Help Your Association Clients Get a Handle on Tenant Violations

Are your association clients struggling to enforce against tenant violations in their communities?

With residential rents skyrocketing across the country, more owners are looking to get into the rental game — and, in turn, more associations are seeing a jump in the number of tenant violations.

Owners sometimes fail to think about the role of restrictive covenants when drawing up lease agreements. The risk is especially high when individual owners rent out their units.

“Larger rental companies are becoming aware and have departments that check covenants now,” says Zach Wilson, an attorney with Law Firm Carolinas who focuses on community association law. “But often it’s a mom-and-pop landlord without counsel.

“They find a form lease on the Internet and think they’re doing everything properly. Then, a couple months down the line, the tenant starts violating the covenants.”

It’s worth keeping in mind that it’s usually not a matter of bad intent on the owners’ part but more of an innocent oversight.

“Owners don’t think ‘oh, I’m living in an HOA, and there are additional rules that govern me that would also govern my tenants,’” Wilson says. “They just don’t think about the land use restrictions that regulate their conduct and trickle down to their tenants.”

According to Wilson, one-size-fits-all leases obtained online or drafted by an owner may not address issues subject to specific rules and regulations.

If such restrictions are left out of leases, owner-landlords have no way to ensure compliance or enforce against violations. And, of course, the owners are left subject to enforcement actions themselves.

In our new article, you’ll learn how your association clients can take steps to reduce the risk of renters breaking rules they may not even know apply to them.

Read the full article here: How to Deal with Tenant Violations of Covenants

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President