Stop Criminal Activities on Your Rental Property

If a tenant’s criminal behavior is a problem, there are actions you can take to protect yourself and your neighborhood. Limit your liability and avoid trouble by working to prevent crimes before they occur.

Avoiding illegal activity on your property starts with thorough screening of all potential tenants. Violent or dangerous individuals should be avoided to the extent allowable under privacy and antidiscrimination laws. Antidiscrimination laws do not protect those convicted of a felony.

You can take these simple steps to reduce criminal behavior on your property:

• Screen tenants carefully by performing a background, credit and criminal check, otherwise known as a Complete Tenant Screen. Select tenants who have a history of paying on time, do not have a criminal record, have good credit, and no previous drug use or mental illness.
• Do not accept cash rental payments unless you thoroughly investigate the tenant’s background and source of income.
• Do not tolerate tenants' disruptive behavior. Include an explicit provision in the lease or rental agreement prohibiting drug dealing and other illegal activity, and promptly evict tenants who violate the clause.
• Be aware of suspicious activity, such as heavy traffic in and out of the rental premises at odd hours, especially late at night.
• Respond to tenant and neighbor complaints quickly about potential drug dealing on the rental property. Get advice from police immediately upon learning of a problem.
• Keep your common areas and outside areas well lit. Consider installing motion detector lights around your building to discourage loitering.

Drug-dealing activities on your property will cause you a wealth of practical and legal problems, such as the following:

• Anyone who is injured or disturbed by drug dealers—be it other tenants or people in the neighborhood—may sue you on the grounds that the property is a public nuisance that seriously threatens public safety or morals.
• Local, state or federal authorities may levy stiff fines against you for allowing illegal activity to continue.
• Law enforcement authorities may seek criminal penalties against you for knowingly allowing drug dealing on the rental property.
• In extreme cases, the presence of drug dealers may result in the government confiscating your property.
• A drug-dealing environment can make it difficult to find and keep good tenants, and the value of your rental property will drop.