If you mind your Ps and Qs, you handle repairs, as they come, in an urgent and expeditious manner. Because let’s face it, it’s not just seeing to the tenant’s needs but to the longevity and sustainability or your investment. So, if you’re really about your business, you anticipate repairs and have incorporated a maintenance routine that will hopefully prevent the need for repairs. But, no matter how diligent you are, there are always going to be repairs needed. To add to that, if you are in the industry long enough, there are going to be repair-needy tenants.
These will be tenants who seem to have an issue with their residence every other day. Things happen and a tenant should never be dissuaded from giving notice of a need for repair. However, the “repair-needy” tenant would be one that makes frivolous, time-consuming requests like, their tap water is not cold enough when it’s 1000 degrees outside or the AC is not keeping the house at their preferred 65 degrees…WHEN IT’S 1000 DEGREES OUTSIDE!
It is vital that you maintain control of your expenses and carrying costs if your property investment is to remain at all profitable. The key to doing that is minimizing unnecessary expenses. That can be done several ways when it comes to repairs, but a surefire way (and this will sound very familiar) is to address repairs in a very clear, detailed way in the language of your lease. Do that by:
- Give clear indication what is outside of your responsibility, like wear and tear.
- Advise of, and stick to, a clear maintenance schedule. A tenant may be less likely to complain about an issue that they will soon be addressed during the course of a regular maintenance schedule. However, advise that it is also their responsibility to make you aware of anything that becomes a more urgent issue.
- Advise of a kind of deductible for repair calls (especially, repeated) that result in no need for repair. In other words, “My AC isn’t keeping my home cool.” (And, it’s 1000 degrees outside.) If you have your maintenance staff come out, or worse a specialist, and nothing is found to be wrong or the problem is tenant error, the costs associated with the call will be theirs.
Again, you never want to give indication that their concerns are not of the utmost concern to you. You do, however, need to make it clear that their calls, necessary and unnecessary, incur a cost to you. To maintain the profitability of your property/investment/business and not have to pass on your rising costs on to your tenants, you have to keep these things in check. Knowledge is power! When you know what you have to do to be successful, own it, and make decisions accordingly.
