I just bought my rental property 6 months ago. This is my first experience as a landlord. I rent out a six bedroom house to six college kids. They all have individual lease agreements for the bedroom they occupy. The lease is for the entire school year (Aug to May). These are all international students and the college explained to me that if I wanted to rent to them that I must understand that these kids come to the US with no US currency. It would be necessary for me to wait 1-2 weeks for each of them to transfer funds into a new US bank account before they could pay the first months rent and security. I was a little concerned, but decided to take the risk because the potential income was much greater than if I rented to a family. I have only had a problem with one student from England. He has made every excuse to me for not being able to pay the rent. He has made several payments, but is still way behind. I have bent over backwards to try to help make payment arrangements with him, but it has become obvious that he is not going to be able to pay me. He hasn't got money for rent, but he can buy plenty of beer on the weekends! I have been dealing with him for nearly three months now. I am not going to waste my time trying to help him out any more.
He told me that if I am not happy with him, then he will move out. I would like to know if I have to evict him for non payment, then am I breaking the lease? Also, what kind of recourse will I have once he moves back to England. He plans to quit school in December.

It will all depends on the wording of your lease. If you just throw him and his stuff out to the curb you'll undoubtedly be in violation of the lease. If you go through the legal eviction proceedures there would be no violation. If you evict him you'll get a monetary judgement for whatever he's behind on.

I would highly doubt that once he leaves the country you'll ever see a dime.

For future reference, in my opinion, this is a horrible way to do your leases. I know it's common in a lot of college towns, but it puts the landlord at a big disadvantage (again, just my opinion). I've found that it's far better to have one lease with all 6 people on it. That way if one bails the other 5 (as well as the 6th) are responsible to make sure the total amount of the rent gets paid.

Have you informed the school about this guy's problems. Is this not some type of violation of his student visa or something?

Mommy covered some of the scenarios, but there are a couple more. As she noted, you can't just throw him out, you have to go through the eviction process. But part of that process goes on before you go to court. You first need to serve him with a pay or vacate notice. This will give him from 3-10 days (depending on locality) to either pay up or move out. If he voluntarily moves out within that time, then the lease ends and you don't have to go any further. However, if he refuses to leave, the next step is filing with the Housing court for an eviction order.

You really need to familiarize yourself with the landlord tenant laws for your area. There are usually landlord associations that you may want to join.

I'm also going to disagree with mommy on the individual lease issue. While she's right in what she said, if you force all tenants to be responsible you may wind up having to evict all of them if they don't cover the problem tenant. For example, Lets say the rent is $1200/ month so each tenant pays $200. If one is a problem, you are still getting $1000/mth. If the remaining five balk at kicking in an extra $40/mth, then you may have to evict them all. Whereas, with individual leases you can just get rid of and replace the problem.

Another point, I know you want to be nice and try to work with the students, but you are now running a business. You can't let your income slip.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

I'm also going to disagree with mommy on the individual lease issue. While she's right in what she said, if you force all tenants to be responsible you may wind up having to evict all of them if they don't cover the problem tenant. For example, Lets say the rent is $1200/ month so each tenant pays $200. If one is a problem, you are still getting $1000/mth. If the remaining five balk at kicking in an extra $40/mth, then you may have to evict them all. Whereas, with individual leases you can just get rid of and replace the problem.

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This is a good point... looking at the numbers in this scenario. I've found from experience that this usually turns into a mess. Now the LL has a room to fill. Do you try to get the existing tenants to find a roommate? If so, how long do you wait for them to do so? Do you find a replacement yourself? If you do, you're throwing a stranger into an established roommate situation...

Like I said, it's just my opinion. I've done it both ways and had FAR MORE problems with the individual leases. I just go over the lease with all roomates at the beginning. The rent is due in one payment, just like I would charge anyone else rent. I don't go get the rent until they have the total amount. If one person is a hold-out, then the late charges start adding up. I've found that the roomates do a better job of pressuring each other to get their money in than I could ever do. I think any roommate situation - especially with college students - can present it's challenges, but for me doing away with the individual leases has lessened my problems.

And, I think it varies a lot by location. In some places (near colleges) that the only way they do it. Where I live now it's a mix of both ways.