Kathy Kennebrook Discusses Secrets of Land Lording-Part 3

So now your tenant is all moved into your unit. When a tenant moves into one of my units, I provided for them an inspection sheet which they sign off on stating the condition of the unit, the appliances and so forth. We give our tenants thirty days to go through the unit to see if there are any repairs needed that may have been missed by my rehab crew. These repairs are done at no charge to the tenant. After thirty days, the tenant is charged the first fifty dollars of all repairs. This keeps the tenant from calling us to repair things like toilet guts for instance. We actually added this to our lease after a tenant called us at 6:30 one evening to tell us her kitchen sink was stopped up. It turned out that her small child had stuck a cup down into the garbage disposal. It just needed to be removed. The way my lease reads now, that tenant would be charged a fee of $50.00 to have my repair guy go out for something that wasn’t a repair. This one clause will save you from a lot of unnecessary trips to your units for repairs.

I also have someone who checks my rental units every sixty days or so to make sure they are being cared for properly and that the tenant has not added animals that are not on the lease. We also make sure they have not moved in any more people who are not on the lease. This is grounds for immediate eviction. Within the body of our lease, we also cover how long visitors can stay as well so there is a clear definition as to what a visitor is and what an extra tenant is. You can also hire a property management company to handle your units, but I just feel like our units are better handled by my staff. I also send letters to the neighbors surrounding my rental units letting them know that we are interested in any input they may have about my units and my tenants. They become kind of a watchdog for me to let me know if there are any problems I should know about.

When a repair is necessary, I have my vendor contact the tenant directly to set up a time for the repair. This keeps me out of the middle of the situation. My vendor then calls me to let me know what repairs are needed and to get my authorization to do them. If you build a solid tenant base and your tenants have been in your units for a long period of time, these matters become very easy to handle since your tenants are well aware of your policies regarding repairs. At this point in time, most of my tenants have been in my units for several years. I believe there are two reasons for this longevity. One is that while we are strict with our tenants, we are fair with our tenants. The other is that our tenants know exactly what is expected of them and they live in clean, well maintained units. When they do have a legitimate problem, they know it will be handled expediently.

We also cover what maintenance to the unit the tenant is responsible for. For example, they are responsible for keeping their yard mowed and shrubs trimmed. You could also provide this service for them and charge an extra amount of rent monthly to cover it. Our tenants are responsible for their own utilities as well. We are also very clear as to what is required upon move out, which basically is that the unit looks just like it did when they moved in. We outline the specifics of what we expect to be done, such as the yard being mowed, appliances and carpets cleaned, etc. This just makes it very clear for everyone. Upon move-out, we do an inspection and provide written documentation to our tenants concerning any items we find problems with. We give them a specific timeframe to correct the problems before withholding monies from the security deposit. As I mentioned before, land lording doesn’t have to be that difficult as long you set up a specific plan.

I will discuss the eviction process in the next article or you can check out my website at marketingmagiclady.com for more information on land lording.

Kathy Kennebrook offers detailed information, advice and professional-quality products related to "Kathy Kennebrook Discusses Secrets of Land Lording-Part 3", Real Estate Marketing and Real Estate Investing.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am by Kathy Kennebrook and is filed under Kathy Kennebrook's Insightful Articles, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.