How to Avoid Being Blacklisted as a Tenant

Tenants, take notice!

If you’re a tenant, you’re already familiar with the challenges of trying to find a place to live! However, this challenge becomes exponentially harder if you end up on the rental blacklist – a database collated by Real Estate Agents to help landlords avoid so-called ‘problem’ tenants.

It’s not hard to imagine some of the most basic reasons a tenant would be added to the blacklist. If you fail to pay your rent or cause damage that exceeds the bond amount and fail to compensate, your Property Manager can report you to these databases, and if seen by a new landlord it can cause you headaches!

So what can you do to avoid being added to a blacklist? Obviously, if you pay your rent on time and are careful not to cause any damage to the property you are renting, you’ll be fine. But things happen, and situations occur where you may not be able to meet the rent you’ve agreed to pay in your lease. If major damage is the problem, go to your Property Manager as soon as it happens and explain the situation. All property owners should have some form of insurance, and resolving the matter as quickly as possible is better than waiting for them to find out about it when you move out.

In either case, the first thing you want to do is open lines of communication with your property manager. At the end of the day, most landlords just want their money and their property maintained well and if you can work out an agreement with them, hopefully you will be able to find an amicable solution.