Here you will find resources for all residential landlords. Please let us know if you have any questions. Laws related to rental properties are very complicated. If you want to read the actual Wisconsin statutes, they can be found in two places:. Chapter We recommend a great web-page— iPropertyManagement. Most of the information we developed for tenants is also useful to landlords.
We particularly recommend you check out:. If the landlord does not accept an application or if you withdraw your application before the decision in writing , earnest money must be refunded except for the actual cost of a credit check and a background check for out of state residents. The refund must be done by the next business day.
Keep Emergency Contact Information for all tenants. With everyone. You can get contact information for different kinds of situations financial, medical, personal, etc , but it's a great idea to have that on hand, in case something seems weird. Offer Roommate Agreements. I f you have roommates living together, and your lease says they are jointly and severally liable, then they are. For sure. However, roommates often have problems with one another and that really doesn't have to be the landlord's problem.
Roommates can hold each other accountable for problems, and that's way easier if they have a roommate agreement, so we encourage landlords to hand them out. This doesn't make the landlord responsible for enforcing that agreement, but it does make it much more likely that the roommates will talk about potentially problematic situations before they even come up.
Make your application criteria clear upfront. If a low-income person is looking for housing, those application fees can really be crushing, and the constant credit checks, too.
