Topic: CASE STUDY: Dog on premises w/ no documentation. How would you handle?

Hello again everyone! Would like to hear how the Multi Family Insider family might handle this situation. Call it a case study if you will... :)

A new buyer acquired a 10-unit apartment complex. During due-diligence the new buyer, through verification of documentation and inspection believed there was no dogs or pets included or addended on any of the leases. The buyer after acquisition hires a professional property management company to manage the building. During the time the management company on-boards itself into operating/managing the property they notice that a dog is living in one of the units. The management company double checks all records and cannot find any documentation allowing a dog. It also receives two complaints about feces not being picked up (complete with pictures), and the dog being left outside for more than 5 hours at a time only chained up on a lead.

If you were the hired property management company, what are the next steps you would take and how would you solve this issue?

Thanks! Looking forward to the collaboration!

Paul

I'm going through something similar. We have a fairly large townhouse property and our onsite manager, at the request of the owner, did a walk through of all tenants with dogs and I compared it to pet agreements/pet deposits on file and low and behold found a tenant with a dog with none of the paperwork/fees paid (we require a $500 pet deposit and additional $25 per month pet rent.) Finally got a hold of tenant today and she tried to tell me that the onsite manager waived the pet fees due to her carpet being older when she moved in. Told tenant that the OSM has no control over waiving fees and had she contacted the office to get permission for a dog that we would have informed her of the policy. In any case, she is fighting it and says she'll only pay the per month pet fee and is not going to pay the deposit. I'm letting the owner discuss it.
I would contact the tenant and ask for some kind of documentation for permission and such and if the lease says NO pets then send her a 5 day notice for breach of lease for that and see what happens. I run into the same thing with tenants and cats..it's like they move in and suddenly there's a cat (smaller deposit but still an additional monthly pet fee).

Is the new owner going to allow pets? If so, then they would have to notify every resident about their pet policy. Have a pet policy in place stating the particulars about this policy. If not, they would need to notify the resident's of the No Pet Policy. Give the resident that has the dog 15 days to comply with the new Pet Policy, if they have not done so after the 15 day notice, then a 30 days notice would be given.