Metro Apartment Manager, August 2006

Q: We nearly had to evict some tenants. But before we filed, we talked them out. They left a car—I can’t tell if it runs or not—in the parking lot, also a couch on the front porch but said we could give it to some neighbors. They said they understood they’d lose their deposit since they didn’t clean. So that means all I have to deal with is the car. How do I do that?

A: Property management is a complicated business, controlled by real estate agency regulations, state law, sometimes municipal ordinances, contracts, with a few federal laws (lead paint, fair housing) thrown in. It’s easy to get confused.

If rental turnovers are part of your every-day job, you know instinctively what to do. But if you don’t do it every day, or even if you do, it’s useful to have something like a checklist to be sure you get everything done you need to. I love checklists. They help keep me on track. So I’ve developed several that guide me in my business. One checklist I use is triggered when a tenant notifies me (or sometimes when I notify the tenant) that he is moving out. (If you’d like to see the checklist I use, it’s called “Move Out/In checklist” and is found on the Resources page.)

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