background checks for rentals in SFH. Shoudl the Landlord or HOA be responsible?

First, a disclosure – if you’ve read some of my previous comments regarding landlord/tenant relations, you know I tend to give these guys and gals a side eye based on what I’ve seen in my own community. You’ve also seen other conversations on this website from other posters talking about problems they’ve had with tenants who don’t know community rules (because they haven’t been told by the landlord), ensuing chaos with parking, noise, confusion at the pool and other mayhem.

Some landlords don’t get involved with the community at all unless they’re squealing about assessments being “too high” and then THEY have the gall to skip out of paying them. The association has to spend limited resources on chasing these people and often wind up having to write them off because the landlord hasn’t paid anyone, especially property taxes, and those government liens trump everything. This is how you get people buying up houses and condos for cheap and then renting them out – risking the whole mess starting up again.

Mark Twain was right – history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Ok, now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest:

As you well know, the landlord is a member of the association because he/she/they own a house (or several) in it, and therefore, the landlord is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the behavior of the people who are renting it. The Association doesn’t get anything else out of the rental besides the association assessment (you do remember homeowners are legally obligated to pay them, don’t you?) So why should it have to pay to do something any responsible landlord should be doing anyway? If they don’t give a flying F about the overall atmosphere of the community, they should at least want to protect their investment. Not all tenants are bad – most are just as interested in living in a clean and safe community as owner-occupants, some of whom can be even worse than then ones who rent!

I don’t see a problem with a leasing fee as such, but in many of your previous conversations, I don’t get the sense that you discuss anything with your board members (assuming you’re still on it) or the association attorney. If you’re going to have a leasing fee, it may be better to have it cover the extra expense the association will incur in notifying the landlord and tenant of various issues like changes in community rules (you should contact both, so one or the other can’t claim they didn’t know – you can and should still hold the landlord responsible for violations.) There’s also higher wear and tear on the property because of the constant moving in and out, such as moving trucks tearing up the grass and all matters of junk clogging up the dumpsters (in my community, this is usually the time of year where our community sees an increase in mattresses in and around our dumpsters).

You can’t just pull any number, $150 or otherwise, out of your behind. For example, if you want to base the fee on increased costs, you should be tracking these expenses so you can say things like “between May and August, our trash removal services increase by X percent because we have more stuff in the dumpsters and usually have to pay a junk removal service to remove the stuff that shouldn’t be in the dumpsters anyway because it’s considered illegal trash that the city won’t pick up.”

We also had a now former homeowner with whom I served on the board (he was one of the better landlords) suggest that we charge a move in and move out fee to cover increased administrative costs and trash. Many of us thought that was fair, but we were outnumbered by the landlords who didn’t care about any of this at the time, so that’s that. This could be another approach.

So do I trust the judgement of the landlord/owner? Depends on which one you're talking about, but in general the answer is no. Do I think the HOA should do this for him/her? Hell no! If they want to rent their property, they should be willing to pay the costs of doing that and build it in the rent the tenant pays. I don’t give two shakes if they make money – if they don’t want to pay it, buy an apartment building or a house that isn’t in an HOA and do what they like.

As for you, have you checked what your documents say about landlord/owners and their responsibilities and rights regarding the association? Are you sure you can even have such a fee and as written, what are its chances of standing up in court? I know you aren’t always crazy about attorneys or their fees, but trust and believe getting sued and losing would be much worse. Better take a look or have your attorney do it to make sure (because someone WILL try you).