6 Types of Nightmare Tenants and How to Avoid Them

A great rental experience involves tenants that pay rent on time and take care of your property. While you can always screen tenants on your own, utilizing property management software to help you avoid signing a lease agreement with a nightmare tenant.

To help you better identify an ideal tenant, we outlined the top eight tenants to look out for that could cause problems while renting.

The Top 6 Nightmare Tenants to Avoid

1. The Tenant Who Never Pays Rent

There are different reasons why a tenant may not pay rent. If you’re lucky, it’s just a minor case of forgetfulness. If you want to avoid a tenant forgetting to pay rent, then make the process as easy as possible with online rent payments. Online payments are easy for tenants to set up, allow tenants to enroll in automatic rent payments, and provide rent reminder emails and receipts.

It’s also possible for a tenant to run into financial trouble and not be able to afford rent. To help avoid this, there are a few preventative measures you can take.

The first is verifying tenant income and employment. Our comprehensive online rental application allows tenants to upload a document verifying their income. This can be a W-2 form, pay stub, or an offer letter. On the rental application, we also ask for employer history along with contact information. You should contact your tenant’s employer and prior employers and confirm that your tenant is employed.

The second way to estimate the likelihood that a tenant will pay rent is to require a tenant credit report. In the credit report, you can see the number of outstanding payments a tenant has, how many open accounts the tenant has, and the amount of outstanding debt.

If you add up the tenant’s monthly payments plus your rent price and compare that to the tenant’s income, then you can know if the tenant can reasonably afford rent. A common rule of thumb is to see if the tenant’s income is three times the rent price. This rule doesn’t need to be followed perfectly, but it can guide your decision.

2. The Tenant Who Damages Your Property

Tenants who damage your property can cost you a ton of money — not to mention the effort it takes to find the right professionals who can repair broken appliances, fix stained floors, and rectify other kinds of damage.

To avoid a tenant who damages your property beyond normal wear and tear, we recommend following a thorough screening process. If you conduct a tenant background check, look out for a record of vandalism, theft, and arson. A tenant’s history of destroying or stealing property may give you pause. The second way you can try to avoid a tenant who damages property is by contacting a tenant’s prior landlords.

When you reach out, ask these important questions:

1. Did the tenant take care of the rental property?
2. Was the unit clean and in good order when the tenant moved out?

The best way to get accurate information is to follow up with a tenant’s current and prior landlords. The more information you have, the better.

3. The Tenant Who Argues With Everything You Say

There are some tenants who are difficult to work with. They may have non-stop complaints, or maybe they are challenging to work with when it comes to various landlord-tenant tasks, including signing your rental lease and handling maintenance. As long as you’re being a respectful and attentive landlord, you’ll want to avoid these problematic tenants in general.

Our best advice is to get to know a little bit about your tenants before renting to them. Typically, you’ll meet a prospective tenant for the first time at the rental property showing. This is the perfect time to get to know the applicant before signing a rental lease.

4. The Tenant Who Never Moves Out

Tenants who never move out, also known as squatters, are any tenants who stay in your property past their lease end date or who stop paying rent. Squatters typically need to be evicted or forcibly removed from the property, and the legal process is a headache, not to mention expensive.

As you’re reviewing a rental application, be weary of tenants who do not fill out residence history. Even if a tenant has been living at a parent’s house, in a dormitory, or even if they owned their own home, they should still be able to report where they lived.

Prior landlords will be able to notify you:

• If the tenant skipped rent payments
• If the tenant disrupted neighbors
• If the tenant refused to move out
• If the landlord had to file court papers against the tenant

If you follow up with prior landlords, you’ll get a reasonable sense for how the tenant will behave in the future.

5. The Tenant Who Ghosts

It’s possible that a tenant will unexpectedly move out of your unit without notifying you. This kind of tenant abandonment leaves you in a sticky situation: You can’t reach your tenant, no one is paying rent, and the tenant may have even left belongings there.

The best way to avoid this is similar to the steps above. Reach out to prior landlords and find out if a tenant was a responsible renter. Contact employers to find out if they are employed and a stable employee. Based on employment dates and residence history, you can even see if the tenant has been at the same company or in the same city for a long time.

Lastly, always verify that their references are real people. If you speak to a landlord or employer on the phone, you can do a quick Google search or LinkedIn search to verify you are speaking to the right person.

6. The Tenant Who Brings You to Court

The best way to avoid going to court with a tenant is to stay compliant with landlord-tenant laws. You must always provide notice of entry, follow all Fair Housing laws, maintain a respectful and professional relationship with your tenants, and ensure your rental unit and/or building is up to code and meets all standards of habitability.

While rare, it’s also possible that you could end up in court if a tenant commits a serious crime on your property. If your local laws allow it, you can use a tenant background check in your screening process so you’re aware of a tenant’s criminal history.

Avoid Bad Tenants With a Strong Tenant Screening Process

The best way to avoid a tenant who is going to cost you money and cause you headaches is by having a thorough (but fair) tenant screening process.

Learn more about how to screen tenants in our Complete Guide to Tenant Screening, and get started screening your tenants with our online rental application and our comprehensive tenant credit report and background check.

Join the landlords who are saving time and stress using Avail and sign up today.