It is ok for us to lease my property to agent’s sister?

My agent is a very nice person and recommend her sister to lease my property after the current tenant move away. Is it ok? Thank you.

 

Sure

Consider what could happen if she stops paying. Whose side would the agent be on?
What about repairs. Would she side with the tenant or you?

 

The agent knows her and believes she's a good tenant.

On the other hand, if something goes wrong, there's going to be a serious conflict of interest.

Easy solution. Let the agent know that you'll accept the application, but will be engaging a different property manager to avoid problems.

 

Perfect solution - they find & vet the tenant thoroughly, you change agents. If the management is more important to them, you know what they'll do.

 

The agent

There are many issues where the agent wont have independence. If his sister is late with rent, will he seek rent increases, damage issues, will he finalise a lease ? etc. His sister could even have a poor credit record and be a total loser and this request will leave you exposed. I would be seeking the same background information that the agent would provide for any other tenant. eg : Married, single, working and how long, where she has lived before and a record of on-time rent payment.

 

what about her privacy?
she would need to prove income, provide other details the brother may not be aware of,

 

If they do their job properly and remember who they're working for, sure. You could monitor this by making sure the rental amount is where it should be, and put an instruction in your appointment to act form with the agent that they must notify you when the tenant is more than 4 days in arrears so you can monitor the situation.

 

I think it's a huge conflict of interest and personally would say absolutely not.

I've said to friends that I will never rent to them. I have a tenant who is actually my hair dresser, at the time she'd only played with my hair once - but I still disclosed this prior to the client and this is the closest I've come to family or friends and I wouldn't go any closer. She still had to do all the normal steps, view, apply, check references, and owner had the final say.

I would be requesting the property is at minimum transferred to another PM in the company, if there isn't another PM I would just say no.

 

if you evict her later, don't go to get your hair done!

 

Haha, I said from day dot if she screws it up I won't come back. She's not screwed up the tenancy (or my hair) so everyone is happy

 

Get a new PM.
The PM should never have even contemplated this in the first place.

 

No way I'd accept that.

"Family comes first". Your interests will always come second.

 

Definitely it's NO, NO!

 

Run away from the suggestion...don't walk.

 

Conflict of interest sounds like ...

Steer clear I'll say!.

 

This!

There is absolutely no way I would say yes to this arrangement.

Clearly I'm not the only one with this opinion.

 

NO

 

With all due respect, my answer had absolutely nothing to do with the application process. It's because it's a conflict of interest. The sister might be a great tenant, for all we know, but the real issue for me is when things don't go to plan.

What happens when she's late with the rent? What happens when there's maintenance requests? Will you get pressured to do small upgrades, rather than repairs? Will the agent give her more leeway than any other tenant?

I wouldn't risk it.