John asked a great question to my post, “Give me your investment property questions“:

“I recently had my tenant go to the county for a one time crisis assistant payment to keep from getting evicted. If you wanted to give whatever you know about that or the process it might be interesting. Seemed like a one time thing Anoka County does and there was another group that was a non profit that would do the same for adults.”

Owning investment property in certain areas, I do run across this from time to time. Essentially, there are multiple sources that a tenant can go to and get assistance to pay damage deposits, past due rent, and such. These sources are both governmental and from non-profits.

For past due rent, the tenant will simply need a statement from you showing the past due amount. They will take that into the agency and within a couple days, they will mail you (the landlord) a check.

When I have a prospective tenant say they are getting assistance for the damage deposit or first month’s rent, I require a confirmation call or letter from the assisting agency. This is similar to confirming rental or employment history that you should be doing during your tenant screening process.

Sadly, many tenants have figured out how to work the system and they literally have the yearly anniversary marked on their calendar. I have a few tenants that will short pay their rent and their utilities bills starting about 3 months prior to their anniversary of receive help last year. Then just before I file a MN eviction on them and their lights are turned off by the utility company, they run in to the agency begging for money. Since it has been at least 12 months since their last assistance, the agency pays the bills. I have seen the assistance be a entire month’s rent and $300-400 in utility bills.

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