This is why I like self-managing...

[wylie]

I'm curious to hear from property managers on this scenario...

We had a tenant move into an IP last week. We self-manage.

Saturday I had a text that there was no water getting to the washing machine. We live a few streets from this IP so we popped over. The tenant clearly is not a handyman. He had pushed the washing machine too close to the wall and the inlet hoses were crimped, not allowing the water into the machine. Ten minutes out of our day, cost to fix = zero.

Same tenant... yesterday we got a text saying there is no hot water. We popped over again and the gas tap had been turned off by someone and the pilot light had gone out. Hubby took off the cover, followed the instructions and lit the pilot light. Ten minutes out of our day, cost to fix = zero.

My question is that if we had PM, and the tenant had called the PM, I'm fairly sure we would have had a plumber called for the first issue and a gasfitter called for the second. This would have cost us probably $150 per "repair".

We would possibly never have found out that it was such a simple fix, but if we did find out from the invoice, would a PM ask the tenant to pay for the unnecessary costs to "fix" a problem that wasn't actually a problem with the house, but with the tenant.

I write into the leases that if the air-con needs fixing due to filters not having been cleaned monthly, the tenant will be responsible for the cost of the call-out. I don't know if we will ever be able to actually benefit from this clause.

I'm wonder if anyone with this scenario with the washing machine and gas who has such a clause has ever successfully had the tenant pay for a fix that was not required.

To me, the first issue was completely tenant's fault.

In the second case, perhaps it is not the tenant's fault that he couldn't find the stopcock and turn it and follow the instructions to light the pilot flame. Is this something a tenant should be doing?

In all our years of renting, these two scenarios in one week are new ones for us. I would think most people would have worked these things out.

Any comments from PMs on either scenario?

 

[INVSTOR]

Last year the tenant was complaining about the ducted aircon not working properly. I had my doubts but after months of complaining and then they said aircon was tripping electricity we gave in to spending the $4500. After that they said a light switch was tripping electricity. The following month after repairing they blamed another light switch. After being handed back property and seeing how incompetent pm was I think that was all a waste of money. All up with two PM's and two tenants, on top of PM fees there would be about $12,000 of unnecessary expenses. I can see why some investors sell up!

 

[INVSTOR]

Let's hope this tenant improves! If he doesn't, consider it when you are doing rent review. I've never had a problem like that. I had a tenant who wanted us to send out a handyman to tighten a bathroom and kitchen door knob. He was a PITA and his requests just got weirder! PM would email his stupid requests to us.

 

[AlmostBob]

Me too,
signing lease downstairs,
one of the upstairs tenants noticed a torn screen,
sign on the line, scuse self, , new screen 10 minutes
happy tenant (till they move out at the end of college and don't clean) no explanation of cause of torn screen

at least new tenant too believes that their problems will get attended to
and most important to me, the RAIN STOPPED before I was finished and I didnt get wet going back to the car
five changeovers this weekend, one more tomorrow, September is start of the college year, the small apartments are loved by students, they are clean and self contained, college residences arent either

Tenants + gas = :BOOM:
USE
User
Stupidity
Error

I like the ones with electric auto ignition and no pilot light, even more idiot resistant

If you were on a holiday weekend, would you like your plumber contacted by this tenant TWICE for these water issues, coz you trust your tenants

 

[attrill]

My IPs have always been fairly close and I always said to the PM to call me first with any issue so I could go and have a look and decide if a tradie was needed or not.

Would have saved me thousands over the years...

Just a thought.

 

[wylie]

If you were on a holiday weekend, would you like your plumber contacted by this tenant TWICE for these water issues, coz you trust your tenants

I don't think you understand that they would NOT have contacted the plumber as they know to call us first. My question was more for those who have PMs. I guess our tenant would have contacted our PM who would simply have called in a plumber...

And you don't seem to grasp that we do trust our tenants. We have NEVER had a tenant call an emergency plumber, sparkie or anything else. We are always here at the end of the phone, and they trust us too. They know their (rare) requests are met swiftly. One tenant regularly gives us jam and when she dropped some forms over we asked her to eat with us. Was quite nice.

 

[Thann]

Last year we had something like this. One of the tenants (Couple + Kids) had turned off the isolation valve to the kitchen.

PM went 'round, turned it on.

 

[wylie]

My IPs have always been fairly close and I always said to the PM to call me first with any issue so I could go and have a look and decide if a tradie was needed or not.

Would have saved me thousands over the years...

Just a thought.

That is what I am interested to hear. So, there are PMs who use a bit of nous and don't just call in a plumber. I guess it comes down to whether the landlord is happy to field this type of call.

 

[New_b]

My IPs have always been fairly close and I always said to the PM to call me first with any issue so I could go and have a look and decide if a tradie was needed or not.

Would have saved me thousands over the years...

Just a thought.

That's exactly what we are going to do from now on after the recent case.

Recently we had a new tenant. It's worse than Wylie's case, within her first week we had numerous calls from our PM. Our PM was given a list of maintenance requests (what the tenant reckons, not in our PM's opinion at all). The list was never sent to us by our PM, thanks god. Don't forget, she had an inspection before signing up the lease. e.g. Obviously someone has had foxtel connection without our knowledge, she requested to have an antenna for her TV. Fine, after talking to PM, it's our obligaion to put it on. Other complaints were put off by our PM. We just ignored them as she got what she saw. Hey, it's a 8 years old new house. Then..... next week or so, she called again. Master bedroom toilet problems. My hubby really did not want to deal with this tenant. So we sent a plumber out. Problems fixed. The following week, another call, toilet was blocked. This time, my usual PM was not there, the assistant (must be) called and had already sent someone out. Fine. Emergency case. When I got my next rental statement, I got charged twice, closed to $500. Why? Because their plumber was there twice, first fixed the blocked toilet. Secondly without our knowledge, changed the whole new toilet. Emergency case, the assistant argued. There are 3 toilets in the house. Emergency???? NO.

Another case, light replacement claiming all sort of emergency excuses, it would be on fire etc...etc...if it's not attended to. We had enough, my hubby went this time, it's just a matter of changing a new bulb.

Hey, I could go on and on....

Suppose this is the fun part of property investing.

 

[AlmostBob]

I read with concern, the tales of pm charges,
$100 fee for taking the cap off the pen to write out the $200 explanation for the pen cap fee. Thats in WA of course,

and wonder how much capital gain there has to be to compensate for years of cf losses and cgtax

our properties are cf+ and cg+, enough to pay four staff, and take winter, 8 months, off each year,

I dont like Bollinger, I like VB.
prefer muddies to caviar
fresh beef to kobe

There are no plans to our holiday, we go where Kathryn finds interesting, we have a big home and petting zoo for 5 weeks, and a couple of other places booked, and we go bush again

 

[jim1964]

My IPs have always been fairly close
Would have saved me thousands over the years...

I have taken the plan of only buying within a 2-3 hour radius of home,for the very reason of high tradie callouts and costs.I have 9 ip,s,and every manager is instructed to call me 1st,i will make the decision on what and who needs to be involved in the problem at hand.
As a example yesterday.Tenant complaining of mass ant attack in bedroom...............A can of spray and hey presto.
Most property Managers need to be micro managed.........i really dont know why i bother with them sometimes.

 

[INVSTOR]

That is what I am interested to hear. So, there are PMs who use a bit of nous and don't just call in a plumber. I guess it comes down to whether the landlord is happy to field this type of call.

Wylie, on your PM contract you can elect for PM to either take care of all expenses or nominate an estimated amount of expense, eg, expense over $50 which would cover any maintenance request to be ran past you first.

 

[Lil Skater]

Hi Wylie,

I include in all leases that any repairs found to be the fault of misuse by the tenant, or if it is unnecessary call out, all costs will be passed on.

In regards to the requests, I would've pointed this out to the tenants as well. With regards to hot water (if it's gas) I always ask if the tenants have checked the pilot light, if not, their cost.

 

[AlmostBob]

forgot to ask before,
Prefer for gas fueled water heaters to have electronic ignition, no pilot llights, turn the tap on, it lights
Is there any history of (dumb as a stump) tenants singeing eyebrows, relighting and blaming the landlord/pm
I mean in the grand scheme of things it has to happen, but do they blame the landlord

 

[Peterw]

Wylie, we also inform tenants that they will cover the costs, if the repair turns out to be one caused by them. This rangers from blocked toilets with "foreign" items, faulty appliances tripping power, cleaning of mould from poor ventilation and broken windows from being left open. We have also assisted tenants with pilot lights.
Invstor, with your issues, I would have thought that a good sparky would have identified the cause, and that should not have been a too expensive fix, however not knowing the full story it's hard to comment on.

 

[Ed Barton]

and broken windows from being left open.

How does leaving a window open contribute to it breaking and how is that the tenants fault? Shouldn't tenants be able to open windows?

 

[AlmostBob]

We've had a tenant leave an awning window open, and ride a bike through it, that's one way

 

[Peterw]

How does leaving a window open contribute to it breaking and how is that the tenants fault? Shouldn't tenants be able to open windows?

Sorry Ed, should have been clearer. If they are left unlatched and open, and a storm arives, thrashing windows can break.

 

[see_change]

Can I change the topic to

This is why I like nice porperties in nice areas .....

Cliff

 

[Jody in Darwin]

Hi Wylie,

We occasionally face this sort of thing. We usually try to nut it out ourselves first.

We had a tenant recently who thought there was something wrong with the oven. We called in and set the timer, made sure the oven worked, then showed her how to set the timer so she can do it herself after a power outage. (It was in the manual she was supplied but it was not especially clear and the poor girl was in the middle of an entire move by herself as her partner was out of town and on top of that she was sick!).

Another one we had recently was a dryer not working. Often this is simply a belt so we got an appliance electrician to take a look. It turned out that the filter was full of lint. Electrician cleared this, reset the overheat button and ran without further incident. Although we check all filters at every inspection (and clean them if they are dirty) we can only do inspections once a quarter. The tenant has been invoiced and they are (red faced) paying without question.

A bit of tact goes a long way - which you are obviously all over .
In your case, I would be pointing out to the tenant (as tactfully as possible) that these are things they should be able to handle, otherwise a precedent is set where calling you is always the first stop rather than taking 10 minutes to have a look first.

Kind regards,
Jody