Landlord Ethics
An interesting event happened recently which inspired this post. In general, I try to treat my tenants the way I would like to be treated as a tenant. I try to be respectful of their privacy, financial situation, family situation, etc. This is not to say that if they abuse this trust I won’t come down on them like a ton of bricks.
Anyway, I have a set of roommate tenants with whom I have a good relationship. They are respectful as am I. About two months ago, when their lease ended, they moved out to a house owned by a family member with the idea being that they would live in the house and would someday soon own it. The only catch was that there would be other family members living there and it’s kind of out-of-town from where they work. They “warned” me that they may be calling me in a couple of months if things don’t work out with the family house.
Sure enough, I just signed a lease this weekend with them for one of my houses. They were all happy about moving in and that I was their landlord again so much so that they pre-invited me to their house warming party.
Now here’s where I draw the line. They’re great tenants but I don’t want to be so involved with their personal lives that I’m looked on as a friend. The reason being that if everything goes pear-shaped, I may be in a position of evicting a friend.
Needless to say that I never want to be in that position so this is how I will handle the housewarming invitation; I will respectfully decline the invitation but I will send a nice bouquet of flowers (the tenants are three girls) with a card saying, “Welcome back!”
