Never do business with family

Chatting with a fellow landlord this week, I was shocked to hear of his experiences with a tenant who

photo courtesy of Philip Taylor PT @ Creative Commons

repeatedly fails to pay his rent on time in spite of being asked nicely, quite nicely, and as time goes on, less nicely, by his landlord.

So far nothing surprising. The shocker in all this is that the tenant in question is the proud owner of not one, but two supercars! So clearly, not short of a bob or two then

To add insult to injury, said tenant is the landlord’s brother-in-law! Well I never, if you can’t trust your supercar-owning brother-in-law to pay his rent on time, what hope is there?

Family ties

The problem is, if your nearest and dearest are looking for a place to rent and they’re interested in one of your properties, what can you say? You can hardly turn them down without causing offence, can you?

I once had that scenario, not with a relative, but a neighbour’s son. He was, how shall I put it, ‘of dubious character’ and I didn’t fancy getting into any landlord/tenant disputes with him. In the end, I managed to make my excuses without ruining an otherwise great neighbourly relationship, but it was one of those moments where you wish someone had written an guide tolandlording etiquette to help you navigate such situations. Now there’s an idea.....

Have you ever rented your property out to loved ones?

Were they the ideal tenants or did they stretch family loyalty to the limit? 

Send us your stories and change the names if you need to!

Alison Doering is a north east landlord who caught the BTL bug three years ago and has never looked back. Going from zero to six properties in three years and juggling a high pressure job in marketing means every day is a school day; there’s always something new to lock away in that mental filing cabinet marked “Never do that again!"