Longer-Term Guests?

GoodScout · Sep 18, 2020

Had a query about renting one of my units for 2 months for a temporary work assignment. Normally I dismiss these out of hand, (often they're scams) but given the current situation am considering it.
Question is this: Once a guest stays 30+ days, don't a number of state laws regarding renter/tenant rights come into play that would make it extremely difficult to evict this guest? If so, not sure it's something I'd want to risk. Anyone have any experiences here? Thoughts?

Morticia · Sep 18, 2020

Check your state’s tenancy rules, but the short answer is yes, they’re tenants after x number of consecutive days residence. (Here it’s 28 .) You can’t charge sales tax, and if you have you have to refund it.

You don’t want them receiving mail at your place, have them get a PO Box if they are not going to collect mail at their permanent address.

You can potentially break the residency chain by having them check out for one or two days per month. I’d also check what your states eviction rules are right now.

We just got an inquiry for long term but have not received a reply to our questions to them.

It’s worked out ok (justOk) for one of my friends. No meals, no cleaning (cleaning supplies are provided), use of kitchen and laundry included. Some took serious advantage of the extras by bringing extra laundry from home and using up all of the kitchen supplies without replacing anything. And, general whining about not getting enough for the money. ($200/week.)

Anon Inn · Sep 18, 2020

Morticia is right. Check your state's landlord/tenant laws (including current COVID rules). In my state, easily found online. I have a one month let going currently, but have a special contract for long termers. I also require a deposit and full payment in advance. In my case I'm grateful to have a month off of doing a two hour commute every few days to clean the unit for short termers. I also do month to month traditional apartment rentals, so this is familiar territory.

In this state, if I plan to move into the unit myself, I can evict, even with COVID rules in place. And I would totally do that if needed.

gillumhouse · Sep 18, 2020

Because of a;; the tax money the State realized they were losing with the 30 no tax, the State eliminated that little item. Tax for every night stayed. I did $350+ tax per week, no breakfast - unless they were here when serving breakfast to Guests in which case they were welcome to join in. Housekeeping once a week. Since they were pipeliners there was no worry about the landlord/tenant situation - when the job ended, they were moving on. The only rule I had was that no boots went beyond the porch. I had locals who were having rehab to their house after a fire - never again as her lazy-A older son sat in his room watching TV all day instead of working (I had to get a new rug in that room when they left) and the younger made it necessary TWICE to crawl in a window to access the room - he threw the safety lock. They were told to leave after the second incident. I had great pipeliners.

Arks · Sep 20, 2020

Since I have a couple of apartments with full kitchens, I get a lot of longer-term rental requests. I discourage them because they always want a substantial discount for a long stay, and frankly I can make a lot more money by renting at full rate by the night, vs. a monthly rate.

It's less work with a long term guest because we only go in and change sheets and clean once a week, but I make more money getting full rate by the night.

Morticia · Sep 20, 2020

Ok, this is the week for this! Got two in quick succession. One was from a box of cereal (the tag line — think ‘breakfast of champions,’ except for kids), and the other from what I’ll call ‘a real person.’

We talked it over and decided it’s not something we want to do right now. So I sent the person a list of places I know do this.