Landlord Resources
Oh the poor victimized tenant... That's all you find on an Internet search when you are looking for answers to protect yourself as a landlord. The landlord is universally villainized. Why the very name 'landlord' with its suffix 'lord' invokes a resistance to perceived power over the underprivileged. Well this is the 21st Century and the landlord has become the victim. Today's property owners are forced to allow tenant activity and possessions that can devastate the landlord's property, pay crippling fines and legal expenses, and lose practically everything when a clever opportunistic tenant plays the system.
Landlords have lost the right to commonsense practices and protections such as:
- deny tenant from having an obnoxious pet, even if it is a small horse, because the tenant can claim the animal is for emotional support
- prevent tenant from taking on additional roommates without compensation to the building owner
- non-return of tenant deposit when the tenant is behind on rent or has done damage that can't be specifically quantified within a narrow window of time
As a landlord, it is your property and you pay the taxes, yet you have very little to say about what happens on the land and building you are held responsible. As a modern landlord you find that your hands are tied when it comes to protecting your property and investment. You want to be good and fair to your responsible tenants, and also be able to hold the bad tenants accountable for their destruction.
Tenants are morally entitled to reasonable rights such as the right to privacy as well as allowed to live in a reasonably safe and well maintained environment. Laws designed to protect tenants are overreaching and vague, and in most cases cripple the landlord's most basic means of protecting the property and investment. The law goes too far. A fair balance needs to be restored, whereas the tenant has practical protections while the landlord has some degree of recovering costs when the tenant has violated the terms of the lease including damage to the property.
The reality is that the bad tenants are no longer held accountable. The good intentions of politicians and government has caused the rent to increase. Everyone pays for those bad tenants. Everyone's rent goes up each time a bad tenant is responsible for a great expense to the landlord. No one buys rental properties to lose money. What is truly not fair is that the good tenants end up paying more because of the bad tenants that the law does everything to protect. Welcome to modern day socialism in the United States.
TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR PROPERTY!
Landlord Resources
- https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52-general-landlording-rental-properties
- https://www.thelpa.com/lpa/forum.html
ESA Abuse
There are for-profit websites, known among some psychologists as “ESA mills”, that will facilitate a quick, dubious disability appraisal by a clinician over the phone or via a web survey, then sell your tenant gear like vests and tags to make you pet look more official. Many will even provide an official letter authorizing the use of a so-called Emotional Support Animal, even if it is a giant dog or small horse. Many community therapists will gladly provide someone with an ESA letter. Equipped with a therapist’s letter, the tenant may move almost any animal into an animal-free apartment or dormitory and demand additional accommodations at the property owners expense. Never mind the neighbor in an apartment complex that may have a physiological fear of certain animals including dogs, their mental health is not of any interest to the ESA owner or the government.
Unlike traditional service animals ESA can be any species or breed and need no formal training, making them much more likely to spontaneously attack someone, damage property, or create health hazards via their excrement. An emotional support animal may be prescribed to the tenant to help with his or her generalized anxiety, meanwhile, inducing a great deal of anxiety to other occupants of a complex, not to mention the additional anxiety forced onto the property owner. A complete lack of clear guidelines from the government creates anxiety for all parties including the legitimate ESA owners as well as property managers that have been exploited by fake ESAs. The number of dubious ESA certifications continues to increase or practically explode. Due to selfishness, and profiteers the end result is yet another aspect of small business being over regulated to where it is no longer viable. Everyone pays the price when the government and bleeding heart media start on the path to regulatory overreaction.
