Caring for your rental property is key to running a successful rental property business. However, maintaining the investment property is an ongoing job, especially if you want to avoid enormous repair bills.
Besides, as the property owner, it is your legal responsibility to provide your tenants with inhabitable conditions. The maintenance of your rental property is not something that you can simply leave until your tenants complain about certain issues.
Integrate Preventive Maintenance
You might have heard it before – an ounce of prevention equals one pound of cure. The same rule applies to rental property owners – you might want to invest in property management service as a way of preventive maintenance and, along the way, avoid a hefty bill of thousands of dollars to cure a major problem.
With regular property maintenance, you can also significantly diminish the risks of getting sued. When it comes to answering the question of why you need regular maintenance, you must know that as a landlord, you must ensure that rental properties do comply with relevant building and housing standards.
You will want to ensure to maintain a suitable and habitable living space, which means that the rental property has adequate heating, cooling, hot water, cold water, plumbing, and a safe electrical system. You must ensure that all fixtures and appliances are safe and in a good working order.
Set Clear Expectations
If you are new to rental properties, you must set clear expectations for your tenants from the very beginning. The tenants are responsible for paying rent. On the other hand, you are responsible for maintaining the unit
Although the lease agreement might not require you, the landlord, to make repairs, it is still your responsibility. Speaking of the legal aspects, you will want to ensure that the apartment or property is indeed inhabitable.
The tenants must notify you if there are minor repairs that require attention. Let us say the refrigerator of a tenant is leaking. In this case, the tenant must inform you – if the tenant fails to do so, you can hold the tenant liable for property damage, which can result from the problem they ignored.
On the other hand, if the tenant is responsible enough to notify you of essential repairs, you, as the landlord, must ensure all potential repairs in a reasonable time.
Deal with Maintenance Requests Right Away
You will want to deal with maintenance requests right away. However, as a landlord, one of your biggest pain points will be dealing with maintenance requests, which is why it might be a good idea to work on your interpersonal skills and develop emotional intelligence, which will help you build effective relationships.
At any time of the day or night, you could come across the request for maintenance. Now, the frustrating aspect is that what a tenant might think of being an emergency might not be that serious. Essential property maintenance can be categorized as emergency and non-emergency situations.
An emergency could be linked with plumbing, such as a burst pipe; whereas, a non-emergency could be a mouse in the attic.