Ive had a family in a rental SF for 18 years. Wife 75 is in at home hospice (dementia) care, husband is severe diabetic having life threatening bouts and granddaughter who is around 27 now also lives there. Her father is in prison for another 10 years. Granddaughter has never worked and probably can't exist without the grandparents. Im not sure which one will die first but if he goes it definitely will be chaotic. Im stressed about asking him for a plan for all of this based on very imminent possibilities. What would you do to avoid a mess?

Hen is right.

It's not heartless. It's business.

Going forward:

Your rental agreement should address this by saying that the responsibility to perform will pass to the tenant's estate.

And have emergency contacts who are listed by the tenant at move-in, such as:

Minimum 2 contacts per adult Tenant (no overlaps, not each other)

If for any reason Tenant cannot be reached, or is non-responsive to management calls or notices, such as in the case of an emergency, incapacitation, incarceration, hospitalization, abandonment, or death Tenant designates the following persons as approved to receive mail, notices, phone calls, texts, messages, deliveries, etc. from Landlord for Tenant. Tenant authorizes this person to remove their personal items, and to act on their behalf with Landlord. Each person listed as an Emergency Contact has 100% authority to receive legal notices on behalf of Tenant.

Persons listed must be at least 18 years old. Provide as much information as you can. Please print clearly.

Whose name is on the lease?

If the last person dies on the lease, then they can't live there any longer - they have passed on.

I am sorry that you have to deal with these issues. But deal with them you must. Have the conversation with the man today. Raise the issues of who should be notified when he dies?, who will remove household belongings?,when will daughter move out?

It seems unlikely that daughter will have enough money to pay the rent. Perhaps, as soon as he is moved to nursing home or he dies, daughter must move out.

Had one set of tenants in a similar situation years back.

Mother was drawing SSI. Daughter had part time jobs on and off then decided she wanted to be on SSI. She never got thru the procedure and then mom kicked.

Daughter was stuck with no money, no job and no momma to lean on. This woman was in her 40's. I tried to work something out but she snapped and ghosted me.

It was one of the worst cleaning situations I have had.

No longer do I allow that to be the case. If one dies and the other can't make it I will talk to them. Give them a little grieving time and then they need to find a place or I file eviction on them.

The granddaughter in the OP won't cut it once Gpa is gone. Maybe financially the two ladies could make it, but who cares for the Gma? Now you have another situation that you can't win it.

I have found it helpful to sow the seeds in advance, before the crisis hits. When I see trouble on the horizon, I have a conversation with the tenant. This is how my last one went:

"Hey George, I know you've lived here a long time, butyou've been struggling lately to pay your rent. The time may come when you're no longer able to meet the terms of the lease. If that were to happen, you would need to move out."

"Now, some of my tenants stick their heads in the sand or tell me that the sheriff will have to drag them out. If that's how they want it to go, I will file an eviction and have the sheriff drag them out."

"But I think you're too smart to do that. You don't want an eviction on your record. And I trust that you would have the integrity that if you couldn't pay your rent, you'd recognize that and just move out."

Tenant nodded and assured me that he'd be able to pay the rent. Then he couldn't. Then I posted a notice on his door, AND HE MOVED OUT!

Of course no one can predict a timeline for grandma and grandpa but there is a good chance both will need to go to assisted living. As she worsens, the day to day physical ability to care for her often becomes impossible for individuals. I doubt they have the money to bring in home health care aides, 24/7.

Not sure what I'd do but not sure what you are asking about the lease ending at death. About getting the granddaughter out? My lease does not end with death. In theory, it extends through the term - the estate (basically nonexistent) is responsible. That said, I deal with it depending on the circumstance and don't charge anything once they pass, because my tenant pool doesn't have anything worth probating an estate.

it would be best if the granddaughter learned how to hold a job, but I suspect that what she is doing in that house is taking care of the grandparents who can no longer do it all themselves. That pretty much means that an outside job is out of the question

I don't give any financial or life advice to tenants unless they specifically ask me and I wouldn't volunteer anything here.

It would help to know what kind of rental agreement you have with the parents. Is it a lease - if so, when does this term expire, or, is it a month-to-month.

If I had this situation, I would have a chat with the granddaughter - express your condolences at what the parents are going through and then just ask the obvious open-ended question - what are your plans if / when your parents pass?????

Prepare ahead of the discussion for her most likely answer which is that she plans to stay there. Assuming her name isnt on any rental agreement, I would tell her that after 18 years, you need to rehab the place which means she will have to move out during the construction. Once it's done, she can apply to rent it, but it will not be at the same rate as the grandparents. Let her figure out her life.

My aim is to make sure that they are classified as tenants and not squatters after the parents pass on.

Your concern is understandable. I am assuming that you have never experienced this situation.

If he dies first, it will be chaotic, but mostly for the granddaughter in her day to day care. As long as the rent is being paid, in what way would this be chaotic for you? If the rent is not being paid, what would make this situation different from another non-payment situation? What do you do in other non-payment situations? Do you go straight to eviction and associated costs? Do you offer cash for keys, a month's rental at a storage facility, and maybe some laborers to help move furniture as a courtesy for 18 years with no vacancies? (The first may cost $5000. The latter may cost $1000). Is this your only rental and you haven't had to deal with a moveout in 18 years? Are you concerned about negative blowback from the community or your own conscious?

I see a 27 year old who has a demanding 24 hour job as a caregiver, probably without salary or wages. You have no idea whether either of the homebound grandparents will live for 20 minutes or 20 years. I have seen a fair number of homebound persons with life threatening conditions live to be near centenarians or centenarians, 20 years after they were prematurely declared dead by the soothsayers. I have also heard those some of those same survivors say that the soothsayers who had declared them dead kicked the bucket prematurely several years before, while they themselves were still alive. You just don't know.

Stop borrowing trouble from the future. Saying this from the perspective of having witnessed an unjobbed granddaughter taking care of a grandmother with dementia for years. After the grandmother passed, there was a line of people wanting to hire the granddaughter to help take care their elderly. If you think that finding a good handyman is hard, try finding a good eldercare worker, especially one that will stay overnight or help with normal household stuff vs. what is on the list of tasks regulated/approved by the government. The granddaughter is still in the same home years after the grandmother passed, paying her bills and being sought after for services.

DJ's advice is solid in terms of solid business practices which would apply to this and all other situations. K.I.S.S.

The only questions that should be your business are 1) whether they continue being good tenants (pay rent, take care of the home, no complaints from the neighbors) and 2) you would want the granddaughter as a tenant if she were the only person left, assuming the rent can be paid.

If you would want the granddaughter as a tenant, and if you absolutely need to do something other than to get updated rental documents to assuage your worry, and if you can practice coming across as caring for her future, you can make certain she knows what the rent is, gently suggest that she save up funds for the future after her grandparents retirement income are no longer available to bridge her until she has income, suggest that she get paid for some of her hours as a caretaker now if the grandparents are on Medicaid, and suggest she apply to eldercare agencies for a job in the future or to others who need home help. Jeffrey has said something to the effect of landlords being social services resources, so be a resource. Being a resource costs little. It does not mean that you do it for them or that it costs you a lot. It means that you are a conduit for information.

If you push the granddaughter out prematurely and she could have paid rent otherwise, you have opened yourself up to vacancy and turnover costs, as well as upgrade costs after 18 years, as well as future tenants who may stay only a year or two. What are your goals? What would make you happiest?

As Ken pointed out, it depends on your local. Here in NY, an eviction on your record doesn't mean much at all since the records are sealed and a LL can't "discriminate" against the evicted (ridiculous).

And squatters have practically the same rights as tenants (more ridiculous)

Our standard policy - when one person wants out (or dies) the remaining persons must complete a fresh application and be fully screened to be accepted to stay.

Stay loose because things like this change in a hot second, but stay on top of it.

The only person who can lose is the LL.

BRAD

DJ,

2 Emergency Contacts is not enough. We require 4 because by the time you need the contacts some have changed phones or moved, or died.

Plus some will refuse to communicate.

Having made the change to require multiple emergency contacts that are not the same I started to wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to contact at least one of them for each tenant.