Renting To Lawyers, any experiences?

[Anonymous]

Lawyers + rentals = trouble. Avoid at all costs, leave the house vacant!!! They find ways to screw great landlords like me! Never again!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Lawyers are terrible tenants, especially in DC, they will find a way to screw law abiding landlords! AVOID!!! Also DC laws are dated and need to be brought into this century, laws intended to protect the vulnerable are being abused by the highly educated to manipulate landlord/owners of properties! Legal extortion!

[Anonymous]

My parents sold a house to a lawyer a held a second mortgage with a $30,000 balloon payment due in 5 or 10 years (this was in CA in the 70s). The lawyer was a total jerk and was trying to get out of paying the second so started a lawsuit over the fact that my parents took some free standing cabinets that had been identified as not going with the house (my father had built them himself to fit in nook next to the stove) claiming they were built-ins and a bunch of other minor crap. It was seriously 10 years of litigation that cost my parents a fortune because they did not want this ass to win. So there are certain transactions I would not get into with a lawyer.

That said, DH and I are both attorneys and we would never pull that kind of crap so I do not think the entire professions is suspect. We have a rental property and have rented it to think tank/academic types because those are the applicants we have had (luckily not much turnover), the lawyer question has not yet come up.

[Anonymous]

I was a tenant while in law school, clerking, associate, DOJ, etc. and was a terrific one. Never home. Single so no wear and tear. Paid on time. Very polite. It's all the person or as someone hilarious posted above, "your mileage may vary".

[Anonymous]

We rented a beach house to all lawyers for years. real rule followers and no problems.

[Anonymous]

We're lawyer tenants. Landlord likes that we have stable income (it's actually not that high, or we'd own by now!) and that we are detail oriented. In fact, I know LL thinks we are too detail oriented and a bit fastidious and demanding (email slip up where LL actually said this in reference to us and accidentally forwarded it) but he likes us and trusts us to pay on time and care for the property. So it has been a good experience for all. If anything, we are being taken advantage of on some repair issues and are too busy to push.

[Anonymous]

For one year, we rented out our house in Nova to a couple of lawyers with a dog. Best experience ever. Our neighbors told us that the tenants were rarely at the house; a dog walker came in once a day. When we came back from abroad, the house was in terrific condition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are looking to rent our place again and have noticed that a few applicants are lawyers.

Has anyone had any bad experiences with renting to lawyers?

I know the money aspect makes them desirable tenants but I am worried about them being very picky or attempting to sue us at any moments notice.

Op with this mindset you should probably lower the rent and solicit college kids.

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer and I sued my last landlord. I have never even considered it until during the hottest summer on record he let the air go on in disrepair, the windows would not open, the frigerator broke, roaches and oh the whole in the roof. I was 7, 8, 9 months pregnant. The roof started the leaking with visible mold and a newborn. For this we were paying 2500.
I called the county. They cited him repeatedly. I moved, sued for breach and won. Haven't had another problem.

Funny thing was his beard was a woman's right activist. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

I think I would talk to their prior landlords. I have a tenant who is the nit pickiets PITA ever, but she's not an attorney. She's a former school teacher!

I ended our lease and she got a new place - and the new landlord did not even call me to do a reference check on her. Is he in for a fun time!

Make sure you have a good contract. And put in there (if it's legal where you are) that the tenant pays for misc. repairs such as light bulbs etc. under $75.00

I would hesitate to rent to an attorney, only because, if there is a genuine disagreement on a point, an attorney might not have the same reluctance to go to court over it that you do. A lawyer... won't have to pay to hire a lawyer! You do have to pay legal fees if there's a serious dispute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think I would talk to their prior landlords. I have a tenant who is the nit pickiets PITA ever, but she's not an attorney. She's a former school teacher!

I ended our lease and she got a new place - and the new landlord did not even call me to do a reference check on her. Is he in for a fun time!

Make sure you have a good contract. And put in there (if it's legal where you are) that the tenant pays for misc. repairs such as light bulbs etc. under $75.00

I would hesitate to rent to an attorney, only because, if there is a genuine disagreement on a point, an attorney might not have the same reluctance to go to court over it that you do. A lawyer... won't have to pay to hire a lawyer! You do have to pay legal fees if there's a serious dispute.

BWAHAHAHAHA. None of the lawyers I know would litigate in an area outside her expertise. And none, at least with real litigation experience, would choose to go to court if it could at all be avoided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think I would talk to their prior landlords. I have a tenant who is the nit pickiets PITA ever, but she's not an attorney. She's a former school teacher!

I ended our lease and she got a new place - and the new landlord did not even call me to do a reference check on her. Is he in for a fun time!

Make sure you have a good contract. And put in there (if it's legal where you are) that the tenant pays for misc. repairs such as light bulbs etc. under $75.00

I would hesitate to rent to an attorney, only because, if there is a genuine disagreement on a point, an attorney might not have the same reluctance to go to court over it that you do. A lawyer... won't have to pay to hire a lawyer! You do have to pay legal fees if there's a serious dispute.

BWAHAHAHAHA. None of the lawyers I know would litigate in an area outside her expertise. And none, at least with real litigation experience, would choose to go to court if it could at all be avoided.

Oh please. L&t court, get over yourself

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think I would talk to their prior landlords. I have a tenant who is the nit pickiets PITA ever, but she's not an attorney. She's a former school teacher!

I ended our lease and she got a new place - and the new landlord did not even call me to do a reference check on her. Is he in for a fun time!

Make sure you have a good contract. And put in there (if it's legal where you are) that the tenant pays for misc. repairs such as light bulbs etc. under $75.00

I would hesitate to rent to an attorney, only because, if there is a genuine disagreement on a point, an attorney might not have the same reluctance to go to court over it that you do. A lawyer... won't have to pay to hire a lawyer! You do have to pay legal fees if there's a serious dispute.

BWAHAHAHAHA. None of the lawyers I know would litigate in an area outside her expertise. And none, at least with real litigation experience, would choose to go to court if it could at all be avoided.

But the processes to start a small claim relating to a lease are not that hard. I am not talking REAL litigation. I am talking about making life difficult for your landlord because you easily can. There are people like that in the world, lawyers or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Lawyers that are renting probably are still at the learning to fight well part of their career rather than the the wise counselor part. If they've been with a larger respected firm for 3 years or more though, they are invested in an organization that won't appreciate them engaging in petty stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lawyers that are renting probably are still at the learning to fight well part of their career rather than the the wise counselor part. If they've been with a larger respected firm for 3 years or more though, they are invested in an organization that won't appreciate them engaging in petty stuff.

This is an asinine statement. Sure, most lawyers in this town make a lot of money. But if you're a career non profit lawyer or something making $45,000 a year as an attorney - it happens - that doesn't mean you're unseasoned. It means you made different choices.