Why Landlords Hold Security Deposits
Happy New Year readers! Things have been here slow here at Landlord-Success.com recently, hence the lack of posts. But, with a new year comes new ambitions. So here’s a new post for your reading enjoyment.
Recently I heard the following story about a hapless landlord who found himself in a pickle because for some reason he did not collect a security deposit from a tenant.
As a preface to this story, I should mention that here in Melbourne, FL there seems to be an unwritten rule about the landlord-tenant relationship. It is virtually impossible to collect first month’s rent, last month’s rent AND a security deposit. I have no idea why that is but normally, only two of the above are collected.
So, back to Mr Hapless who owns a single-family home which is occupied by a tenant. He decides that he has had enough of this landlording nonsense and decides to sell his investment. Everything goes normally with the sale up to the point of having the property inspected by the potential buyer.
The buyer’s inspector finds that there are termite wings present in the house which understandably freaks-out the buyer who requests that the seller tent the property in order to treat for a termite infestation. This process normally takes three days, during which the property can not be occupied by humans or animals.
Mr. Hapless calls the tenant to inform her that she must vacate the property for three days due to treatment for a termite infestation. The tenant mentions that she owns an “antique” chair that has termites and wants to know if she should leave the chair in the house so that it can be treated too.
D-U-H ! Now, by a show of hands, who thinks that there should be an intelligence test attached to the rental application? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Most probably, the seller has to incur the cost of the termite treatment due to the inane actions of his tenant. I don’t think that the landlord would be out of line to claim the tenant’s security deposit in order to defray the cost of the treatment. Except, Mr. Hapless did not collect a security deposit, nor did he collect the last month’s rent at the beginning of the lease.
The moral of the story? Always, always, always collect all the deposits you can when renting a property. It creates a security net for the landlord and causes the tenant to have skin in the game which almost always INCREASES the intelligence of their actions.
