TENANT VS LANDLORD
Remrie Arrie 2022–03–23
Tenant VS Landlord
Us VS Them
Raise your hand if you’ve had a crappy landlord….
Raise your hand if you’ve had a crappy tenant or housemate…
Raise your hand if you’ve had both…
Not to overgeneralize, but vaguely speaking, we’ve all been there. Now as COVID-19 fizzles out as spring arrives, a full two years after it started, it has thrown the economy into chaos, and acts of war by Russia are not helping. Many landlords are trying to recover an entire year or more of unpaid rent plus damages from their tenants, while tenants struggle to figure out how to afford >$4.00/gal fuel prices for aging vehicles in an economy where a twenty year old vehicle can cost $5k-$10k. For many laborers, catastrophic damages to their vehicle could cost an entire year of gross pre tax income to afford.
Tensions are high, resources are low, and everyone is hurting.
Emotions VS Logic
When emotions are high, logic is low.
Can I get a show of hands of how many of you have said or done something in a heated argument that you later regretted? I sure have. In situations like this, people go to battle and there will be more losers than winners. While many people have genuinely needed eviction moratorium protections, many others have also used those protections out of spite in retaliation of a bad landlord, or capitalists as a whole. They may feel like winners who won a lottery, but most people don’t manage their finances very well, and may get slammed with major hits to their credit scores, wage garnishments, and unfavorable bankruptcy conditions. The bitterness and rivalry have lead to both sides creating online forums where they privately slander each other, tenants criticising landlords, and landlords criticizing tenants, but fearful of discrimination lawsuits if they create an actual registry rating tenants the same way apartments are rated, or even rideshare drivers.
Industry Practices VS Government Regulations
Julia Wick, who wrote for the L.A Times, wrote an article about a proposed city ordinance to combat homelessness by prohibiting landlords from asking about criminal, credit, and eviction history, among other mandates. Proponents advocate that it curbs homelessness, reduces unfair discrimination, and increases fairness in the market. Opponents, Julia writes, claim it will increase costs for landlords.
I personally believe the proponents will see their goals actualize more tangible results, while the opponents are grasping at straws whereby costs to the landlords are less likely to be actualized, and stand to be covered by insurance. Generally speaking, just as most people don’t manage their finances very well, they in turn don’t manage their assets very well either; whether as a tenant, or as a landlord. As such, many landlords don’t carry adequate insurance, don’t ensure their tenants maintain their own renter insurance policies, and don’t audit either policies to ensure specific clauses are included in their contracts to minimize risks. These landlords and investors are effectively without seatbelt and exposed to risks of financial laws of inertia.
Long Term Effect & Consequences
Fortunately the ordinances don’t apply to shared living arrangements, or where the landlord is a permanent resident. And that exception to the ordinance has been affirmed in federal court as an egregious overreach of government to reach into homes and force individuals to make accommodations to others without any regard for personal health or safety. Just as landlords shouldn’t be subjected to such laws, neither should tenants who sublease a spare bedroom.
At the level of an individual unit, it is appropriate, but it does present an additional challenge and safety concerns for neighbors and landlords, especially among those who already feel unsafe enough to conceal carry in their everyday life or as a part of their profession. Additionally, hurt by pro-tenant policies, many landlords have been replacing their homes and apartments with ones in red states, or getting out of the industry altogether.
This creates a couple of problems for red states, as out-of-state investors face higher costs of doing business and will be motivated to charge higher rent to offset those costs. Additionally, are less capable, and less willing to maintain their properties, which results in dangerous and unhealthy homes that are also unaffordable. I experienced this first hand. The California property owner of the home I was renting, in pursuit of higher ROI and fewer regulations ended up being screwed over by a property manager who didn’t rehab the property to his expectations, and he ended up with a tenant (myself) who put their rent into a small claims escrow account. There it sat for a full year until I filed a motion to have it refunded due to hardships and lack of habitability.
Situations like these are why I firmly believe companies deserve to go out of business if they cannot provide adequate pay or adequate standards of quality/safety.
Going Forward — The Action Plan
Okay, so you read this far and are probably wondering “what’s in it for me?”, or wondering how to make the situation better on a more individualized and tangible level.
To do so, as a tenant or as a landlord you will require cooperation, mediation, and negotiation. The more cooperation is present, there will be less of a need for mediation and negotiation. If there is zero cooperation, stop reading and go lawyer up, your needs are beyond the scope of this publication. But please do let me know what the outcome was!
Any respectable individual of any merit will be proactive to not make a problem worse, sometimes though it is unavoidable. Just as the most skilled driver might not have the reaction time (or traction) to avoid crashing into your vehicle, depression, anxiety, and failures of our education system may cause delinquencies, damages, tardiness, neglect, etc.
But let’s take this from the top!
You have to first approach each other with humility, not ignore the importance of humanity before itemizing exactly what problems exist, exactly what are causing them, and hammer out a plan. When tenants and landlords are on the same page, it’s not an Us VS Them situation, it’s an Us (Tenants and Landlords) Vs That situation. As a disclaimer, I am making the assumption here that both parties either can’t afford legal counsel, or want to avoid it.
One of my policies as a landlord is to -never- raise rent on a tenant while they live with me. If I need to increase income to offset expenses I will prioritize other sources of income. To traditional capitalists, that will sound insane, but that policy does two things for me. It creates a lot of loyalty, and that loyalty has a laundry list of secondary benefits, such as income stability and low turnover rates and low turnover costs. In addition to creating loyalty, it also creates a safety net. If I am really struggling to succeed, the lowest hanging fruit is there should I need it.
Not My Problem — Plot twist! It actually is.
Nobody succeeds in a vacuum. When COVID-19 hit, I was very lucky to come out unscathed. I was lucky that I have such great tenants, but also lucky that no problems spiraled out of control. I only have five units, so I wasn’t stretched too thin, but I also made accommodations for their employment, vehicle, and financial issues. Conversely, when I had surgery and important neglected maintenance occurred, everything was okay in spite of the slight inconveniences.
I will also add, one tenant felt so bad, even though I told them not to include a late fee, they did anyway. Funny enough, they included an extra $30 whereas I charge a $50 late fee. So I’ll figure out a way to credit that back and pay it forward. So many people are just one mechanical breakdown away from losing their job and being evicted.
What is the cost to benefit analysis of Cash for Keys?
It’s (sometimes) cheaper for a landlord to pay a tenant cash in exchange for keys so that the problem just goes away. Sometimes though, landlords must also invest in their tenants! A long term tenant who has been on time who suffers a hardship can be worth helping in an emergency. One of my tenants had a major wheel and tire failure that was quoted as a $350 repair. With a little research (while they were in a panic) I figured out how to drop it down to $200, and as a gift I spent $80 on a steel wheel for their vehicle, leaving them with a much more manageable $120 vehicle repair. And I gave them a stern lesson on the value of preventative vehicle maintenance.
Did I have to do that? No. Will I help them again if they didn’t learn their lesson? No. But, that $80 gift for a new wheel which will last them the life of their vehicle is a lot cheaper than having someone fall behind on rent and having to turn over a vacant unit.
When everyone on both sides of the table are trying their best, it makes it easier to express humility and make accommodations for the betterment of humanity. When a tenant has a guarantee that their rent will be a flat rate, that makes their life, especially their financial challenges immensely easier! Conversely, when tenants work with their landlords, events such as the 2008 recession, Covid-19, Black Lives Matter protests, war times, etc, that makes life immensely easier for the landlord to trust their tenants. I can only imagine how awkward things are between tenants who are people of color who have a white landlord who is very pro blue lives matter.
The ability to do everything we can not make life unreasonably difficult for each other has a massive impact on smoothing out many of life’s unexpected hardships. When landlords abuse tenants, tenants will be more untrusting of future landlords. Conversely, when tenants abuse landlords, landlords will be more untrusting of future tenants.
“Be excellent to each other” — Bill and Ted
Remrie Arrie
Remrie@Gmail.com
www.Remrie.com
