Strategies for dealing with angry tenants

Being a landlord can be challenging and angry tenants can make it extremely harder. It’s your role as the landlord to keep the peace between you and your tenants, and be solutions oriented in working through challenging times. You may unexpectedly find yourself in a situation where one of your tenants is raging at you. Knowing how to navigate those situations if they come up can help you maintain good relationships with your tenants as well as carry a good reputation as a landlord.

So, what is the best way to respond if you find yourself standing in front of an angry tenant?

This is a relationship business and you need to know how best to respond as if your tenant is an upset customer. You not only want to keep them as a customer, but you want to ensure that they are satisfied with the services that they are receiving from you. Implementing customer service techniques into your relationships with your tenants can be extremely helpful in maintaining good relationships with them.

Here are a few tips on how to respond to angry tenants:

1. Listen – Listen more than you speak. Take the time to really listen to your tenants when an issue comes up shows them that you value them and care about what they are experiencing. Listen to your tenants with undivided attention until they are done talking and do not interrupt them.

2. Understand – seek to understand your tenants. Validate what they are experiencing. Don’t seek to be understood first and don’t listen only with the intent on responding with your argument.

3. Affirm – remind your tenants that you are on their side. Remind them that you are working with them and not against them. Let them know that you want to do your best to find a solution that is best for both of you.

4. Action – actually dealing with the tenant’s concerns in a timely manner and updating them with progress reports. The results may or may not come out in their favor. However, the tenant will recognize that you heard them and their concerns and made an effort to resolve their issues.

At the end of the day, if this is your response, the worst thing that you have done is made your tenant feel valued and understood as well as let them know that you are intentionally seeking the best solution for the both of you.

However, maybe you are simply a landlord who does not want to deal with conflict resolution when it comes to your tenants. If that is you, we have a solution for you!

You can hire a property manager to act as a middle person between you and your tenants. A property manager will handle the communication between you and your tenants as well as bring resolution to any conflicts that come up between you and your tenants. Welcome Home has the experience in dealing with tricky situations such as this. Interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to us today to see if we can help.