Renting a home can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially when you’ve never done it before. The good news is that it doesn’t change life all that much for the most part (it affects finances pretty heavily, though). Well, it doesn’t have a large effect outside of your budget if you cover your bases and make sure to do everything that you’re supposed to.
Some of the things that all renters should do are listed below to help you out. Make sure both you and everyone you know has this knowledge, or you may find yourself legally evicting an adult child in Texas one day.
Read the Lease
You’re told to read every contract thoroughly before you sign it, but let’s be honest, we don’t always do that. Specifically, we rarely read the terms and conditions or privacy policies of any website, subscription service, etc.
Don’t treat your lease the same way; read it completely at least one time before signing it. It will outline how much rent you pay, how long you can stay, what you can and cannot do, what’s expected of you when you move out, etc. It’s possible that something in the lease is poorly worded, confuses you in some way, or is potentially even a deal breaker.
When you encounter these issues, talk to the landlord and see what you can do. All of them will clarify what confuses you, but make sure to get the clarification in writing in the lease before you sign it, or it’ll be like that talk never happened. Also, some are willing to be lenient and negotiate terms while others will stick to their guns and not change anything.
If the wording is too confusing and they won’t correct it, you discover a previously unknown deal breaker in the lease, or you’re just unhappy with it for any number of reasons, do not sign it and consider other homes.
Look into Renter’s Insurance
You might be able to find a lease that doesn’t require you to have renter’s insurance, but you should still look into it. Most landlords require it for good reason; if something goes wrong and your stuff gets damaged, then it can be covered by renter’s insurance rather than the landlord.
So, for example, you come home from work one day and find that your brand-new speakers were ruined because the roof started leaking above them. They were expensive, and it’s not your fault they were ruined, so you are owed compensation. Without renter’s insurance, you’d have to lean on the landlord to both fix the leak and cover your damages.
While insurance won’t get your landlord out of doing the reaper, it will ensure you’re monetarily compensated for your loss. Renter’s insurance can relieve some stress from a situation or be a lifesaver in the event of an emergency, so make sure you get yourself a good policy.
Request Repairs
When something goes wrong, correct it immediately. This may mean you take care of the issues, but more often than not, it will require you to contact your landlord. These repairs are their responsibility since they own the home, so they need to pay for it to be taken care of.
Waiting to alert them to problems, especially big ones, can cause more damage to be done. Waiting may also cause you to lose some of your security deposits since the landlord can only fix what they know is broken. Sometimes, though, landlords can drag their feet on handling certain problems.
If this happens, contact them in writing about the issue again, then wait for a reasonable amount of time. If they still refuse to do anything, then contact a lawyer about what you need to do. If the situation is bad enough, you may have to contact local authorities about the issue as well.
Prepare and Protect Your Security Deposit
A security deposit is typically about one month’s rent. This means that you’ll have to pay at least two months of rent upfront once you sign the lease. However, a security deposit, sometimes just called a deposit for short, serves a slightly different purpose than rent does.
Rent is you paying for the ability to live in the home, so it’s kind of like a paycheck. A deposit, on the other hand, is coverage against any damage you may cause to the home while you live there.
For example, if you’re moving in and you accidentally put a small hole in the wall while carrying your furniture around a tight corner, the cost of the repair will be taken out of your security deposit. This matters because you are supposed to get that deposit back when you move out.
If some of it is used to repair damage you caused, you can’t get your entire deposit back. To get that deposit back when you move out, treat the home with as much respect as possible.
Clean Before Moving In
Once the lease is signed and you have access to the home, you need to deep clean before moving in. Usually, the previous tenants will clean before moving out and the landlord will do a bit of cleaning, but there may still be messy spots. Other times, no cleaning is done whatsoever, so you need to clean to protect your own health.
You’ll want to clean from top to bottom, scrubbing well at every turn. If you’re not sure where to start, get the grossest things done first: the bathroom and the kitchen, then go from room to room until everything is spotless. You can choose to do all of this yourself or hire it out to a company.
While it will be expensive to do the latter, it will also save you some time. If you’ve got no problem spending time cleaning, then do it yourself. When you do this, make sure to open every cabinet and clean in there, and check behind appliances and signs when you can. These places are both hard to reach and easy to forget and may be hiding some serious nastiness as a result.
