I work with a property management company. We’ve recently had to serve a 90 notice to vacate to one of our tenants due to uninhabitability. There was a natural gas line that ran through several other units that started leaking and despite herculean efforts we were unable to locate the problem.
So today with a hail Mary attempt, the leak was found. Great news… except… we don’t really want that tenant back in, we don’t want to do anything illegal either.
Is anyone here familiar with this type of situation? Once the 90 day has been officially filed and served can/must it be stopped if the property has been made habitable again? Or can it be allowed to run it’s course?
Mods: I’m not asking for legal advise. I’m asking for opinions or someone to point to existing information. Before any decision is made on our part we will run it past an attorney.
IF they have found another place to live them might not even want to come back, although you didn’t say if any of their possessions remain and need removing.
We’ve had this tenant for a long time. She’s frequently late with rent. She tries to claim re-imbursements for transgressions that didn’t happen. She’s constantly being nasty to us and during this latest problem has tried to falsely claim expenses she didn’t incur. She also hit us with a huge liquor bill that she claimed we owed her. She is constantly trying to scam us.
On paper it might not seem like much but she diverts a lot of our time to investigating unnecessary and unwarranted BS.
I’ve been a tenant all my adult life, I have had to move to uninhabitable apartment, and I’ve also worked for landlords. You’re describing a tenant that is a pain in the butt and also nickel and dimes you (and sometimes quarters and dollars).
Geez - really, she tried to get you to pay for booze? Crazy.
One solution I believe would be to simply withdraw the unit from Section 8. If you are willing to not rent to any Section 8 tenant you could probably legally exclude this person if they’re dependent on the funding for support.
However IMO I would think long and hard on this from a moral perspective as well as a purely dollars and cents/hassle issue. Quality Sec 8 housing really is badly needed and not all Sec 8 tenants are a pain in the ass/destructive (I’ll acknowledge that a higher percentage of them relative to the general population can be). One of the problems is the synergy of poor reputation leading to only rather shitty landlords renting to them leading to worse tenant responses. It can be a bit of a feedback loop.
Ultimately this isn’t our decision, it’s the owners. And I believe the owner took this person on as act of kindness. But it’s been such a huge pain in the ass that my understanding is she will no longer accept S8.
I won’t try to guess peoples motives but I’m frankly shocked at this woman’s behavior. She seems to be intentionally trying to wreck this situation - though I know she isn’t. Her sense of entitlement is breathtaking. For all that I’ve done for her alone you would think she would be grateful.
And yes, she really did submit liquor receipts and ask that we pay them.
Have you worked with your section 8 supervisor. I have a friend who owns several rental properties and apartments with section 8. His property manager keeps the properties in excelant condition and they are in high demand. The property manager also keeps a good arangement with the supervisors at s8. Several times they have gon to the section 8 manager about a problem tenant and asks that the tenant be moved. The section 8 manager moves them. He gives then the choice move to another less desirable section 8 unit or face eviction from the unit they are in. Now at the same time as a landlord when the section 8 supervisor comes to them with tenant complaints about condition of the properties they have to take care of the problem quickly.
I had my single unit up for rent a couple of years ago and put in the ad “Sorry, no Section 8”. I don’t have anything against people who get assistance per se but the bureaucracy and requirements of Section 8 look like a huge pain. I was contacted by someone not interested in renting the unit but blasting me for the No Section 8 part. She claimed it was illegal and she might report me to Consumer Affairs or whoever. I checked into it and it seems she was right, at least in New Jersey. I had no idea. If a prospective tenant can make the rent, it is none of the landlord’s business what the source of the income is. The work around is to have some income/rent ratio. “Tenant must demonstrate income at 3 times the monthly rent”, or minimum credit score or something. Section 8 money is not considered income. I removed that clause and rented to a non-8 person. In any case, if you have multiple applicants, I don’t see how they could prove the reason that you didn’t rent to them was Section 8 related. (Unless you put it right in the ad - duh) YMMV.