When Tenants Skip Out

Hopefully you never have the challenge of having tenants skip out, but it can happen.

It usually happens like this, you deposit the rent check, but find out a few days later it bounced, or you didn’t receive the electronic payment from the tenant and suddenly can’t reach them, or maybe you pick up the payment in person every month and discover no one’s home!

First step is usually to panic, but the second step is important to move to quickly and that it to make sure they are actually gone.

There’s a chance they may be away, there could be a medical emergency or something may have simply come up and they forgot.

Confirming They Have Vacated

To start with, you’ll want to follow up with any and all numbers and emails you may have for them. Hopefully in the case of a couple you have both individual’s phone numbers, so text and call both to follow up.

For first contact this way try not to sound panicked or angry (yet anyway) as it may simply be an honest mistake. You’ll have plenty of time to be angry later if they have vacated.

Inform them they missed rent and you need to talk to them to get this cleared up. Additionally, and this is will be part three, you need to inform them you will be doing a property inspection the next day.

Most states and provinces require a 24 hour notice to tenants before you can enter and unless you are 110% positive they have disappeared it’s good practice to advise them about this via a call, text and an email as well as posting it 24 hours prior on the property.

You see legally until it’s confirmed they have abandoned the property they’re still tenants and protected by the tenancy laws, which means the notice is required pretty well every time.

It may set you back 24 hours, but if they haven’t vacated and want to put you in a tough spot it does open up an ugly can of worms, especially in pro-tenant areas where they love an opportunity to make an example of landlord mistakes. So just do the proper notice!

Accessing Your Potential Vacant Property

24 hours later here you are entering the property and now you get your answer, sort of.

Is it empty, are there piles of garbage to sift through, and not much else, or is everything still there?

If it’s empty, you can assume they have skipped out. Still follow up with more emails, texts, calls (try to do all where possible just to create a paper trail showing you tried) informing them of any potential clean up costs and that you will be changing the locks.

The majority of tenants are good people, there are however serial abusers. These are the ones that cost you time, money and are a huge pain. If you break any of the rules, like not giving notice or not informing them you were changing locks, they use this as an excuse to cause you problems.
“We were coming to clean, but you changed the locks before we could, so you can’t change us for cleaning.”
“We hadn’t vacated, we had an emergency so now you owe us money for a hotel.”
“You didn’t give us proper notice you were entering my home, so I am suing you for breach of privacy.” And so on.
Creating paper trails and often delaying an extra day or two to ensure you are following the rules can be a pain, but it does protect you from those serial abusers.

If there are piles of garbage and/or furniture it starts getting trickier.

Have they vacated and are still coming back to clean up? Unlikely, but possible.

Was there an emergency and they had to rush out? If everything looks untouched and nothing appears packed and taken away, very possible.

The more items in the home, the more important it will be to take pictures and/or video of the contents of the property just to protect your self.

Maybe they did abandon the place, or maybe there was a medical emergency and your tenant was in an accident or in the hospital and can’t reach you. You’ll need to try and confirm this.

That’s where a good application form can be handy as it should have emergency contacts listed on it and/or friends and relatives along with employers you can call.

It’s at times like this you are hoping it’s just abandonment and your tenant isn’t hurt, but either way you need to confirm.

Often if they did abandon after a few calls to their relatives (moms are great), they suddenly reach out to you to explain the confusion and how it’s all simply a misunderstanding. Or you hit a dead end.

If you can confirm they are gone, now it’s time to move to damage control.

Damage Control Time

Your priority now is to get the property back into rentable condition so you need to start getting quotes for any cleaning and repairs if you hire people out, or even if you are planning on doing the work yourself so you have a valid number for deductions from any deposits you are holding.

The quotes become handy to prove you aren’t over charging for work, although use your discretion. Your plumber may be able to charge $75-100 an hour to fix a leak, but if you’re doing it your rates may have to be a tad lower…

This can delay moving forward as you align all the quotes, but an extra day or two shouldn’t make that much difference versus doing ti right and avoiding any drawn out court hearings later.

So get those quotes and get those locks changed and then see how quickly you can get your property back on the market.

Leftover Security Deposits When Tenants Skip Out

Your final challenge will be the security deposit and for this you need to know your local laws.

In my area, I have ten days after the tenant vacates to return their security deposits or provide a written statement detailing any deductions and what they were for.

But where do you return it?

After all they skipped out, you may not even know how to find them.

Looking at most landlord tenant laws they typically state you can send it to the last known address you have for the tenant which just happens to be your property address.

You’ll need to pay a little extra for this, but you can simply go to the post office and send the statement, and a check for any remaining deposit if there are any to the address of your property.

If they are smart, they are getting their mail forwarded to their new address so you completed your obligation. If they are “less smart” they are not getting their mail forwarded and it will be returned back to you eventually undeliverable.

You can hold onto that returned mail, unopened, as proof that you did exactly what the laws outline.

Hopefully you never have to go through an abandoned property, but hopefully you now have an idea of what to do it it does happen!