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Put your foot down on this one. You are taking all the risks possible, with none of the benefits. If you let her go ahead with this, you will regret it tremendously, and it could get bad enough to affect your marriage.
Perhaps your wife is having a breakdown. Might want to consult a doctor.
The same occurred to me. If she's being so unreasonable and this is a new characteristic it may well be worthwhile for her to have a checkup to see if there's something amiss.
We have 2.5+ fenced acres which our two dogs use (let the dog in...let the dog out...repeat...)
Main house is only the wife and I. Guest house was mom's until she died about a year ago.
The dogs will run out if the gate is opened while they are in the yard. This means every time someone enters or leaves the property we must call and make sure the dogs are in one of the houses. Mom did not drive so that simplified things. If she was not with us, we knew she was home and we would call before opening the gate.
Since mom died four people have inquired about renting the guest house-all in financial distress. Wife wants to rent it and I am totally opposed to it. She seems to have this desire to be charitable and wants to rent it at far below market rates.
We don't need the money, especially at the silly rent she thinks we should charge.
The problems:
-The dogs. EVERY TIME someone enters or leaves they, and us, will have to make phone call(s) checking the status of the dogs. On top of that one dog is not friendly to strangers so there is that to worry about. The wife's solution is to take them out on a leash-every time. That won't work as it is time consuming plus not fair to the dogs who are used to running around a big yard. This bizarre desire to be generous is clouding her judgement.
-It is illegal to rent a guest house due to zoning. That means no lease. Plus, an upset tenant could file a zoning complaint which would be an unnecessary headache.
-Since we can't have a lease there is no enforceable way to evict someone in the event of problems.
-We are moving in about three years. I don't want hassles getting tenants out (or buyers wanting to look) if they refuse to move. Plus there is the risk of damage.
To me the rent would not compensate for the risk and hassles of being a landlord for such a small amount of money.
Thoughts? I would especially like to hear opinions from landlords.
DON"T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will have an absolute nightmare! Even if it were legal to rent it where you live, it still would be a very bad idea.
Do you have any other relatives that could use a place to say? You could help one of them out by offering it to them. It would satisfy your wife's desire to help someone. Perhaps they could help you back in return by doing some yard work and running errands for you. It would not be legal, as you would not be renting it out. You could fence off the area around the guest house to eliminate the dog worry. Win win for everyone.
I'm pretty sure you are wrong about not being able to evict someone if problems develop. Legal rental or not I'm pretty sure you could still evict anyone if it became necessary.
The only way that you could have someone in there is they're your servants. In fact, that might be a good idea! You could have someone who cleans your house, maintains the property, does whatever you need, maybe twenty hours/week of work, in exchange for free rent. Of course, they'd have to have outside employment, too. But if you fire them, I don't know how easily you can get them out of there. Do you want live in help?
Since mom died four people have inquired about renting the guest house-all in financial distress. Wife wants to rent it and I am totally opposed to it.
-It is illegal to rent a guest house due to zoning. That means no lease. Plus, an upset tenant could file a zoning complaint which would be an unnecessary headache.
I guess that means a "tenant" would also be sharing/have access to your mailbox. I wouldn't want a financially distressed person having access to my financial information.
Put me down for another voice saying you would be a fool to do this. It is illegal, the dogs are a problem, you don't want to do it, which is a problem. But to me, the biggest problem, even bigger than the fact that it is illegal, is that your wife is wanting to choose the worst possible renter. One who is already in distress, because she wants to "help" them.
Here is what will happen there:
Step 1: Cheap rent
Step 2: Tenant doesn't have rent, so your wife lets them pay late
Step 3: Tenant doesn't have rent at all, so your wife lets them have a free month
Step 4: Tenant now is living there for free
Step 5: Tenant needs money for their car payment, so your wife loans them money
Step 6: Tenant can't pay money back, so your wife now is giving them money to live on
Step 7: You've adopted an entire family
Put me down for another voice saying you would be a fool to do this. It is illegal, the dogs are a problem, you don't want to do it, which is a problem. But to me, the biggest problem, even bigger than the fact that it is illegal, is that your wife is wanting to choose the worst possible renter. One who is already in distress, because she wants to "help" them.
Here is what will happen there:
Step 1: Cheap rent
Step 2: Tenant doesn't have rent, so your wife lets them pay late
Step 3: Tenant doesn't have rent at all, so your wife lets them have a free month
Step 4: Tenant now is living there for free
Step 5: Tenant needs money for their car payment, so your wife loans them money
Step 6: Tenant can't pay money back, so your wife now is giving them money to live on
Step 7: You've adopted an entire family
Step 8: You decide to sell the house and give tenant 30 day notice to move out. Tenant refuses and accuses you of renting an illegal apartment and reports it to the authorities. You have to hire a lawyer to evict the tenant and your home sale is delayed by 3 months. The county/city zoning board gets involved and fines you for having an illegal rental. You must pay the fines before you sell the home else the city/county will put a lien on it. Between the fines and your attorney costs, you are out $3500.
In addition, you lost out on a home that you wanted to buy(someone else bought it) because you had to wait until your renter was out before you could put your home up For Sale.
Once the renter is finally evicted, you find out they were spiteful and they took the kitchen cabinet doors with them, and left rotten food in the fridge and stopped up the plumbing on purpose.
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