The bonus of being a house owner

 and here I am, eager to share the abundance of lessons learnt from numerous house owners in my existence as a karmic tenant.

Being a house owner in a  country where the rules are more tilted in favour of power and money is a bonus, a privilege and a blessing. In short if you are not a house owner strive to be one. Your life will rock in many ways. 

To start off you will have an additional income without having to hustle too much. Once you establish a solid connection with a decent tenant you are all good to go. They will pay on time, ensure to keep the premises in a decent way (or should I say live as civilised human beings?) 

You can influence your lawyer to formulate the lease agreement that can bring in more benefits for you. This means when its time for renewal you can elevate the value of repairs and renovation done by the tenant and keep your side at a lower end indicating only major repairs and renovation. So in reality there is no likelihood that the premises are going to come crashing down any time soon, or be broken down all of which are on the likes of major repairs and renovation. which means the benefit is on you.

The minor ones would be break down of utility tools such as taps, hand bidays, loosening hinges over wear and tear which is what the tenant has to bear. All fine and dandy because if the tenant is living then of course its better to have things working than deal with leaks and broken tools. But just think, after the tenant pays for all of these and ensure everything is working, repaired and running, when its time to leave the premises they make it very easy for the next one who comes in. So how does the tenant benefit by repairing and renovating another person's house and then moving on to do the same thing in some other house ?

When its time to renew the lease agreement there is no standard rule which the owner abides by, for increase in rentals. It is increased in the percentages which suits the whims and fancy of them. In case the tenant has had some disagreements even in a subtle manner, it can mean two things, either an open door is shown or the increase in rental would be such that the tenant would naturally opt to find another place. Its best for the tenant to keep developing diplomatic skills to be able to handle shrewd house owners and learn to maneuver tricky situations. 

If the occupancy involves sharing of utility bills,  the tenants are likely to bear the bigger part of the cost as there would be enough baseless justification to prove that the consumption cost increased after the arrival of the tenants. How does the tenant challenge this while standing on the grounds of the owner's premises ? 

I say this through past experience where we ended up paying for the consumption of 2 adults and 1 kid. Its an obvious fact that the consumption is likely to be more if there is a kid or kids.  The prized lesson we learnt from this episode was never to settle for shared payment of utility consumption. The huge difference was startlingly visible when we did start to pay for our sole consumption.

House owners can come in all shades and movements. I say this because there could be that oddball who will take an interest in female tenants in the most unusual way. Most of the time as always the case in good old SL, they are old, fit to be your grandfather. 

The episode that I had to deal with was a drunkard, an old dude who was probably bored with his spouse and wanted to try something adventurous, He used to 'hit on' his maid but reversed his sleezy behaviour when she showed him the largest kitchen knife and threatened him. His attention then turned to me. He used to wait until I return home from work and voluntarily open the gate probably wanting to lean on me. He could not go very far when one day I opened the gate with extreme force that made him fall down to the ground.  It took a while for him to pick himself up all the while I watched in glee as he struggled to rise and go back to his house.

Then there is also the cribber who would make it a habit to say that the rentals outside are way higher and that the only reason the increase cannot happen with them is because they are more empathetic to the tenant. I wonder why they even crib in the first place if they think so.

Then there are some house owners who are pretty decent for the most part but their kids, siblings would not let them be that way. They would constantly be influencing the owner to think otherwise in terms of getting an increase or scare the daylights out of them claiming there is always a possibility the tenants could own the place forcibly. I wonder if that is possible at all in a land where the rules are tilted towards those with money and power ?

If I talk about the key money or the advance taken at the time of occupancy. Being an owner pays grandly. You could dump this entire stash of 3 months or 6 months or 1 year of rental in a high interest fund and keep building on the accrued value. At the time of the tenant's departure you will only need to give the initial x number of months rental back to the tenant. All the accrued interest is yours to keep. Nice eh ? build interest on tenant's money without any sweat. Now who said you got to hustle to keep going ?

If you are planning to construct an apartment, house or compact unit to rent or lease, you really do not have to give priority in ensuring you use the best of construction material. You can always use thinner density slabs ad cheap fittings and material because the dwelling is not for yourself, its for another and you will charge enough to cover your costs and construction expenditure ensuring you will gain what you spent in a short time. What other business can bring in such short term rewards ? To top it all there are no clear policies or rules that govern proper acceptable standards of constructing a dwelling for rentals or lease. You are the boss and you can construct it the way it suits you to reap the richest rewards.

After leasing out your dwelling, if the tenants complaint of issues you only have to be sly and pretend to be surprised. You can also let the tenants go on complaining until some day they will decide to vacate the premises and you can once more dupe new tenants at a higher rental, doesn't matter if there are issues in the dwelling. A new coat of paint will cover up and make it look all nice and dandy.

Now try and do the mental mathematics for a house owner that has several such dwellings rented/leased out in the suburbs of the city ? Ah and then remember to also guide your tenants on how to handle invading Tax Officers should they any time turn up to dig about you as the house owner.

The karma of being a tenant

If you have even gone through a cycle of being a tenant in our lovely homeland, I am sure you can relate to a lot about what I am going to rant in this post.

The average working class Sri Lankan citizen is very likely to live in a rented dwelling in the suburbs of the city or perhaps even in any of the zonal areas of the city at some point in their lives. If they have not, I can assure that they have missed out an entire series of  lifetime lessons. I would suggest to such types, that they should, even for a short term chose to live on these terms and learn a few valuable lessons and skills. Well as for me, I have, in a number of places. 

If I take a count of how many times we have relocated the number would be 11 times during my life. Now as the reader you may wonder why there was no way to try and figure out a way to get a house of our own. I shall not go into the nitty gritty information of my personal background or where I come from. Yes I have countless times torn myself apart and tried to work things out.  According to local bank borrowing applicable terms for housing, if we are to go ahead, It would be a classic case of handing over the monthly pay cheque to the bank and then starve. After doing so, it would leave you with anything other than to borrow further to be able pay for your basic expenses. 

I say this not with an intention to pin down all the excuses as to why its impossible, but rather to highlight how frustrating and crazy it can be to work around the game of owning a house in this island of ours. This is even after having worked a 8-5 job for number of years. 

It may ease the burden somewhat if you have had wealthy ancestors who left you property which you could be used to make it work for you. Or if you married a wealthy spouse then there is less to sweat about. 

But if you are thread bare with zero ownership of any property and wanting to start from scratch, with your own effort, the ride is going to be one that is good as travelling to hell.

So what does being a tenant teach you ?  

Consider yourself very lucky if you have neighbours who takes an unusual interest to know about you (not in a good way). Often most people are curious for all the wrong reasons. These people will teach you lessons on the importance of valuing someone's privacy.

It begins with, trying to find out where you are employed, what kind of job you hold. Some are even so snoopy to shamelessly grin and ask you "honda padiyak labenawa athi nedha?" (You are probably well paid?) When people pose both the question and answer at you, they have only low down intention and that is to make you spit out the kind of juicy information they crave to know. This I guess helps to determine the approximate income and the social standing you are in. 

Then the move would be to find out how you are socially placed, ahem.... like the typical Sri Lankan style of questioning with a sly grin "Bandhaladha (are you married?)?"  if the answer is yes, the next obvious question would be "Lamayi innawadha? *You got kids ?" . 

The local perception is if there is a spouse and kids the picture is complete. In any case if your answer is no or you chose to be quiet  many, more differently worded and twisted questions or statements are likely to follow maybe wanting to know where you are destined to in life.

There are some who would rattle on about their private lives hoping that you would also respond in the same style.  They may also enjoy bragging about their accomplishments and how successful their kids holding top corporate jobs or professional positions. The typical statements would be on the lines of "My son in law is the Chief Engineer of .......or my daughter is the Deputy to the Chief at the ........"  These types teach you how to think what you should keep and let out or if you should let out anything at all.  

There are some who make it a ritual to pop up at your house without even checking if you have the time to spare for small talk. Then they are also some who do this and also make it an opportunity to borrow various types of things starting from Green Chillies, Onion, Garlic and even moving onto money, food etc., claiming they will replace your stock the next time they do their grocery rounds or get their pay cheque. These types will teach you lessons in managing, borrowing and the bitterness of never getting back what you lent. 

Then there are some who will brief you about the socio economic profile of all other residents (if you are living in apartment) and also the house owner. They are also likely to set the rules which seem like the complex rules but zooming in whatever it seemed like rules you will learn that all those are things they want you to do for their benefit. These types will teach you how much to take and how much to leave and why its always best to check how things work.

If you happen to live in a stand alone house consider yourself very lucky, but if you do live in a storied house or an apartment imagine having to put up with residents above your floor who are inconsiderate and noisy ? 

These types would begin doing their household chores at around 10pm and conclude by 12 midnight or even later. They would also have grand parties and social meet ups with baring set ups which usually end up at the wee hours of dawn.  On other days, some also chose to jog inside the house during these hours.

In case the slab in each floor of the apartment is of a thinner density,  noise pollution would be at its maximum.  This would even make a coin falling down heard in a crystal clear manner. 

Try to imagine what it feels like if the furniture is dragged on the floor above you while doing household chores or during parties and social meet ups ?  It would seem like a volcanic eruption or a thunderstorm for the residents below with the low density slab contributing to the key problem along with inconsiderate residents.

If you are the type of person who simply wants to do your own thing, not get roped into useless drama and live on your own terms, its best that you keep working out a way to own your house somewhere, someday (like me). 

I can tell you after moving 11 times in my life, I am DONE having to put up with the sheer absurdity of being a tenant.

In every story, there is also the other side and if its a case of tenants then on the other side is the house owner. We once referred to this person as a Landlord or Landlady. We now have this gender equality fiasco, hence I will refer to the person as the house owner. Well that's the other side of the story which I shall talk about in a fresh post later on. 

After all 11 house owners have also taught me equally great lessons !!!