Landlords are business owners, and as business owners, they will have to deal with many issues that arise including dealing with angry customers/tenants. In the business sense, tenants are landlords’ customers, and it is even more important that landlords deal with angry tenants in the same professional manner that other business owners would interact with their customers. When dealing with tenants, landlords and property managers must remember that tenants also can cause additional issues by refusing to pay rent or even destroying property. While both these actions could lead to legal consequences for the tenant down the line, it could take expensive and timely legal actions to get these angry and vengeful tenants to pay late rent or pay for damaged property.
Below are several recommendations of how to deal with angry tenants. For all the recommendations see the full list a Forbes.com
Remain Calm: If a tenant yells at you or is being rude maintain control.
Listen: listen patiently to the tenant's complaints. Make sure to appear like you are listening. Reflect what they say. If your talking to them face to face, look in their eyes, stand straight and do not be trying to multitask.
Apologize: An apology does not mean you are saying that you did something wrong. Instead, you could simply say “I am sorry you are not happy. Let’s see what we can do to make things right.”
Work on a solution: Try to come to a solution with the tenant and stick with it.
Just because a landlord or property manager uses these effective strategies for diffusing a potentially volatile interaction with a tenant, does not mean that they should not take the situation very seriously. If a landlord has tenants that consistently threaten not to pay rent and are unmanageable, it is important that the landlord tracks these tenant’s complaints, interactions with them and how they respond to them in their property management system in case future issues or legal actions arise.
This post is provided by RISSOFT Residential and Commercial Property Management Software, specializing in innovative and cutting-edge property management software for all 50 states. Request a demo or contact us today to receive more information.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this post not intended to be construed as legal advice, nor should it be considered a substitute for obtaining individual legal counsel or consulting local, state, federal or provincial tenancy laws.