Tenant broke lease after first month. Warren, mi : ezLandlordForms

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Christopher S

started a topic about 11 years ago

I rented my house to a family March 3rd 2013. Wife contacted me saying husband relapsed on heavy drugs and she has moved out. I found out from neighbors the police have been to the home several times. Anyway,,,, after several phone calls with the slurring husband where he did not have a key to get in and wanted to kick the front door in, he has decided to move out. They both say the house will be cleared out by April 2nd 2013. They both signed a one year lease on the home with a 1.5 month security deposit. Of course they are both have expressed interest in getting as much of the security deposit back as they can. How do I correctly wrap this mess up. Do I need to do a formal eviction through the court. Should I just write up a letter stating drugs where used in the home and the wife left the property and get them to sign it in return of a partial refund of the security deposit. I do feel for the wife and kids but I believe this is not the first time they have gone through these issues. I half feel like giving them some of the secrurity back and half way don't because of all the stress and drama they have pushed onto my own family... any advise is greatly appreciated. This is my first time renting my house out.

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Jerry D

said about 11 years ago

Christopher, It has taken me several renters to finally learn what works and what doesn't with renting your house out, at least here in Montana. I no longer will rent our house out without a thorough credit check no matter how much they beg. We had the same situation happen where some renters were losing their $300,000 home and their credit was no good. They had to have our home because of the area but they complained every month about something. You will always have trouble with them either with getting the rent or breaking your lease. The lease is a contract. If they signed the lease for one year and now have broken the lease, they owe you for one year's worth of lease payments. I also use all documents available to me through ezlandlord. Send them a security deposit final accounting showing where they owe you for one year's worth of lease payments and any damages and/or any outstanding utility bills that you will have to pay when they skip out on those. I'm guessing that the document will say that they still owe you money. However, if they cooperate with you and you can get someone else into the house within a month or so, then you can't charge two people for the same rent and their bill would then be reduced by the amount of months someone else is paying for. For example: if they leave at the end of April and you can get someone in there by the middle of May, the current renters would owe for April and all of May. You would then have 30 days to return half of May's rent to them unless any other charges popped up. But for breaking the lease, I always keep the deposit. I also no longer accept any personal checks for rent - learned that lesson the hard way also when a renter decided that they would stop payment on their rent check because they were afraid that I wouldn't give them their deposit and they hadn't even moved out yet! Sent them a 3-day vacate notice and they paid up right away! Also, when I am running the ad to rent our house, I let them know up front that they will be paying $25 to have their credit check done. No choice. If their credit is bad, they don't care about how much worse it gets. If their credit is good, they care if something happens to it.

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Christopher S

said about 11 years ago

Ok, thanks for the tuff love. As far a amping up my screening process, I did a thourogh screening but in the end choose to overlook a poor credit and payment history in order to give them a chance. They basically begged. I allowed them in the house but I raised the security deposit, which they were glad to pay. So sure next time I won't be as likely to give out chances but as far as giving them back their security up to the damages they caused I wonder why?

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Dawn A

said about 11 years ago

It sounds like you did NOT screen these people very well. Next time, amp up your screening process to avoid this mess. You definitely want these people out, it doesn't matter how long of a lease you signed with them. Give back their security deposit up to the amount of damages they caused.