Landlord Quick Tip

Tip #121: Gimme Three Steps, Mister

move outA seasoned landlord shared his experiences at the last move out.

His tenant had been in the property long enough to have two more children, and now was moving into a bigger property.

And this landlord could see what was coming next.

“Long-term tenants always seem to do a bad job when they move out,” he explains.

In fact, the longer someone has been a tenant, the harder it is to remember what the place looked like before they moved in, or what the lease says about the move out.

This case was no exception.  “I was at the property a couple days before the move doing some repairs,” he continues.  “I don’t think this tenant understood that cleaning was her responsibility.”

Of course, every tenant wants their deposit back.  The move out can quickly lead to a landlord tenant dispute.

Here, our landlord asked the tenant if she would like to do a walk thru a little early–a “pre-walk thru” if you will, so the landlord could counsel her on what would need to happen in order to get the deposit back. “I really didn’t want to be the one cleaning this up,” he says.

Propping a baby on her lap, the tenant took copious notes, and then got to work.

In the end the unit was clean as a whistle, and the tenant will be getting her deposit back– a true win-win.

See last weeks Landlord Quick Tip.

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