Small Landlording Struggles (collection)
Umbrella collection of residential small-landlord friction that doesn't form one buildable pain: lease-termination edge cases, deposit disputes, property-manager gripes, vacancy struggles, taxes and rental finance, tenant-side complaints, becoming-a-landlord questions. Specific panes split out 2026-08-26: eviction-court delays, judgment collection, chronic late/partial rent, tenant income verification. (Retired title 'Commercial Lease Law Varies Too Much by State' — 0.2% of content was commercial.)
SOURCES (60)
“You need to email him with the Statement of Work (S.O.W.). This email keeps clear expectations of what you are expected to do to earn the $175.”
Yes, these are the questions to ask and consider, for sure.
“Two things can be true. Your process can be more fair than the "easier" alternative, but it is still the process of determining how much of a tenants income you can capture. The icky part is that your main claim to that income is land ownership. As a renter its quite disilusioning to think that any portion of your "raise" has already been counted by the person who owns the place that you live. Good luck”
“Yes, and many times the dad lives there, pays for stuff, and is not reported. I lived next-door to a Mexican family that was supposed to be one women and 2 children ("2 heads per bed" rule). Turns out she had TEN children, the oldest 2 were in & out of prison (both were female), but don't worry! They had newborns gram was taking care of. :) While being 200 pounds overweight and on anti-psychotic meds. She also then moved BOTH her sisters in, and their boyfriends. Plus a few of”
“I'm leaning toward a new belief--since I've not rented a house out in this bracket before--that my lawyer, no matter how good, would be likely to say, "just get them out, let it go, forget about the balance, you'll spend more in legal than you'll get... if you ever get anything..." or worse yet: "just pay them to leave..." So the takeaway on all of the above--which are conversations I've never really had in decades, are that there are conversation I may be”
“Ask them what they are thinking, see if it's even reasonable. Maybe provide some links to some comps at the same. I had a tenant one to ask me for a reduction, while I was fighting tonight increase the rent. There were already below market value. I provided them a link to section 8 voucher (housing authority). They wound up moving into government housing. I increased the rent $150 a month, and rented it right away.”
“This is a common landlord thing - they don't want to show up in person, so they ask the tenants to provide access for maintenance. This usually goes well because a lot of tenants don't want people in their homes without them being present. Win-win, except when scheduling doesn't work out. But no, unless your lease *explicitly* says otherwise, it's not your responsibility to reserve time to provide access to the unit. The landlord will have to suck it up and provide access for the”
“I think it would be valuable for an owner of less than 5 properties, which is a lot of the market. The reason is that large landlords subscribe to software which does all of this. We own about 120 properties and pay about $2500 per year for pretty good software. The reason that the same software doesn’t work for small landlords is that the providers have a minimum (which amortizes to too high a cost). If you can bring your idea down to a “retail” level, so that small landlords are invented to su”
“So this is our first time renting, we’ve been here for about 5 days now, and just the other day we were filling out this paper about the condition of the place and if anything needs repaired. There was a leak on the toilet, bolt just needed tightened, master bedroom door was hard to shut, there was a rip in the screen in the second bedroom window, and there is water damage on the wall next to the bathtub in the second bathroom that looks like it got in through a crack. Tonight I sent an email ab”
“You don't need to do anything, except give a copy of the key. Don't overthink this one. It may all be that they are embarrassed to have lost the key.”
“It’s both bad players and bureaucracy. I have experienced it first hand from nightmare renters to S8 case workers that were to get a hold of”
“First, sorry for all you're dealing with with your father. In most states (?), your landlord has the right to enter your apartment if they provide reasonable advance notice, typically 24 hours. Your landlord doesn't have the right to require you to be there. They can't force you to stay home or take time off work just so you can be there when a maintenance worker is there. They can't tell you you have to be there. If I were your landlord, I might prefer that you were there becaus”
“Great to hear you’re doing this the right way and not fleecing people. That’s a perfectly reasonable way to increase prices. You’re a standup guy!”
“Make him a copy of the key and drop it off. He should have one. You also don't even need to explain why you're not there, it's none of his business.”
“I manage a lot of properties. Keys get lost, it happens. They're being weird about it. Probably embarassed if I had to guess. I will usually ask if I can put a lockbox on the door and make a copy while they are at work. It really doesn't have to be a big deal.”
“Expressly forbid all and any forms of subletting to include air bnb or similar busineesses.”
“This bullshit is only a flex in this echo chamber. What an affirmation seeking, playground bully rant. OP monitors income so that, when a tenant's income goes up, they feel entitled to take some of it. What a pathetic existence it must be that you watch someone's paycheck to see how much MORE you can take from them.”
“Don't do "trades". Pay him for his work. And he pays you rent. It keeps the situation clean and even.”
“I just want the numbers needed so I can hand it off to my accountant. This is information overload.”
“Yeah, they basically told me on the phone to speak with a lawyer because she’s been living there for 3 years and 9 months without a lease, and she’s family, so technically it’s a civil matter not a landlord tenant matter. Ugh. Thanks for the advice though, I might just go ahead and give her a lease for one month, then evict her through rtdrs on a 14 day failure to pay. We shall see after I talk to the information centre and service Alberta.”
“Have you gone through RTDRS (residential tenancy dispute resolution), requesting an "order of possession only" (basically don't check the boxes marked "arrears of rent" or "damages")?”
“If you think a judge isn’t going to care that you were wrong about a material fact when you shut off your tenants water and only learned later that your illegal action was not in fact illegal….lol “yeah I know I was inappropriately evicting them when I did it but turns out I actually had a perfectly legal reason for doing it your honor.” Hahahah oh man. I would love to see this is court. I would simply die of laughter.”
“I imagine only 1 interaction like this is pretty lucky considering the pool of people you’re renting to haha (nothing against them though)”
“I did not see anywhere that he said that but could’ve missed it. Hard to imagine what that “evidence” would be though given he couldn’t get into the house to see the drains, nor are drains metered to track flow externally. What possible evidence could he have?”
“Correct, this is a choice we’ve made. And perhaps you don’t understand. What ever they pay in rent is nothing in comparison to the value of the house/unit. So when someone trashes a unit and we’re out thousands of dollars(mind you the law changed- you’re only allowed 1 months rent for the max deposit amount) and the little they paid, doesn’t cover that. Again to my point, there’s a huge misconception of the profit margins and the greedy landlord narrative— the overhead in this industry is very h”
“Call your landlord/property manager and ask for a supervisor, or go to the office in person. If you’ve already emailing them they’re not magically going to give you what you want. The squeaky wheel gets oiled.”
“I had a slightly similar interaction recently. I’m house hacking and decided it was time to raise rent to make up the increase in taxes and insurance. The guy had been paying $800 for 3 years and this was my first time raising the rent to $850. He got all worked up about it saying it was unfair and that I shouldn’t raise rent on a friend (we’re friendly because we live together not friends prior to him moving in). I showed him the increases that I’ve covered, but it didn’t matter. He decided to”
“i doesn’t matter how old you are if you don’t have rental history you need a co-signer”
“You should be able to qualify for 3 months, extendable once or twice. Less than a year, NO PETS, and having another child while on benefits should cancel your benefits automatically. If you can't support yourself, or yourself and one child, it stands to reason you can't support 3 more.”
“You can usually find state approved leases on many sites. Attorneys even have them available for free download.. Just do a little googling..”
“I see no harm in re-listing. A re-list is not a signed contract. It's just an advertisement. And, i suspect you'll need a new tenant so you might as well get started.”
“No clue. The people I know in Scottsdale go through some kind of real estate agent / broker who specializes in those types of leases. They usually have one business sign for exclusive use for a set time period (something like 3-9 months, if not longer). One of them lists on something similar to VRBO but higher end.”
“"Little rent"? That isn't a thing anymore. You chose this as a business and your tenants pay you. A lot of LL actually forget that point.”
“I would give them a small decrease and explain that you have increased expenses related to the unit that you are not passing along to them.”
“Biggest issues in high end rentals is that they have high end finishes and demanding tenants who want a managed service. Make sure you consider the amount of service and care you will need. I.E. if you have landscaping that you've put a lot of $$$$ into than make sure you include landscaping as a service that you provide with the property. If you have high end wood floors make sure you specify how they should be cleaned and the protections afforded. I know for a home I have redoing the floor”
“And property managers keep a proper paper trail. No more "we're neighbors so I thought that a verbal request/text message was fine". I was wondering if a duplex owner can live on one side, rent out the other, hire a property manager, and have it all work out that way. Seems like the smartest thing to do, imo.”
“How did you go about finding roommates? I’m looking to rent out two bedrooms but I’m scared of having bad roommates. I’ve never done anything like this.”
“Rented my first place in college and the thing that got me was not the big costs, it was the ones that show up between signing and move in. My checklist now: Before signing, ask for the full move in cost in writing (first month, deposit, any admin or application fee, pet fee). Ask which utilities are in the rent and which are not, and ask the current tenant or the office what a summer and a winter bill actually ran. Read the lease for early termination terms, because if one of you drops out of s”
“I’m not sure how small claims will help when the landlord fulfilled its requirement of making the check to the lessees. They could open a joint account together to negotiate it”
“Even if you choose the lease break option, they would still have a responsibility to mitigate damages and if they re-rented within that two month period they would need to reimburse you. You can’t ’double dip’ as a LL in CA. Same goes for the fee. I do see where you’re coming from in wanting to just be out. I’d definitely still make your ask in the original post, maybe even fee plus one month just to get you out of there. I dealt with something similar and LL did nothing. Advion bait gels are in”
“The higher the price of the rental, the smaller your lead pool becomes. It’s obviously harder to find a tenant, but typically the tenant pool is much higher quality. I have 2.5k sqft SFH with 5 bedrooms and 3.5 baths, 2 kitchens, and 2 laundry areas. I rent it out for 4k a month. In an ideal market I could probably even get 5k. This is for a home an hour west of Boston. It’s a high end fully gutted home. My father and I spent 7 months renovating it with the intention that it’ll be mine whenever”
“We definitely would not want short-term Airbnb type stays, but Airbnb does have a Luxury division that’s interested in our place who would handle that and guarantee payment though they take quite a sizable chunk as us another luxury rental place we talked to. Since we have so much experience renting, and the house is so unusual Which requires contractors who know the house it seems a smarter move that I handle it if we are going to rent. It is a good excuse to buy another little house near where”
“I have only used the software side of Turbotenant which I have loved. My friend did use the managed services for Turbotenant and hasn't had any issues. Lower costs that a property manager and they were able to get her a tenant in the first month of working with them without an upfront cost.”