Emotional Manipulation Of Landlords By Prospects And Applicants

Emotional Manipulation

Problem Applicants and Emotional Manipulation

As a landlord, have you ever been or felt like you were emotionally manipulated by a prospect or application who had too many issues to qualify to rent from you?

If you haven’t had this happen to you, you are lucky.  Emotional manipulation is a tool used by prospects or applicants who know they have a bad enough issue or too many issues to qualify to rent a property.  They desperately need a place to live and their goal is to guilt you into renting to them.

Dealing with these people can be emotionally exhausting and can leave you questioning whether or not you are a good person.  These problem prospects and applicants know this!  They have a game plan that works a lot of the time and they are really good at what they do.  Remember, if you rent to these people, the emotional manipulation or blackmail will just continue.

How This Starts

  • You are my only hope!
  • I just need a second chance!
  • None of this is my fault and I can’t catch a break.
  • This will never happen again!

How It Ends When You Turn Them Down

  • Blaming you for all of their problems.
  • Disbelief that you won’t take a chance on them.
  • Threats sometimes.
  • By saying NO, You STOP this verbal abuse from continuing.
  • You move on and find a great tenant who won’t act this way.

How It Ends When You Succumb To Their Emotional Blackmail

  • They pay on time at first, if you are lucky.
  • Rent starts being paid late.
  • The excuses start.
  • Begging to give them time.
  • Tenant stops answering phone calls, texts, email and won’t answer the door.
  • Eviction process starts.
  • Might pay something to stop the eviction.
  • Get behind again.
  • Eviction filed again.
  • Finally evict the tenant.
  • Tenant has left a mess that will cost you more money.
  • You are angry, stressed and out a lot of money.

Things To Remember

Remember that this is a business.  It is your job to take care of your asset (the property) and to collect the rent.  Your job is to avoid making a bad business decision which would be to rent to these people who do not meet your guidelines.  It is not your job to help these people out, to fix them, give them a second chance or rent to them.

 

You need to stop the cycle and move on!

The key is to quickly identify these people and not allow them to treat you in this manner.  You will notice that they will be desperate to connect with you.  As soon as you realize what is happening, stop communicating with these people.  Tell them clearly, in writing, that they do not meet your guidelines and move on. Refuse to “get on the phone with them”.  That is how you end up going down that dark hole where they convince you that you are a terrible person for not renting to them!

 

Limit Your Contact With Prospects

Try to nip some of this in the bud.  One thing that try very hard to do is to limit how much I talk to prospects on the phone.  I have a pre-screening process and that includes a list of pre-screening questions that I email to every prospect who wants to tour a property.  It is much easier to tell someone in writing that they do not meet your screening guidelines and you will not be able to show them the property.

If I do get stuck on the phone with a prospect I go through the questions verbally.  Once I hit a disqualifying issue, like income for example, I stop and say “I am sorry, but company policy requires income of 3x the rent.”  When they start with “Well, can’t you make an exception . . . “  I say “I am sorry but I am not allowed to.”  Them quickly move to get off the phone.  If you have to say, “I am sorry but someone is standing here that needs to talk to me.  Have a great day!”  Then hang up the phone.

When you can identify these people in the pre-screening stage, you don’t end up standing in front of them showing them the property.  Your goal should be to only meet people who meet some very basic minimum guidelines.  These people won’t have the chance to tell you about their challenges and sad stories because you are not going to meet them at the property.

Better yet, I go one step further and once someone has met my pre-screening guidelines, I call them up, introduce myself and explain that I am going to text them and ask for a copy of their ID.  Once they text that to me, I will give them the lock box code to tour the property on their own.  This works well and I don’t get stood up waiting on people to show up.  They go on their own time table and no one is waiting for them to show up.  Just be sure and rotate the lock box code often.

 

Have A Support System

Have a support system that you can reach out to.  I am a rule enforcer and I won’t apologize for that.  You need someone you can call for support who understands rules and why we have them.  We all need someone that we can vent to.  Even when you know you are making the right decision, sometimes you just need someone to tell you that you made the right decision. This can be especially true if you have a spouse or a partner telling you that you should have considered bending the rules.  Often times, one of you has to be the rule enforcer and you know that if you are the rule enforcer, it is not fun and it is not easy. 

 

Tenants Behaving Badly

I also have a few current tenants and several past tenants who started behaving badly.  Usually this behavior starts when they cannot pay their rent or you tell them to stop doing something.  They will call you names, swear at you and threaten you.  They are outraged that you have the audacity to tell them that they owe money.  Some of them threaten to get an attorney and sue the company.  Of course, they never do because they have not grounds to sue and they don’t have the money! 

Set the ground rules quickly with these tenants.  Do not allow them to talk to you this way. 

 

Tenant Case Study

I have one tenant who thought it was ok to come to the office and yell at me in person about a light bulb that had gone out.  She was mad that maintenance had not shown up within the hour to replace it! 

The first time she did that, I was so stunned that I just listened to her. I have been yelled at on the phone a lot of times over the years but never have I had a tenant come to the office for the sole purpose of doing that.  After she left, I thought, what the heck!  I texted her and told her that was not allowed to come to the office and demand that I do anything. 

She was very determined that no one was going to tell her what to do and showed up again about two weeks later.  I have a glass door that is locked and I talked to her through the glass door but refused to let her in until she told me what she wanted.   Her issue was that her mail box had been run over.  She loudly and rudely demanded that maintenance get over there that afternoon to replace it.  She kept insisting that she needed to come in to talk to me about it.  I didn’t see the point.  I also didn’t feel safe.

When I still wouldn’t let her in, she started yelling at me.  I turned around and walked away from the door.  I called her on the phone to tell her to leave and she kept yelling.  I ended up hanging up.  I texted her, while she was standing outside my door, and told her that her behavior was unacceptable and that she was not allowed to talk to me that way.  I also told her not come to the office again for any other reason than to drop rent in the drop box.  When she refused to leave, I threatened to call the police and she finally left.  I am on the second floor so I locked the first floor door as well so she couldn’t get to my office door.

I thought I had solved the problem.  Unfortunately, I found out a few weeks later that banning her from the office wasn’t enough.  She just started calling me on the phone, always about very minor things, and just screaming at me.  In addition to banning her from the office, I refused to talk to her on the phone. 

I found out that she had been treating maintenance this way as well and I told her that was going to stop.  She was informed in writing, that the next time she treated maintenance badly, they would not be back and she would have to hire her own contractors and pay for it.  

This tenant is now only allowed to communicate with the office via text, email, regular mail or after hours by leaving a voice mail.  She was informed of these options via text, an email, regular mail and a certified letter.  Yes, that was over kill but she is impossible to make happy.  

I am tired of her and her verbal abuse so, when her lease is up in a couple of months, her lease is not going to be renewed.  She has already been verbally warned that we are not renewing her lease and that set her off again.

Do Not Let These People Abuse You!

This is an extreme case and I am not sure what the heck is wrong with this woman.  The bottom line is that you do not have to accept this kind of behavior from anyone.  You have options and none of them are to allow anyone to treat you badly.  This is a business and these people should not harm your mental health. There are other tenants who will behave and not act like this.  Find a way to remove the bad acting tenants from your property. Be very sure that you do not knowingly rent to someone who will use emotions to manipulate you just because you feel sorry for them.

 

Free Training – How To Sidestep These Emotional Manipulators

Watch this FREE video on how to avoid these bad tenants.

 

Connect With Me

Do you have a story about prospects, applicants or tenants behaving badly?  I would love to hear about it!  We are all in this together and it is great to hear how other landlords dealt with these issues!

You can connect with me on my blog at Commonsense Landlording.com

 

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Pre-Screening Prospects – How To Decide Who To Show Your Rental Properties To

Pre-screening prospects

Pre-Screening Prospects – How Do I Decide Who To Show My Rental To?

Landlords ask me all the time what is the best way to figure out who is actually a good risk and how they can stop wasting their time showing a property to people who don’t qualify.

My answer is to pre-screen all prospects.  A prospect is anyone who wants to see your property.

 

What Is Pre-Screening?   

Pre-screening is an easy way to “vet” everyone who calls and wants to see your  rental property.

I am very selective about who gets access to my rental properties. For my vacant rentals, I want to control who is in and out of them.  Why should I let anyone who wants to just look at the house into to see it?  This increases the wear and tear and increases the chances that someone will return later and strip the property.

Sometimes I have a tenant who gives notice to vacate and they have kept the property in immaculate condition.  This gives me the opportunity to list the property, show it and get it rented before the current tenant moves out.   I want to inconvenience my current tenant as little as possible so pre-screening is very important in these cases.

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Why You Should Have Rental Criteria

rental criteira

 

Landlord Tip – Why You Should Have Rental Criteria

Rental criteria are crucial for every landlord.  They help you quickly identify prospects and applicants who have trouble paying the rent on time and in full every month.  

Having written guidelines also keeps you within the Fair Housing Guidelines.  Your screening process should be transparent so that you can easily defend yourself from a claim of discrimination.  Your written guidelines should be fair and objective so that every prospect and applicant is treated consistently and fairly.

 

A detailed rental criteria checklist provides you with:

  • Standard guidelines.
  • Fair and objective review. 
  • Takes the emotion out of the process.
  • Makes it easier to make a decision with specific guidelines and criteria.
    Freedom from possible discrimination accusations.

 

Examples of Written Guidelines

Written guidelines don’t have to be complicated.  Suggested guidelines include:

  1. Rental income guideline of 3x the rent.
  2. A job history requirement.
  3. A rental history requirement.
  4. Credit score requirement.
  5. An eviction filing process.
  6. Conviction history.

These are common rental criteria to have.  The more strict your guidelines are, the harder it will be to qualify a tenant.  For lower end properties, you will need to have more lenient guidelines.  If you have nicer properties, you can have higher criteria to get better tenants.

Your goal should always be to find a great tenant who has a proven track record of paying their rent and their other bills on time and in full each and every month. 

 

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What Is A Tenant Screening Service?

Tenant screening

What Is A Tenant Screening Service?

A tenant screening service is very valuable for landlords.   It is a consumer reporting agency that provides information on your applicants life up to this point.  It will include information on the applicants credit including a credit score, eviction filings, rental payment history, liens, judgements, employment verification and a lot of other information.

When you have a vacant rental property, you need to find a great new tenant quickly.  But quick and great don’t really go together very well.  Every time we rent to a new tenant, we are taking a chance on this person.  You don’t want to ever make a bad choice.  One of the best ways to help assess the risk with every applicant is to take a look at their credit.  Past history is usually a very good indicator of future behavior.

Tenant screening services are a great line of defense for every landlord.  Without the services of a tenant screening service, it would be impossible to accurately assess your risk level when evaluating an applicant. Unfortunately, many applicants have no idea what their credit looks like and can be completely shocked at what turns up on their credit report.  Some applicants are over confident and just assume they have great credit.  Other applicants go the other way and just “know” they have bad credit. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong so it is extremely important to always run a credit report on every single applicant.

Credit Screening Reports

Before you can run credit on an application, you need to find a tenant screening service that you like.  They all charge fees and the fees will vary depending on what types of reports you run. Most of these services allow you to pick and choose what reports you want to run.  Find a service that you like and use the same credit reporting service every time you run credit. Everyone will look a little different.  Credit reports can be very confusing to read and it will be much easier when you pull the same report every time.

Application

Your application is very important.  You will need to have a rental application that asks for a lot of detail to collect all of the information that you need to run credit. In order to get an accurate credit report, you will need the applicant’s full name, social security number and date of birth.  Keep in mind that a lot of people have the same names out there.  The more rental addresses you have from the applicant, the more accurate the report will be.  Applicants with common names can sometimes have their credit mixed with someone else who has the same name.

Rental Criteria

When you are reviewing an application and credit report, you must have pre-determined rental criteria to help you decide if this applicant qualifies to rent from you.  At the very least, you need to have a credit score requirement, an eviction policy, an income requirement and a job requirement.  Without rental criteria, it can be difficult to make the right decision about whether to rent to an applicant or not.  It becomes very easy to justify renting to an applicant that you really like personally but how has some credit challenges.  Don’t ever try to “force” someone to qualify to rent from you.  Your applicant either meets your guidelines or doesn’t.

Make An Informed Decision

Having a tenant screening service will be the different in finding great tenant and terrible tenants. Do not ever skip this step. Most applicants are going to have challenges and your goal is find someone who has challenges that you can live with.  A bad tenant can cost you a lot of time, money and aggravation.  A credit report gives you the information you need to make an informed and analytical decision. When you do not run credit, you greatly increase the chances that you are going to end up with a bad paying tenant.  Why take the risk?  The credit report doesn’t cost you anything and there is no reason to not run credit on every single applicant.

 

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Tenants Who Pay Late

Tenants who pay late

What Do You Do With Tenants Who Pay Late?

Tenants who pay late are very common.  If you are lucky, they call you and explain why they are paying late.  Other tenants don’t bother to let you know and just randomly pay.

These late paying tenants are a serious problem if you count on the rent money to pay your mortgage.  Even if you don’t depend on the rent money to pay any bills, it is very annoying when your tenant continually pays rent late.

 

Procedure For Handling Late Paying Tenants

Unfortunately, you cannot force anyone to pay.  You need to fall back on your procedures for ensuring that the tenant knows what happens next.

Always send out the appropriate late notice.  Know the laws in your area.  Be sure and consult with an eviction attorney so that you can give the proper notice to your tenant.  I live in Louisville, KY and we send a 7 day notice that basically says pay or get out.

Once notice arrives, the tenant will usually touch base with me.  If this tenant has already called, this person was warned that they would be receiving the 7 day notice.  I do occasionally run across a tenant who is offended that I won’t just “trust” them to pay the rent as soon as they can.  I explain that company policy require me to send a 7 day notice to every tenant who has not paid on or before the 5th day.  We have a 5 day grace period.

The late notice should list the past due rent and any late fees.  I have a $50 charge on the 6th and $5 per day after that.  So, if the tenant pays on the 10th and their rent is $1,000, the tenant would owe $1,065.  I don’t charge for the actual day they pay.  It is in your best interests to insist that the late fees are paid along with the rent.  There are times that I will allow a payment plan, especially if the late fees are high.  For example, if the tenant paid rent on the 25th day of the month, late fees would be $140.  Many tenants won’t have that much extra money.  But, I only allow it to be split in half.

The main issue is that when a tenant pays this late in the month, the chances that they will pay late the following month increase dramatically.  Then you are on the path of a tenant who pays chronically late and can’t afford the late fees.  At some point, this has to stop and the tenant needs to move.  I usually sit down with the tenant and try to get them to move out but I will evict them if I have to.  It is much easier and cheaper to get them to willingly move.  Not every tenant will be agreeable to just moving but it is what I try first.

 

Always Pays Late But Pays Balance In Full

I have a couple of tenants who pay late roughly 5 or 6 months out of 12.  For one of them, I moved the rent due date because she went on disability and SSI and her payment often didn’t arrive until the 10th or the 11th of the month.  She was never going to get caught up and it was just easier to move her due date.

For the other tenants, they randomly just pay late and they always pay the late fees.   While this is annoying because I still send the 7 day letters every single month, they always pay the late fees and they never complain about paying them.  The company makes more money every month and for now, it seems to be working.

 

Improved Screening Of Applicants

This issue drives me crazy.  I did a review of these tenants to see if I could have spotted these issues during the application process.  There were no red flags during the application process that I could find.  I always send over a questionnaire for the previous landlord to fill out and none of them flagged these tenants as late payers.  It is possible that the landlords just wanted to get rid of these tenants and didn’t say anything.

One thing that stood out on two of them is that while they met the income requirement of 3x the rent, they had no extra money.   One tenant ended up losing their job and the new job didn’t pay as much.  There was no way to predict that this would happen.

Another tenant had a lot of student loans that they started paying on which reduced their spendable income.  Very few landlords count student loans or medical bills but I have started to see some issues with this.   Remember, at some point they will have to start making payments on their student loans and those payments can be quite high.  In many cases, those monthly payments will cause the tenant to not meet the debt to income ratio.  You need to have a process for considering student loans because it can significantly reduce your tenants monthly income.

 

3 Strikes Rule

Many landlords I know have what I call a 3 strikes rule.  Typically, they only allow 2 late pays or 2 eviction filings per year before they move to evict.  Once the tenant pays late the third time or has an eviction filed against them for the third time, the landlord will no longer accept the rent. The landlord will move to evict these problem tenants.

I personally don’t have this rule because it is very costly to turn a house and get it ready to rent again.  I work with the tenant within reason. I follow the process but if the tenant comes up with the money for the past due rent, the late fees and the court fees, I will accept the money.  This is strictly a business decision on my part.

Neither way is wrong and you will need to decide what works for you.

 

Follow Your Procedures

Late paying tenants seems to be one of the top problems that landlords have.  When you have this issue, have procedures in place and follow them.

  • Spell out in the lease what happens when a tenant pays late and follow through.
  • Send the late pay letter and charge late fees.
  • Be prepared to file an eviction against them.
  • Decide at what point you will no longer accept payments.
  • How many late pays or eviction filings will you allow?

 

Following Your Procedures Makes For Better Tenants

The most important thing to always remember is that you are setting expectations for your tenants.  When you follow your procedures every single time, they know what to expect.  If you don’t follow your procedures every time, you are teaching your tenants that it is ok to pay late.  Why should your tenant pay on time every month if you don’t charge late fees or you never start the eviction process by sending out a late notice?

It is your job to make sure this tenant stays on track.  It is my belief that bad paying tenants are created in part by landlords who don’t enforce their rules. These tenants never learn that they have to follow the rules.

Landlord Tip – Have Tenant Rules And Follow Them

tenant rules

Be A Good Landlord And Have Rules

When you have rental properties, there are certain rules that your tenants are expected to follow.  Rules are great but they only work if you enforce them.  For me, this process actually starts in the pre-screening phase.  I look for a prospect who can follow directions and provide the information that I ask for.  Prospects who cannot follow simple rules do not make it past the pre-screening stage.

Once you convert an applicant to a tenant, it becomes even more important to have tenant rules.  Tenants have the right to know exactly what to expect and what they can and cannot do.  Your lease should outline their rights and responsibilities as well as what happens when the rules are broken.  Treat them like employees.  When you start a new job, there is typically an onboarding process.  You should give your tenant the same experience.

 

Common Tenant Rules

There are some common tenant rules that you need to explain and enforce.  A good lease will save you a lot of trouble.  Just be sure that you go over the lease with your new tenant.  Anytime the rules are broken, refer your tenant back to the lease.

  1. Rent due date.
  2. Date late fees start to accrue.
  3. Date the eviction process starts.
  4. No smoking.
  5. Pet policy.
  6. Move out policy
  7. Conditions that will cause the security deposit to be forfeited.
  8. Keep the grass cut.
  9. Take care of the property.

These are just a few of the common rules you need to address in the lease.  For example, if you give a grace period on the rent due date, be sure that you always send the appropriate notice when the rent is not received on time.  Here, it is a 7 day letter that starts the eviction process.  The tenants receive a certified letter and are told that they have 7 days to pay the rent.  When they don’t pay the rent within that time frame, I can send this to the eviction attorney to start the process of removing this tenant.  Your tenants must know that there are repercussions when they don’t do what they are supposed to do.

 

Enforcing Tenant Rules

This is a business and when your tenant doesn’t follow the rules you, as the landlord, need to be prepared to follow through.  If you are not consistent and fair with every tenant, you will start to run into problems.  Have procedures and follow them every time.  Once you start making exceptions, your tenants will notice immediately and your problems will only multiply.

When you start feeling sorry for a tenant, remember that your rental property is an asset and this is your business. 

Your tenants have been given rules and you need to demonstrate that you expect them to be followed every single time.   Tenants who will not or cannot follow the rules need to understand what will happen.  For example, when rent is paid late, there is a late fee and it must be paid.  One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to continually waive late fees. They learn that it is ok to pay late. 

Start off the way you intend to continue.  Failing to enforce your rules sets a bad example and will they will never learn to be great tenants.

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