. We had a couple with 3 kids with the wife running a family daycare from the property. The couple ended up getting divorced. Wife took the three kids and disappeared overseas. Husband gave two weeks notice and broke lease and left overseas after the wife and kids. We didn't bother with the chasing for missing rent as the family was going through a difficult phase and having us chase them for more money was not going to help.

Because of how quickly everything happened, a lot of furniture was left behind as well. We sold off everything on gumtree (with permission of husband). Used some of the money to pay for cleaning and sent rest of the money back.

Last we heard, the husband took the kids and ran off (apparently Perth) as we had the wife contact us asking if the husband asked for a rental reference or not. Messy messy situation...

Just be careful and things can deteriorate very very quickly in emotional times.
 
Just be careful and things can deteriorate very very quickly in emotional times.

Completely agree with Mr Hyde, the minute we get a whiff of the fact that someone has left we batten down the hatches and make sure everything is in order.

However we also get the tenants who up and leave and tell us that they have split up, only to track them down later and find out they applied for another property "together". That will be an interesting case at QCAT.
 
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