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FAA
This Probably Never Happened to You, But...
By C. Finley Beven
The tenant in #3 moved in more than a year ago, back before we were seeing the effects of COVID-19. She signed our rental agreement which stated that she would be the sole occupant of the unit. However, several weeks ago we learned that she had an over-night visitor, possibly on a permanent basis. You guessed it ... we’ve got a new tenant. This is a tenant for whom we have no application, no background check, no rental agreement. By moving in, this person has acquired a legal right of possession. Even if we wanted to, we could not just lock her out. We accepted this and part of a new reality related to COVID. We have had more move- outs by tenants who could no longer afford the rent, and we have had more situations of tenants wanting to add roommates to help cover the rent.
However, this is not what we bargained for when we entered into the rental contract with the original tenant.
On the other hand, this is business, and what we do next should be based on sound, practical business judgment, not emotion. It would be both pointless and unconstructive to view our tenant poorly because a situation in her life changed. Sure, we could issue a “3-Day to Conform” notice, but we might be pushing out an otherwise fine tenant. After all...it’s just business.
Whenever we enter into a rental agreement with a tenant, or group of tenants, our primary concerns are their individual and collective financial abilities, their rental and possible criminal history, and the number of persons we will have relative to the number of bedrooms in the unit.
In this situation with our tenant in #3, she was renting a 1 bedroom apartment. Under normal situations, we would have readily rented her with as many as three total occupants, as that is what current interpretations of state and federal law expects. We have found this to be good business practice. Had our tenant and her friend come to us, both with good credit and solid income, we would have rented to them. With that one hurdle out of the way, we now have the suitability of this particular person to be confirmed.
We contacted our original tenant, and advised her that within 3 days we will need a signed rental application from her tenant, plus $25 for the credit / rental history / criminal back-ground check and a processing fee of $95, as we will be running a credit and background check on her roommate, we will
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C. Finley Beven has been involved in real estate, property maintenance and property management since 1975. He is a Certified Property Manager (CPM), Institute of real estate Management since 1987. He is also a Certified Community Association Manager (CCAM) and is a member of the California Association of Community Managers. He has a brokers License #00696626 in the State of California. He has a BA, USC; JD, Southwestern University
Beven & Brock Property Management Co., Inc.
99 S. Lake Avenue, Pasadena. (626) 243-4145 Fin.Beven@BevenandBrock.com - www.BevenandBrock.com
14 AUGUST 2021 - APARTMENT MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE AMM1/6