Tenant allowing BF to stay (apartments, lease, tenant rights, renter)
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This is more of an advice question rather than a legal one, but has both components.
We have a basement apartment in our home, which we have rented to a very good tenant, with all utilities included. She's considerate, friendly, quiet, pays her rent on time, personable, responsible, etc. In short, we've had no issues or problems with her.
She has a boyfriend, who lives in the next town over and upon moving in, we told them that he's welcome to stay occasionally. We did include in the lease, a clause stating that the apartment is leased to her alone (1 person), and overnight guests are limited to 14 days per month, which is a very liberal policy as is.
Within the past few weeks, he's been staying here most nights, even when she's not here (she works overnights). We've also discovered he's been doing his laundry here, and we assume taking showers and using other utilities. He is a masters student and I know he's on winter break, so not sure if he doesn't have a room for this one month period, or if he's just staying here because he's out of school and has time.
We really don't mind him being here most of the time, but he is a tad noisy sometimes, with slamming doors, running up and down the stairs, which creates noise, etc.
Additionally, I have tracked the utilities and they aren't much different from what they were last year this time with a different tenant. The water is just a bit more, while the electric and gas are a little less, so it all comes out to about the same.
As I said, she herself has been a wonderful tenant up until this point and we want to balance addressing the issue and possibly nipping something in the bud with keeping her as a tenant and not having to go through the process of finding another if addressing it turned out sourly. We feel she should have asked us beforehand, but perhaps our hands off approach led her to believe this would be okay.
Are there any landlords out there, who could recommend an approach to take to address this? My thoughts are to ask her if her BF is having an issue with his housing over winter break, because we noticed xyz, as mentioned above and see what her response is. Thoughts?
Don't over think it. Just ask her what's going on & tell her why you are asking.
Also let her know that when he runs up/down the stairs and slams doors it creates noise in the main house & you'd appreciate it if she would tell him to take it easy (or however you want to word it).
Sometimes even the best tenants need a small reminder to stay within the constraints of their lease.
That is one of the problems (and actually lead to my tenant breaching her lease) we didn't do a lease until she was here for a month(we were doing a trial period before legally binding us together) I put in the lease how often a guest could stay and if they went over with my permission the rent would go up to cover utilities. Unfortunately my tenant didn't read the lease before signing and was stunned when I confronted her and ultimately it lead to her illegally breaking the lease. You tenant sounds like a good understanding person and I would just be up front with her. It is your home and you have the right to say who can stay and for how long. If it's just a few things that are bothering you address them both in a friendly way and hopefully they will be respectful and gracious enough to fix things
I would simply be upfront and tell her that the BF is basically the overstaying his welcome. While he is allowed to come over, he's simply spending too much time basically living there. When you're starting to sleep over, do laundry, taking showers using utilities etc, you're no longer a guest but you're a occupant.
I would state it as the lease price was based on a one persin occupancy AND a occasional guest coming over and possibly staying overnight a day or so type situation.
BTW (your 14 day policy) IF its written as 14 days per month max it's easy to abuse. Basically you're stating the guy can stay there 14 days EVERY month. So all he has to do is he leaves and goes to a buddy for 16 days then can back to your place EVERY month for 14 days. Continuous.
The way you want to write it is a day time limit in a set amount of months. Something like a tenant can have overnight guests for a maximum of 14 days in a 6 month period. This limits the amount of days overnight guests can stay.
It sounds like the only way the BF impacts you, is the noise of going up and down stairs and slamming doors. That could easily be addressed. And if you have any issues about the laundry he's doing, you could address that, but it didn't sound like that was any real problem, but rather just annoying because he'd basically moved in without your permission.
When I was renting out a 26 unit apartment building (I was a resident manager and lived in one of the apartments), I rented to a lot of students (mostly grad students). I didn't care if boyfriends or girlfriends moved in. If any problems came up, like screaming fights, etc., then I dealt with it. But, my thinking was that if I gave them a hard time, they might move out. And if they were good tenants and neighbors, I wanted them to stay.
I also didn't want to put them both on a rental agreement, because I didn't want to lose my original tenant if they broke up. The original tenant stayed in control of the apartment, and could kick the BF/GF out.
So, if you can live with letting them get away with not asking your permission, you could just talk to them about the noise. This is the way I would handle it.
You could just ask her if she wants to put him on the lease - but then she's in the position of also having to face a relationship commitment with the BF she may not be ready to deal with, if you see where I'm coming from.
She sounds like a good tenant. He is likely staying when she is working overnights so that they see each other when she comes in from work....otherwise they likely wouldn't see each other at all during that shift.
I might mention his inconsiderate door slamming.....and let his being there go as long as he isn't permanently there.
Thank you everyone for your comments and advice. JanND, your thinking is right up my alley as far as finding a good tenant. Because she's been a good, pretty much non-seen tenant overall, I hate to create a bad atmosphere.
My spouse believes it's not a big deal and that we should let it go. As some of you have said, I think the laundry situation isn't really costing us much, so I'll probably let that slide, but go ahead and address the door slamming upon entrance and see how it goes beyond that, because we do feel once winter break is over, he'll start staying at his own place again.
Electrician, I will certainly alter that clause in the future-thank you! And, I'll take this as a learning lesson!
Young single people tend to pair up. I would expect boyfriends/girlfriends if you rent apartments to them. Note... they also tend to get married, have babies. I think you might consider how to respond to that before it happens.... and the solution is probably not going to be that they seek your permission first.
Whatever you do about this one, I suggest that you change your lease for the future. 14 days a month means that an unauthorized tenant can live there 50% of the entire year. 14 days a month 12 months out of the year is not a house guest, it is a tenant with full legal tenant rights.
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