Metro Apartment Manager, December 2005

Q: We are site managers and I’m asking about a tenant I’ll call Lisa. When I knocked to serve a 72-hour notice the eighth of last month, some fellow I didn’t recognize opened the door. I asked if Lisa was there. He said, “Who are you?” I said I was the manager. He said, “Lisa’s mostly moved out. I’m Jason. She said if I paid the rent, I could stay. How much is the rent?” I told him how much and gave him the notice to give to Lisa. But I said he’d have to move too; if he didn’t, I’d call the police. But I probably can’t do that, can I?

A: The police deal with crimes. Call them when someone has broken the law or is about to. That’s not the case here. Jason has been invited in, so hasn’t broken any law that we know of. So don’t call the cops.

Landlord tenant law distinguishes between a squatter and a holdover tenant. A squatter is defined as “a person occupying a dwelling unit who is not so entitled under a rental agreement or who is not authorized by the tenant to occupy that dwelling unit.” Jason sounds like he was invited in by Lisa, your tenant, so he is not a squatter. Neither authorized nor invited means to me breaking in. If Jason had moved into your empty apartment, then he would be a squatter. A squatter is not protected by landlord tenant law. A squatter is committing the crime of trespass, so if you find a squatter in possession, you can call the police. You can also change the locks and lock a squatter out.

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Metro Apartment Manager, July 2005

Q: Is this the tenant from hell? She moved in on April 15, signing a lease for a year. Two weeks later she complained I hadn’t disclosed to her that the water bill she’s paying also provides water for a small studio next door. Unfortunately, she’s right; I forgot to make the disclosure. Then, when she didn’t mow their lawn for three weeks — this is springtime in Oregon and it was a foot high — as the lease required, I went over and mowed it. She came out to give me part of the rent, but complained I came on the property without notice. Finally, she said last week — it was the 18^th — she’s moving out because I violated her rights, but she wouldn’t give me keys until the end of the month, because she’s paid through that time. When I said she’d only paid part of the rent, she said she told me a social service agency was paying the balance. How do I get out of this?

A: Whatever your religious persuasion, it’s a fact: tenants from hell do exist. I know from first-hand experience. But, however bad you think your situation is, it doesn’t qualify. A true tenant from hell will not only tie you in knots over rights and responsibilities, but also cause you to incur significant legal bills while destroying your property.

Most disagreements between tenants and landlords can be worked out easily, because most often one or the other doesn’t understand rights and responsibilities. Some information, some knowledge, some training, and all is put right. Problems become more complicated when there is error on both sides, which is the case here.

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Metro Apartment Manager, April 2005

Q: We have lots of children in our complex — lots of parents, too. Because the latter too often don’t supervise the former, we put in our rules several years ago one saying, “Parents must supervise their children.” I think this is legal because parents are responsible for their children. But now I’m getting one tenant—a law student, of course — who says that’s illegal. Is it?

A: Issues around people with disabilities might be the most frequent, but the ones around families with children are in my mind more complex. Before 1988, when Congress passed the Fair Housing Amendments Act, life was simple. Discrimination consisted of protections based on race, color, national origin, sex, and religion. It wasn’t too difficult to develop a working understanding of what that meant without going back to school. But when handicap/disability and familial status got added, life — for landlords, anyway — suddenly became infinitely more complex.

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Metro Apartment Manager, February 2005

Q: I recently received three applications on the same day for our one vacant unit. Because the first one looked a bit shaky, I ordered credit reports on all three before making reference calls. Sure enough, I turned the first one down because of credit, but the second one qualified. When I called the third one to say we had rented to someone who had applied before, she asked me to refund her $50 screening fee. Because I had ordered the credit report I refused. She’s angry. Was I wrong?

A: Many landlords focus on potential fair housing pitfalls when thinking about how they screen. But a few years ago Oregon adopted some law to cover screening and, based on lots of questions I get, many property managers don’t seem to understand it.

There is no legal requirement that you rent to the first applicant who qualifies, but most landlords do so because it satisfies fair housing with a process independent of the applicants and is seen as fair by most people. While there’s an arbitrariness to first come-first serve, most of us accept it.

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Metro Apartment Manager, January 2005

Q: We have a couple who have been late with rent for most of the past year. They always pay after we give them a 72-hour notice and have paid most of the late fees. But I’m tired of the constant lateness and I’d like to give them a no cause notice. But he recently got called up by the Guard and is on his way to Afghanistan. Of course, I can just serve the notice on her, but is there some special way I should serve them with him in the military?

A: The type of service required for notices in Oregon is called “abode service.” In landlord-tenant issues, you only need to serve the abode — the residence — and not individual tenants. That’s why process serving for tenancy issues is relatively cheap. The process server only has to stick the notice on the door, not chase people around to serve them personally. That also makes it simple for landlords: you can just mail a notice or, if you deliver by hand, give it to any one of your tenants. They don’t each need to be served separately. So in your case you can mail them a no cause notice, or post and mail, if your rental agreement allows for that, or hand the notice to her.

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