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.