Untidy Tennants

[meljkel]

Hi, Would appreciate a bit of advice.
We have purchased an IP with a tennant who is on a month by month arrangement. He has been described as "not the cleanest of people", but is never behind on rent and never complains.
Would you keep him on?? Would you get a lease signed or just see how things go??
The property also desperately needs new carpet. Should we get this done or again, wait??
Thanks for any help.

 

[wylie]

If he is paying market rent and paying on time, and not damaging the property I would keep him on until you need access. If you sign him up to a lease, try to have it end in the January peak letting season.

If you will need tradesmen in to fix or do anything when he goes, then I would put him on a lease so that you have some certainty of time frames for organising future work. Not sure about other states but in Queensland tenants on a periodic tenancy have to be given two months' notice to vacate, but during that time they can give you two weeks' notice. If you have ordered carpet or booked tradies for two months' time and your tenant leaves earlier, you could be left with a timing problem.

I would not put in new carpet while he is there, and even when he goes, why not polish the floors instead. We have no carpets in our IPs, so no stained carpet or smell issues. To protect the polished floors we used to provide huge room sized area rugs but found over the years that tenants don't want these. Some tenants asked us to remove them, and others simply put them under the house so they could rot and fall apart . (We bought off cuts of good carpets cheaply and had them overlocked, so not a lot of money involved, but annoying all the same.) Depending on the tenants, we either just wrote these off or charged them.

 

[f4j]

I'm not seeing a problem here, it sounds ideal.

 

[chilliaa]

yeah that sounds like me when i was a tenant.
No damage, rent paid usually in advance to cover any unforseen circumstances, but basically a pretty messy guy, especially when working long hours.

 

[skater]

Mess does not equate to damage. I'd keep him.

 

[buzzlightyear]

Had a condition report recently which read, the apartment is clean, no faults or maintenance required but the tenants are messy. Paid rent on time, accepted some recent large increases in rent.. No issue from an IP perspective.

I did wonder (its a couple living there, late 20's I believe), that whilst I realise that guys can be messy/lazy, that is not a trait I would associate with women (well at least the ones that I have known). So I was more concerned for the guy, that this was the standard of house-keeping that his girlfriend was happy to live with, so their household whether my apartment or elsewhere, was not going to be much better kept. Well, we do learn with age, so maybe there is some hope.

Yes, I know that may sound outdated, and yes he could tidy up himself if he wanted, but I would generally expect better of females on this issue.

Anyhow, still no impact on the property investment side, just thought I would go off on a tangent.

 

[BoatBoy]

I'd keep him, as long as mess wasnt stripping motorcycles in the loungeroom , having a collection of wrecked car bodies in the yard or a collection of empty pizza boxes, newspapers and beer cans in the spare room.

Dave

 

[josko]

Hi, Would appreciate a bit of advice.
We have purchased an IP with a tennant who is on a month by month arrangement. He has been described as "not the cleanest of people", but is never behind on rent and never complains.
Would you keep him on?? Would you get a lease signed or just see how things go??
The property also desperately needs new carpet. Should we get this done or again, wait??
Thanks for any help.

Keep him.
In my experience with single male tenants, they tend to complain less about the little things and generally don't mind changing their own light bulb. It's when you get some "neat freaks" for tenants that all the complaints start.

I would leave the carpet and rethink it when he moves out.

 

[Perp]

Keep him.
In my experience with single male tenants, they tend to complain less about the little things and generally don't mind changing their own light bulb. It's when you get some "neat freaks" for tenants that all the complaints start.

Couldn't agree more. Who cares if he's messy? If he's a low maintenance tenant and pays his rent, I'd be delighted. Just make sure you've got enough bond to cover rubbish removal costs if he does a runner and decides it's easier to leave all his junk behind than tidy it up!