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Dealing With Difficult Tenants When Selling a Home
Don’t let difficult tenants prevent you from selling a home.
Mostly all renters turn into difficult tenants when selling a home. It’s just a matter of degree. Why wouldn’t it be? Tenants do not want to move against their will and they worry the rent will go up if they stay. None of that makes them cooperative when selling Sacramento rental homes. In fact, difficult tenants can blow a sale or make it even harder to sell a home in the first place.
They are intimately intertwined with their living space. Sometimes, and you might find this hard to believe, they forget that they do not own the home. After all, if they’ve lived there a long time, it starts to feel like it’s their house. Not the owner’s. Especially if they have an axe to grind or something. Like, maybe they asked for certain items to be repaired or replaced and felt ignored. Perhaps they believe the landlord did not give their requests priority. Payback is a bitch. They don’t mean to sabotage the sale, oh my goodness, no, but they just can’t help themselves.
Difficult tenants have stories they tell themselves over and over. They rationalize why it’s OK to say horribly untrue things to buyers coming through the home. Tenants do it in the interest of full disclosure, as though they are the owner; they feel almost a duty to describe some of the most despicable things you can imagine. In full gory detail.
You can’t tape their mouths shut with duct tape. Although, I can see how some landlords would like that solution. They feel if they spout off enough crap, the home won’t sell. And maybe it won’t. Some seem to forget that a 60-day notice removes them from the premises. And in some cases, the owner might have other legal reasons to promptly evict them.
So . . . is it a good idea to let difficult tenants stay in the house when you’re trying to sell? My answer to that is maybe, maybe not. Perhaps the seller needs the income? The best way to ensure cooperation is to bribe them. Give them a break on the rent if they “assist and don’t resist” the sale. Perhaps add a move-out bonus when it closes escrow to make sure nothing sneaky goes on. You get a lot further with honey than vinegar in this business.
Just don’t let them fool you. They are not happy you are selling.
Difficult Tenants Who Refuse to Cooperate With Home Sale
Better options exist for Realtors who want to tear out hair over difficult tenants.
A fellow agent in southern California wrote on an agent website about struggling with a listing in which he is dealing with difficult tenants who refuse to cooperate with the sale of that home. The tenants wrote a lengthy letter to the seller, filled with demands, including a snotty retort about social non-responsibility because the seller wanted to put grass in the yard. I could see them kicking back with a few craft beers among friends, composing the letter, scratching off sentences, changing the format and laughing their fool heads off.
Of the 35 or so comments received by other agents, almost every real estate agent said they would not take the listing under those circumstances. They expected the sellers would evict the tenants. But the sellers did not want to evict the tenants and lose the rental income. Like many, the sellers want the rental home home sold with the tenants in place.
I guess I must be the oddball agent in that group because I most certainly will take the listing occupied by crazy tenants. It’s not my place to demand that the seller evict the tenant. Oh, I will suggest eviction and explain why, but if the seller refuses, that’s the seller’s prerogative. It’s not my house. I’m hired to sell that listing with the difficult tenants, so that’s what I do. My sellers make their own informed decisions. I give them the phone number of the best eviction lawyer in Sacramento. If they don’t make the call, it’s still all good.
Solutions for Dealing With Difficult Tenants When Selling a Home
The first step is to get inside to shoot photos, and I can generally arrange that with a bit of finesse. I put the home on the market. If the tenants remove the sign from the yard, we put it back. When I show up to initially meet with the tenants, I size them up. They think I’m there solely to inspect the home, but I am checking them out. I also hand them a Notice of Sale and document the delivery.
Then I slip the listing into MLS with a notation that all offers will be subject to interior inspection because the tenants refuse to cooperate with the home sale. Now, I know some of you will say, hey, the seller has a right of entry with 24-hours notice, and that’s true. But difficult tenants means even if you secure a showing, the tenants will most likely do everything within their power to discourage the buyers, and I think you know exactly what I mean.
Rodents. ¡La rata! Mold. Health and safety issues. Noisy neighbors. Meth lab. Leaky roof. They make up shit.
After we receive an offer — and we will receive an offer, you can bet your bottom dollar on that — we can arrange for the home inspection to occur at the same time as the buyer’s initial inspection, with the seller present, if necessary, and after posting a Notice of Entry the day before on the front door. Once it closes, the new buyers are free to evict the difficult tenants. I refer a spectacular lawyer.
But not take the listing due to difficult tenants? That seems silly. Call Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759.
