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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

The successful landlords I know told me their number 1 rule was “hold tenants to the contract”.

1 day late on rent with no heads up from the tenant? Start the eviction process.

If you give an inch, they’ll take a mile and pretty quickly you’re running a charity.

Landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants that get fed up with their nonsense, especially when landlords refuse to hold up their end of the contract while expecting tenants to be 100% flawless.

So many of the contracts I've had to sign have been filled with half-assed provisions that the landlord refuses to follow up on. If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slighty late I would lawyer up immediately.

Why would you lawyer up if they started the eviction process for being late on rent? What legal recourse would you have? In Canada it takes something like 2 months to evict someone, it's not like you would be out on the streets the next day. If you pay a few days later the eviction process would probably be stopped and there would'nt be an issue.

Because there's a clear difference in how they view the responsibility of tenant vs landlord. They're effectively holding a tenant ironclad to the contract while not holding themselves to the same standard.

A great example is that a few years ago I signed an apartment lease that indicated the community was supposed to be gated. Now I didn't particularly care about that fact, but that's how it was advertised and sold to me.

When I arrived, the gates were broken and had been broken for over a year. Two years later when I was moving onto my next job, the gates were still broken despite it being advertised and in the lease.

This never became an issue for me because the location was flexible in other ways but it's an example of where had they been a hardass to me, I would've responded with equal tenor. Flexibiliy can be a two way street.

As a landlord, I can tell you that many tenants do the exact same thing: harangue us over minor stuff that isn't even in the contract, while they're constantly late on payment, disruptive, unresponsive, etc. It's human nature to hold others in an higher standard than ourselves, hence the proverb "Physician, heal thyself".

By the way, your claim that "landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants" is, unfortunately, not been my experience. Being lenient and understanding only got us a year of lost rent and an apartment destroyed. But you're right that landlords should uphold their end of the bargain, too.

Said as someone who has never run rentals before.

Being nice and kind and understanding and sympathetic with tenants will rapidly drive you into financial ruin.

I’ve owned multiple units for over a decade and it’s definitely given me a different view on the trustworthiness of the average individual. A surprising number of people lie, steal, and cheat without any apparent hesitation or remorse, regardless of how well you’ve treated them.

The only thing that works is being fair but firm. Stay detached and professional and enforce the contract you both agreed to. If you give people much leeway, at least half the time it’ll be worse next month or the month after. Downward spiral and pretty soon you’re out thousands of dollars.

For years I wondered how one of my neighbors was able to get away with paying rent that was almost half of what the rest of us were paying. The neighborhood was slowly gentrifying and while the rest of us were seeing 7-10% lease increases hers was small or none at all. Apparently paying rent on time for over a decade means something.

When we bought our own place our landlord at the time was really sad to see us go and she said we were her best tenants ever. At first I thought she was being cordial but after hearing other renter stories I think she really meant it. 2 years on time and we got 100% of our deposit back.

> something so banal as rent being slighty late

Getting rent from you is the only reason the landlord is doing the whole enterprise in the first place! It’s not a banal side detail of the deal.

And how do you think they pay their bills? Using your rent. If you pay late what do you think they have to do? You could cause them to default on something else.

> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slightly late I would lawyer up immediately.

Really? So you can pay $500+/hr to be told pay your rent....

And I would argue that someone that wants to lawyer up because they dont feel they have to pay their rent on time is a tenant you want out of the house.

The reality is once you send the notices most people will pay their rent and be less likely to be late in future as boundaries are set. And as someone that has tenants, there are people that need this treatment or you become their overdraft account and it will only get bigger and bigger until you send the eviction notice.

And that's not to say there are exceptions. I've told someone to stop paying while they took time off work for cancer treatment, even thought they said they had savings as I know they didn't have much and wanted to take stress on them.

So it's okay for tenants to set similar boundaries, right? Like for example if a landlord is not living up to their end of the contract.

Which is ultimately what I'm getting at. In reality I've never encountered a landlord that actually adheres to their contractual obligations fully, and depending on how they act towards me informs in turn how I act towards them.

And again, at that point I would be both seeking somewhere else to live as well as taking them to court to break out of the lease due to them not fulfilling their obligations. Now if they actually do everything right on their end then I have less of a problem with them being strict to their tenants.

> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slighty late I would lawyer up immediately.

If you were in breach of contract (which is far from "banal") I seriously doubt you would be the first one "lawyering up". You certainly wouldn't win in any case.

Read my other post here. There are degrees to being in breach of contact and immediately jumping to an eviction notice because a tenant is a day late would be absurd.

And as I keep mentioning but it seems to be conveniently ignored landlords are allowed to get away with breach of contract all the time in my experience as a renter. Which gets back to the point I keep belabouring: Tenants are expected to be perfect while landlords are not. Now can you explain why this is the case?

As you said, there are degrees. Paying your rent on time is 90% of being a good tenant. Going back to your other example, yeah, the gate was broken, but as you said, you didn’t actually care. I’m guessing you never complained. So how is that all that relevant? Not saying the landlord shouldn’t fix it, but you’re just making excuses. You don’t actually care.

Suggestion: pay your rent on time and none of this will ever be an issue. And I wouldn’t bother “lawyering up” when you fail to pay your rent and get an official demand to pay what you owe. The law is not on your side and most courts will take a very dim view of the excuse that the gate is broken, especially when you never cared enough to complain.

It's still according to the post I replied to a breach of contract on their end. Which would entitle me to taking a harsh legal view (the equivalent of immediately going to eviction) and take them to court.

Since you seem intent on missing the point people take an absolutist view towards a tenants responsibilities while taking a lax one towards landlords.

You might feel that you're "entitled to take a harsh legal view", but the actual legal system would not agree with you.

I don't think we're going to see eye to eye, and you've also never been a landlord or had any exposure to any of the legal side of this. It's all fine and dandy to claim that you'd "lawyer up" based on some hypothetical, but you wouldn't, and you'd lose quickly and embarrassingly if you did. I've evicted tenants, sadly, and never once did I worry that some minor maintenance issue from months before that they never complained about would even slow the process down, let alone stop it.

You seem keen on calling something that was advertised and sold to me as non-working a 'minor-maintenance' issue so you're right we will probably never see eye to eye. Only landlords believe false advertisement is okay I suppose.

And you've probably never had to deal with shitty landlords judging from your response.

Not sure you’ll see this, but I was calling it minor because you said it was unimportant to you. And I’ve never owned my primary residence other than living in a unit in my first property for 18 months. I’ve rented from a variety of landlords in 5 cities over the last 15 years, all over the spectrum for excellent to terrible.

Landlords like that are the reason (besides financial considerations) that I bought housing as soon as I was able. That adversarial relationship was never fun.

I've heard that advice as well, and I'm guessing it's either from slum-lords or landlords that haven't encountered tenants willing to hire lawyers. Probably a viable strategy for very-low income tenants and college students.

Shady as hell though.

It's shady to hold people to a contact? Or do you mean it's shady for the tenant to hire a lawyer?

Why do you assume such an action is indicative of a slumlord? Why is it shady? How long should a landlord wait before starting the eviction process (and it is a process, to varying degrees in various places).

What if the mail got lost or delayed? Why would any sane landlord immediately spend the effort to begin eviction process before contacting their tenant, when there are countless reasons that they didn't receive a check for the current month?

MA enforces what I think is a reasonable policy: the landlord must send a written notice to quit to end the tenancy, and may not file an eviction case until a 14-day notice period ends. The tenant cannot be evicted if they pay the owed rent with interest by the end of the notice period.

Usually jurisdictions have some grace period of a few days to account for mail delays around the first, but you can just start the process a couple days after the first. When I first moved to my own apartment, it had a no-nonsense manager. My roommate and I would usually deposit two checks together, but once he couldn't pay his rent on time so it was just my check for half. A couple days later I came home to a "notice of eviction, vacate before date x" on the front door, which is what is meant by "begin the eviction process". That is them contacting the tenant, now it's my turn to contact them and maybe the excuse is "I mailed it already days ago, maybe it got lost, let me mail another and let's set up an autopay system so this doesn't happen again." In my case it was just me hoping my friend would deposit his check soon. I took the notice and another check down to the property manager and explained, and learned a lesson myself on what joint liability really means. I had no ill will for the property manager enforcing the contract.

I'll grant you that "eviction process" was not defined above. I didn't mean going to the sheriff on the 2nd of the month to get them removed (not that that would be legally allowed in most places). Giving written notice that, "I have not received this month's rent, so this is the legally required notice that starts the clock" (with better language, and perhaps with a call beforehand as a heads up) would be starting the eviction process, in the way I was using it. As opposed to waiting a week or two, and then sending the notice, and then having to wait for the legally defined notice period to run.

So I agree with what you're saying; certainly you should contact the tenant beforehand with a friendly, "Hey, I haven't gotten the rent this month yet." But I wouldn't wait long to begin the pre-process, let's call it, of giving written notice. Also, I don't think you would have to start the formal legal process as soon as the notice period ends, so you can be flexible at that end if appropriate; but giving notice early gives you the immediate option to start the process if you deem it appropriate, but with lower latency once the notice period is over.

It’s a not-uncommon position that landlords are morally obligated to give lifetime free rent to any sympathetic case, as lost investment income and a lost home are not really comparable. The “housing should be a human right” camp doesn’t have any specific proposal on how to pay for it; existing landlords are as good as any funding source.

Why is it morally acceptable for a landlord to be able to evict a tenant from their home if their payment was not received for a reason out of the tenant's control, like being lost by the post office or stolen from the landlord's mailbox?

The grandparent comment was responding to starting eviction process one day after rent was due. I don't see how contacting the tenant and waiting a week equates to giving lifetime free rent.

Just b/c the eviction process is started doesn't mean the tenant can't resolve the problem before they are forced out. Assuming the tenant pays then waiting a week wouldn't matter. But if the tenant has decided that they won't pay then waiting the week delays the entire eviction process by an extra week - leading to the landlord getting 1 week less of income for every eviction. I have family that had to evict a tenant in California and it was an extremely long and drawn out process.

I am having a hard time following your logic. The lease is a contract, and the tenant gets the use of the space in exchange for paying a certain amount on a certain schedule. What possible difference does it make why the payment was not received? If it was really lost in the mail or stolen from the landlord's mailbox (really, now...), then the tenant can prove that to the judge in eviction court. Have you ever been to eviction court? It is a learning experience. The judge is listening very carefully for the answer to the following question: "Did you pay the rent?" If he hears anything other than "I paid the rent.", he signs an eviction order. It is amazing how many words a defendant will say, on and on, and if the judge doesn't hear the magic words, he must evict the tenant. The defense is "I paid the rent". Anything else is pretty much irrelevant. Just like telling the IRS "The check was lost in the mail!" or "It must have been stolen out of your mailbox!"

Why is it morally acceptable for someone to hang out in the landlord's house without paying, even if something really bad happened to the tenant (lost job, medical bills, auto repair bills, whatever)?

It's not shady at all. He wasn't suggesting breaking the contract, just enforcing it. Good luck winning a court case, although you might be able scare some landlords off with court costs. Many would just fight it out on principle, though.

You've got to remember that the landlord's downside can be both large and happen quickly.

Shady doesn't mean breaking the contract. Moving to legal action for being a single day late is very power-trippy and being power-trippy is shady.

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