Question for landlords

[gooddecisions]

Would it be prudent for me to set up a p.o. box so that tenants don't have my home address?

[zibazinski]

Is there a reason you don't want them to know where you live?

[gooddecisions]

Just a slight fear of having to go through an eviction and dealing with disgruntled people. My current tenant has been late every month and showed up to my house on the 21st with a check. I guess that was fine, but got me thinking.

[zibazinski]

I'd either use a PM or get used to it. They can always google your address. My mom always made her tenants pay her at her home. I never did. Ick.

[gooddecisions]

True. I have a nice house in a nice neighborhood and now my tenant knows this. If he is living paycheck to paycheck and is struggling, now he may think he is entitled to more of a grace period. So far he's paid the late fees, but I don't have July's payment and he said he'd give half now and the other half on the 15th with the late fee.

[zibazinski]

I understand totally. I also had a tenant that pulled that shit with me. Another reason why I always lie and tell tenants I have a mortgage to pay and have the largest late fees allowed by law.

[alabamagal]

If people want to find you, they will find you.  If you don't like dealing with the tenants, use a property manager, but that will cost you some.

[Sam_2.0]

Jul 3, 2014 12:08:32 GMT -5 alabamagal said:

If people want to find you, they will find you.  If you don't like dealing with the tenants, use a property manager, but that will cost you some.

The PM route was our best option. So far I am loving it, but we are really only about 3 weeks in I don't have to do anything other than collect my check from them around the 10th of every month, and pay for any service calls that come through if I don't want to do the repairs myself.

[Plain Old Petunia]

Jul 3, 2014 12:13:11 GMT -5 Sam_2.0 said:

Jul 3, 2014 12:08:32 GMT -5 alabamagal said:

If people want to find you, they will find you.  If you don't like dealing with the tenants, use a property manager, but that will cost you some.

The PM route was our best option. So far I am loving it, but we are really only about 3 weeks in I don't have to do anything other than collect my check from them around the 10th of every month, and pay for any service calls that come through if I don't want to do the repairs myself.

And how are things in the beautiful new house?

[Sam_2.0]

Not moved in yet, but I hope they will be great. I wonder if we can call the same handyman out to do repairs on our personal residence when needed? DH is not a fan of handyman work, which means that usually falls to me or gets hired out.

gooddecisions - I would worry too about tenants finding your name & address. I am careful at work to not have my full name on anything because I used to live in the same neighborhood as a lot of my scary customers. A PO box seems like it would be a nice measure but just know it won't provide complete anonymity. Does your county allow property searches for free online? I use ours all the time for work, but now I know just how easy it is for someone to find out exactly where I live and what cars I drive. All they need is my name

[DVM gone riding]

I don't lie but I definitely drum up the the mortgage. My tenant that is on a program is "sure" he can take care of himself now. I told him he needed money plus late fees by 5 on monday or he better have already called the program to get them to cut me a check (I will wait for their check without penalty but they also would have already gotten it to me if he was on top of things)

[Nazgul Girl]

   We had the son of one of the tenants coming to our house and taping the rent check to the door ( don't ask, they're weird ), but he and plays online dragon/warrior games with a headset on, so I'm not afraid of him at all.   He's a hoot.   

   Since then, she's bounced her June rent check, so now, she's doing bank transfers as we had asked her to, so we don't have sonny boy sneaking up on the front porch to tape the rent check to the screen door.   We always keep our screen door locked, because of the nutbag having DH served one time.   

   I think it's best to have a p.o. box rather than have your home address on the lease.  Live and learn for us.    On the other hand, once we had a p.o. box set up for the tenants, but they sent us the check to  our home instead. 

   The first tenet of tenants are that they're weird.

[Nazgul Girl]

  Good luck with the late rent, too, to our landlords.   We had the late rent in June, but we made her get a certified check when she paid it to us late, so now she's doing the bank transfer like she's supposed to.   We were nice and didn't charge her a late fee this time.   One more time, and she's getting dinged with both fees.

[bean29]

If you actually evict a tenant can you use a PO box on the court records?

I have gone to court more than once and I am not even sure.  We have never had an issue.  We do tell our tenants to pay at DH's office or MIL's house in person.  We have never had the tenants retaliate in any way other than destroying the unit...and even then it is debatable if that is how they were living or if it was malicious damage to get even.

We usually have late fees built into our leases, but we also rarely assess them.

I do advise you to ask for a check/cashiers check/money order.  If you let them pay in cash, you must give a receipt...and when we just went to court with our last tenants ...I witnessed a lady trying to evict a tenant for non payment of rent, and the renter claimed she had paid in cash, so the judge set up a jury trial and delayed the eviction another month.  If you don't accept cash, you could just say the lease specifies payment via check or money order, we don't accept cash.

My niece is my tenant now, and she does pay in cash.  I am not expecting to have a problem...but we did once start and eviciton action against her Uncle (my BIL, still), I don't want to rock the boat with my niece and her parents, so my head is burried in the sand so to speak.

[Nazgul Girl]

   We've never been offered cash for rent, and I doubt that we'd take it.  I only like checks, certified checks, cashiers checks, money orders ( although we've never had one ), or bank-to-bank transfers.  Cash is too much trouble, since the tenant/and their friends (perhaps) know that you may have cash in the house, plus you have to issue them a receipt.