Maintaining control of the landlord/tenant relationship
When you have good tenants, it can be tempting to make exceptions.
Things like:
- Letting the tenant do maintenance and deducting the cost from the rent
- Accepting a promise to pay and postponing a 3-day notice (or equivalent)
- Letting a tenant paint, or make other minor improvements
- Etc.
There is nothing wrong with being generous, but, when it comes to being a landlord there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
We learned this lesson a long time ago, watch where we went wrong: