Arizona here
This is a super messy renters situation with in laws!
Im in my mid 20s and my fiancé and I purchased a beautiful home together that was only able to happen with my 50% down payment on the home. We’re renting out a room to his older brother to help him out which has been a complete nightmare since he moved in. The brother and his family were upset that I wanted him to sign a leasing agreement because they felt that he shouldn’t have to since he’s family of 1 of the homeowners. I pushed for this leasing agreement with him because I wanted it to be handled professionally no matter who the person is that’s renting a room and especially because he also has anger issues, is super irresponsible, and because the family has a history of trying to mooch and take advantage of me. My future mother in law has even tried controlling MY finances and attempted to push me around and tell me what to do with our house so it’s more beneficial for her son renting and flat out said the house is half mine & my fiancés, and half the son that is renting a room. His rent is dirt cheap and he has his own bedroom, bathroom, shared game room, access to entire house and pool etc. We allowed him to live with us the first couple of months free and didn’t secure a security deposit from him or first and last months rent and I regret it now. He also makes more $ than both of us so he’s not living with us because he can’t anywhere else, but because he just wants to mooch off of us and live with us because it’s more convenient for him. Living with him has been hell as he wouldn’t wash his dishes, relied on me to make him food too, didn’t clean up after himself, and walked around with his shoes and work boots on our white carpet and when I tell him to remove his shoes or work boots he gets angry and starts slamming drawers around and his bedroom door as if he’s a literal child. I also just found out that he’s been listening to any arguments my fiancé and I have and then tells the rest of his family making me out to be some monster to the point where my fiancés family literally now hates me despite me taking care of BOTH of their sons and my fiancé is equally as baffled as I am. In his leasing agreement it states if he damages or breaks any property or item that he has 14 days to repair or replace or he will be breaching his contract and additional rent will be collected based off the damages and in failure to do so will lead to him being evicted since he’ll be voiding his contract. Well 4 months into living with us he was working on his car to make it faster and after doing so leaked oil all over our driveway of the nice home that we just purchased 3-4 months ago. He knew he had 14 days but didn’t care to do anything with the oil and just threw a piece of cardboard over the stain and kept saying he would take care of it until 60 days later and then barely attempted to have the stain removed. I’m angry at myself for being so passive and not collecting additional rent to have it removed on day 15 but my fiancé said he didn’t want to make his older brother mad. So now we have this ugly permanently stained driveway. I hired someone on day 61 to come do a service to remove it and made the brother pay for it but because he went so long not doing anything about it the stain didn’t budge and it’s now permanent. I wanted to raise his rent since he permanently damaged our home and couldn’t care less (he literally would scream at us that it wasn’t a big deal and who cares when we would ask him to take care of it). His rent is dirt cheap and he does not respect our home or us and does not make it a peaceful environment for us to live here in our own home. I’m so over the brother living here especially because he’s constantly disrespectful to us and even threw water in my fiancés face, tried to break my cup, and tried to physically fight my fiancé all because he had told him that he needs to get the stain out because I was preparing to hire someone. The only issue is in February was when we found out it’s permanent after we tried to have it serviced but my fiancé wouldn’t allow me to raise his rent because he didn’t want to make his older brother mad. Today my fiancé said if I wanted to raise his rent or collect additional rent until his lease is up then I should have done it but I obviously could not have without his permission as well, so my question is am I allowed to raise his rent or collect additional rent from him starting now even though this happened in February?