Tenants are bad children. Even good tenants are bad sometimes, or bad sooner or later. And the part about tenants being children, well ... ask any landlord. The demands, the lies, the messes. We try to love them anyway. Long time landlords have a long standing love hate relationship with their tenants, always have always will, but the trade off is worth it – most of the time. Over the holidays I delivered a three day notice for a lady in Boston who has a rental condo in Sarasota. I didn't exactly deliver it, I posted it on the front door and took a picture. In Florida the very first step in eviction for nonpayment of rent is posting or delivering the three day notice to pay or quit.
I know, it may sound mean, terrible, and predatory to evict someone at all, especially over the Christmas holidays. The Boston landlady had not received any rent for nearly a full month before she called me. The tenant fell two months behind shortly after receiving the three day. So, the Boston landlady was out nearly $2000. during her Christmas holidays. Now who's mean, terrible and predatory?
Granted, being a landlord is not for the fainthearted. An ex of mine, now a dim memory from the distant past, thought he wanted to be a landlord. This was during the glory days of the last real estate boom. He bought a house as an investment, fixed it up, and rented it out. The only problem – the tenants paid a partial damage deposit and one month's rent, and then never paid another dime. The tenants tenanted the house for a good three months – two of which were free, since they simply didn't pay.
The ex became increasingly angry and frustrated four and more days after he posted the three day, and there were no signs the tenants were going anywhere. Late one night he went there, stood at the road, and threw rocks at the house. I wasn't there, I don't know how many he threw. I know he broke at least one window. When he got back and told me what he had done, after a melt down, telling him he not only could have hurt someone, but he could also be in jail, and probably should be – I told the ex that he was to never ever go near that house again. Although it was technically his house, I didn't care. He was not cut out for landlord life. The moral of the story, is that being a landlord is not for everyone.
We, at the Florida Association of Legal Document Preparers, http://www.faldp.org have recently launched a statewide eviction service. We know it can be tough. We know that it is difficult to hang on to property these days. We know that finding good tenants is harder than ever. We're hoping that our service will take a little pressure off. Please visit our page http://www.faldp.org/Florida-Eviction-Network.html and see how we can help.
We have absolutely nothing against tenants, in fact, we love them (most of the time ... well ... sometimes). They are the lovely people that pay rent so we landlords can pay the mortgage payment. And, by the way, my definition of a good tenant, is a tenant that pays in full and on time and doesn't tear things up.
