There’s one word all experienced landlords have come to fear: eviction. Nothing is worse for a landlord than going through the long and expensive process of evicting a tenant. Many landlords hope to avoid this nightmare by performing an eviction records search on their potential tenants. But, how do you make sense of the results…Read More
Nearly all states and cities in the U.S. have rules establishing a baseline of “habitability” for residential rental units. Typically, landlords are responsible for ensuring that the rented unit is fit for human beings to live in – a standard that varies from place to place, but typically includes things like roofs that don’t leak,…Read More
How much do you charge each tenant as a security deposit? How much can you charge according to state law? Nearly every landlord knows the answer to the first question, but fewer know the answer to the second one. While you’re not required to charge the maximum security deposit allowed by law, you are prohibited…Read More
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), domestic violence accounts for approximately one in every five violent crimes nationwide. Seventy-seven percent of these encounters take place at or near the victim’s home. With millions of adults renting homes and apartments nationwide, landlords need to know their responsibilities when it comes to domestic violence –…Read More
While a specific landlord’s options are always limited by the specific facts of the situation and the terms of the lease, landlords that find themselves in situations in which they need to evict one or more unauthorized tenants typically find they do not have free reign to do so. What are a landlord’s options in this…Read More
Most landlords are aware that, in most situations, landlords cannot refuse to rent to families with children. However, some landlords may attempt to mitigate the noise, clutter, and other effects children can cause by writing a number of rules into a lease. Even these rules, however, can land a landlord in legal trouble. Landlords Are…Read More
Bed bugs in a rental unit pose a number of headaches for landlords. Immune to many commercial pesticides, extremely tolerant of both cold and heat, and able to live for over a year without a meal, bed bugs are tough to eradicate – and the problems don’t stop there. The stigma of a bed bug…Read More
Many landlords ask that a tenant pay rent for the first and last months of the tenancy when the lease is signed or an agreement to rent the property is made. Asking for the first month’s rent payment makes sense: it covers the current or upcoming month, the first month the tenant will actually be…Read More
