1st snowbird winter in AZ--Renting home furnished

DTA has some good points, but "gigantic legal trouble" is a stretch.
Insurance, call your company. You can change between landlord and homeowner policy at will. Can also get a rider for contents if you're on a landlord plan.
Taxes, either deduct mortgage interest if you have any for the portion of the year you're occupying and deduct everything else by law when you're renting, or rent it under the table. Both ways work. One is more legal than the other.
Know that rental deductions are limited and not allowable at certain income levels. Take a look at that if you're diving into the financials of it.

Grit dog wrote:
DTA has some good points, but "gigantic legal trouble" is a stretch.

The role of an attorney is to offer advise and solutions. I can tell you that turning your home and personal property together into a part time rental that you live in some and rent some is a recipe for legal problems, especially if a major problem develops, or the tenants know how to game the processes.

Here is an actual case: The tenant falls down the basement steps because the light bulb was burned out. The landlord knew or should have known the bub was old and subject to failure. The landlord knew or should have known that a fixture with more than one bulb would prevent dangers until repairs could be made (replacing the bulb). The tenant can no longer work because of injuries. The landlord was found negligent and had to pay the tenant his projected earnings for the rest of estimated life plus medical bills and an amount for pain and suffering. The settlement was in the tens of millions of dollars and was above the landlord's policy limits, but since he was a real estate investor, his net worth was substantial so he had to dissolve his holdings to pay.

I call that a gigantic legal problem. Extreme, yes, but it illustrates the potentials.

More realistically, the tenant refuses to leave the premises after the term is up and/or does not pay. Eviction is the only process to remove them from the premises. That process can be quick and easy or frustratingly long and expensive, depending on the state. The tenant claims your personal property is actually his, and the landlord failed to inventory accurately and legally the personal property in the home. It will take a Court Order to make the determination who owns what. Most attorneys get about $250 an hour. Believe me, you can eat up a lot of money quickly.

None of these are "gigantic legal problems?" I will let the readers of this forum decide. The potentials are great, if the rose colored glasses are removed.

Good points DTA, and all are a risk for sure. These are the same risks whether renting a vacation property, investment property or being a slumlord with a gaggle of low rent apartments.
my apologies, I was speaking to the issue of part time rental, tax consequences etc. that part is not that difficult.
Everything else you just mentioned is par for the course with being a landlord.
I'm not advocating renting out your house. Although the $10M settlement for falling do n the stairs due to a burned out light bulb is admittedly not a likely occurrence. We've rented out several homes for various reasons and I can say it was the lesser of all evils at the time.....not something we wanted to do. For the very reasons you mentioned. Try kicking someone out from 1500miles away....probably no different than if you were right down the street but still it's not easy.

That said, it can be the best option. I would not want to do it for a living......

And I would never rent furnished with anything I expected to get back. People s uck. And people who use other peoples things generally don't give a _____ about them!

Feeling a little overwhelmed by all this input but it has us thinking about a great deal of things we hadn't thought about. Thanks for all of your advice. We do have a long term tenant/friend who will be overseeing the house so that eases our minds a bit. We'll be checking on many of these issues before signing a lease agreement. Thanks!

I am glad to see someone else is talking about this. We are close to leaving (becoming full time RVing)and are renting our house out.

I think from total exhaustion getting ready for this huge change, my brain is in a fog and I can't wrap my head around what seems obvious. If our renters are using our home address, we can't.

What are we to do for drivers licenses, taxes, bills, banking, social security etc?. Any suggestions.

I don't want to give up my residency in Washington State.

Rent a post box from a private, local company.

I use one just few blocks from my house. They can forward on a schedule, or just when you ask them to.

Mine will also go thru the mail with me on the phone, tell me what is there so I can tell them if I want it or not.

If asked, they will open things, read them to me, snap a pic with cell phone and text it to me -- or leave everything sealed and private. They are great folks!

(If you have time, or when you are down south and chillin', you can call your banks, credit cards, etc., and switch them all to paperless billing. Much more secure. Can soc sec do direct deposit? The dmv will send tjings like new license to a 'one time only'address, not the,address on your license, if requested. They know people travel.)

One thing to think about is , how long is the rental agreement for?. If you had a medical condition all of a sudden pop up needed to get back to the house, what happens with the rental agreement???? Happened to a friend of ours and all they could do was to wait until the contract was up!

I sure hear you on the exhaustion part. It's been non-stop work for 2 months getting the house and RV ready. But....we made it. We are pulling out on Sunday to head to our daughters first in Richland then we're going to do just a car road trip through Canada to Vancouver, to Victoria, down to Ocean Shores to my sisters then back to Richland before we start heading south. We found a professional couple who only wanted the house for 9 months which was perfect for us. Hope we have all our bases covered. What part of Washington? We're from Pullman.