Becoming a Smart Tenant

Posted on April 8th, 2008 | by John Glenn |

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For becoming a good and smart tenant, you have to take some necessary steps and follow some points especially when signing a agreement with your landlord to minimize potential problems with him.

Once if you are accepted and your image as a good tenant is made in the eyes of your landlord, you should be sure to ask for a chance to inspect your new home before you actually sign a lease.

During the inspection of home which is to be taken at rent before making any agreement with the landlord, document any problems or damage you discover, and ask the landlord to fix them before you take possession of the premises. If you can’t get the landlord to agree to do so before you sign the lease, you should have the defects noted in an attachment to your lease, as well as a provision for when they will be fixed. If the landlord fails to honor this provision, you will have evidence of the breach and stand a better chance with the courts if you move out and the landlord sues you for doing so. This will also help serve as evidence that the damage existed before you moved in and wasn’t caused by you.

If the landlord is simply saying orally that I will repair these premises which need to be repaired and refuses to write on the paper, then there is something going wrong with you. Don’t rely on oral promises that everything will be taken care of. If the landlord really keeps the promise, then he has no problem in writing it on the paper.

A landlord who’s willing to show a poorly maintained property may not be someone you can rely on to perform the necessary repairs and maintenance, no matter how favorable a rental agreement you have signed. Generally there are laws, illustrating that a landlord have to provide residence that’s suitable for occupancy by humans and free of conditions that pose a threat to the life, health, or safety of occupants.