TENANT LANDLORD WRANGLES, HOW TO AVOID FRUSTRATION

A little over a year back, one quiet morning, I stepped out of my house to get something from the nearby shop. In the compound, I noticed something strange. There, on the verandah, sat a sad dejected lady, with tears brewing in her eyes, speechless and looking very confused. At first, I didn’t give her much attention. I didn’t know what to make of the sight. Unbothered, I went on with my errand. When I returned, this time, the familiar face caught my attention. I couldn’t believe it was my landlady. What possibly could have happened to lead her to this disconsolate state?

I didn’t bother to ask, I’m usually shy in such situations. So, I waited until later, when I finally sat down with another neighbor, to discuss what had transpired that day. The story was more than disheartening. Apparently, one of the tenants had not paid rent for five months, had refused to vacate the house, and to make matters worse, he was being very arrogant about the whole situation. It had been filed as a police case but the authorities were very reluctant to intervene. The situation had left her very frustrated and helpless. What could she have done different to avoid ending up in such a scenario? There are a couple of things that I can advise, for example, making tenants sign tenancy agreements before moving in, not letting arrears compile for so long that you become emotional about the figures, or even doing background checks on potential tenants to determine their credibility. All these are good ways to go about renting out property, but they may not necessarily save you the burden that comes with dealing with tenants.

One effective practice that smart landlords have adopted is hiring a property management company like Baros Group Limited to handle their establishments. There are a number of benefits that come with hiring a property manager, including but not limited to;

·         Professional expertise – These people are experienced in dealing with all challenges that come with handling tenants, and they know exactly how to navigate particular scenarios.

·         Reduced tenant interactions – like it or not, interacting with people is always going to come with certain levels of stress. Why not chose peace of mind and let someone else worry about going to the police station on your behalf, I mean most of the time we invest in rental properties to get peace of mind.

·         Access to experts – Whether it’s getting on call with a lawyer to address an issue or calling a plumber to respond to a bust pipe emergency, the property manager will know the right people to call. This helps in sorting issues quickly and avoiding escalation of problems.

·         Tenant Screening – Most of the time the landlord doesn’t have the resources to do deep background checks about potential tenants. This is an area where hiring a property manager comes in very handy because that is what they do on a day to day.

·         Improved tenant retention – Good management leads to happy tenants, who tend to stay longer at the premises. This improves the overall performance of your investment

Because property management comes with multiple interactions that may test the landlord’s patience, it is advisable that an investor delegate these roles to an experienced and professional manager to maneuver through the issues that come along. The landlord’s focus is better spent on figuring out ways of making more investments, which is an area that guarantees better returns on time invested. If you do this, you will steer clear of tenant landlord wrangles, avoiding the unfortunate scenario that my landlady found herself in. To learn more about investing in Uganda’s Real Estate industry, visit https://www.barosgroupltd.com/

About the author;

Benard Sonko is a real estate investment manager and founder of Baros Group Limited. For comments and inquiries, you can reach him on +256742140251 or info@barosgroupltd.com