When A Tenant Can Legally Walk
Just noticed WA has a new statute that says that a Wife can, with Court Order, in situation where she needs to leave H and move into a more protected environment, legally walk away from her obligations as a tenant...so whatever lease or rental agreement she may have signed could be turned into trash pretty quick.
While I don't know specifics of other States' laws on this subject, I'd guess they're similar in effect. And even without any specific statute in place, we all know that any Judge is going to side with an abused spouse.
So what can we as landlords do to protect ourselves?
Some things I'd suggest:
Be more selective in picking and approving tenants, collect more damage deposit, write rental agreement to let LL keep same if both renters walk out on the agreement for ANY reason, and for sure, NEVER rent to anybody you haven't met and talked to personally.
And don't let any adult move into your property unless he/she IS on the lease or rental agreement.
These last items, I learned to respect the hard way...when a W, whom I had met and screened, left with another guy, and the H it turned out was a Native American whose wages I could NOT legally garnish!
The tribe's lawyer with whom I talked about a possible garnishment, after the breakup & W leaving, told me that although, if the H had OK'd it, prior to his moving in, the tribe would then have permitted my garnishing his wages, since this was not done in advance, no dice...and no garnishing his tribal salary!
Since I started personal screening of all tenant prospects, I've met with and eliminated several on the basis that I just didn't like them and felt strongly that I didn't want them as tenants.
Also, of course, if any one of the prospective tenants just couldn't arrange his schedule to meet with me, I eliminated him/her on the spot.
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