Renting a house with a pool can be done when the property owner handles the process. Above all, it’s essential to understand the local laws and regulations surrounding pools and other safety measures to ensure your residents are safe and help mitigate some of your liability as the homeowner.
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Renting a House With a Pool
A question that gets asked frequently is whether renting a house with a pool is possible. The short answer to that is an absolute yes, but there are a few extra steps that you’ll want to take ahead of time.
1. Understand Your Increased Property Owner Liability
Before you begin your search for residents, one of the first things you’ll need to address if you want to rent your home that has a pool is to make sure that you understand your increased property owner liability.
Not surprisingly, pools can be a huge liability. Sadly, countless children and adults have been severely injured or drowned due to a backyard swimming pool. Thankfully, there are steps you can take as a landlord to help mitigate some of your liability concerns:
- Resolve any repairs or concerns your residents have immediately
- Regularly complete preventative maintenance on your pool
- Follow all applicable laws applying to pool safety in your area
- Provide residents with a pool safety brochure in their welcome package
2. Get Adequate Insurance
After you acknowledge that your property owner liability will increase, the very next thing you’ll need to tend to is your insurance coverage. Talk to your insurance company directly to ensure that you can cover a renter in your house with a swimming pool. Make sure your insurance company knows it’s going to be a resident, that it’s not you living there.
While every insurance company will have its coverages and criteria to follow, you will want to make sure they can answer the following questions for you:
- How will my liability coverage need to change to protect me from property damage and swimming pool accidents?
- Does my insurance policy cover damage to above-ground pools?
- How does the policy cover damage to in-ground pools?
There are many insurance companies out there that won’t let you have resident insurance and a swimming pool, which is why this is one of the first steps of the process. Make sure that, without a doubt, you’ve got a policy that’ll cover that.
Don’t forget that if you’re working with a property management company, you’ll also need to list them as additionally insured on that policy.
3. Include a Lease Addendum
Once you know you’re covered from an insurance standpoint, you’ll want to cover your bases in terms of your lease agreement which is why you need to get the pool addendums signed by the residents.
The pool addendum will set the pool rules and allow you to make sure you can hold the resident accountable for taking care of what they’re responsible for taking care of in terms of your pool specifically.
Here are a few things you’ll want to draw out in your lease addendum specifically:
- If you have a fence, ensure residents keep it secure with the gate locked at all times
- Remind residents that they and their guests must use the pool in compliance with the manufacturer’s instructions (which should be included)
- Explain that you, the property owner, will handle the regularly scheduled pool maintenance, but day to day tasks must be handled by the residents
- Make sure the residents know to contact you immediately if any repair is needed
- Lastly, remind residents to use the pool premises at their own risk and state that you are not responsible for injuries sustained by residents, guests, or occupants
4. Schedule Regular Pool Service
Lastly, once everyone is on board, you should seek out a pool service to come and service the pool consistently. At a minimum, you’ll want to ensure your regular pool service includes the following:
- Checking the operation of the pump and motor to ensure it’s operating properly
- Inspecting and cleaning the pool filter monthly
- Testing for water hardness, pH, and dissolved solids
- Adding chemicals as needed at least monthly
- Checking and adjusting water levels as needed
- Testing and maintaining chlorine levels or salt levels (depending on pool type)
- Checking the filter pressure and backwash as needed
- Removing debris from the surface and bottom of the pool
You don’t want to leave the sourcing of your pool service up to the resident because this leaves room for error. Typically, residents won’t have the pool serviced as frequently as it needs to, or if for some reason they don’t do it, they could potentially mess up the pool. To help minimize the risk, it’s best recommended to find someone yourself.
5. Follow Local Fence Laws
Some states and counties require adequate barriers around pools to ensure safety. This means that even if you purchased your rental property without a wall, but it is required, you’ll need to install a fence yourself around your swimming pool before renting it out to anyone.
You’ll need to pay close attention to the country-specific laws in your area if a fence is required. These laws will determine any specifications, including height or materials, that must be considered when installing your fence.
Remember that following these instructions is the law and will also help keep your residents safe. Additionally, it is more than likely your insurance policy will check up to make sure you are in ordinance with any county-mandated laws as well.
Wrap Up
As you can see, renting a home with a pool is not an impossible feat. It is possible. It just takes some careful consideration ahead of time. Ensuring you understand your increased liability as a property owner is the first step into getting your home rented.
Once you are okay with that, you can move forward through the process of getting your home rented.
Matthew is the CEO of Evernest. He is a student of the book Good to Great and is passionate about building the best property management company on the planet (and maybe even the universe if Elon Musk will hurry up). You can usually find Matthew at the baseball field with his son, at a dance recital with his daughter, or at his favorite restaurant with his wife, when he’s not in the office. And if you can’t find him in any of those places, it probably means he’s traveling.
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