Maintenance 101: Landlords and Tenants
When a lease begins, it’s (generally) all beer and skittles: you’re a happy landlord with a great new tenant, you’re a tenant with a wonderful new home. High fives for all. However, it’s likely that there will come a time in your lease when maintenance works will need to be done. To keep those good tenant-landlord relationships going through periods of reparation, take these ABCs of reporting and addressing maintenance to heart – straight from the property management team at C&G.
Tenants
- Return Your Condition Report
When it comes time to assessing maintenance issues and obtaining full receipt of your bond upon leaving your tenanted property, a condition report is everything. Too often, tenants don’t return condition reports in a timely fashion – sometimes not returning them at all. When requesting maintenance or retrieving full bond, your original condition report notes are referred to – so make sure your observations are accurate.
- Report Problems Immediately
Ensure your bond’s safety by reporting maintenance issues immediately, even if they appear small to you. This includes mould in showers, cracks in window panes and scorches or damage to carpets and walls. Likewise, report essential maintenance (heating, electricity etc.) immediately and make your residence available to the relevant professionals your property manager books.
Landlords
- A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
Responding to requests for repairs in a timely fashion is essential to a good tenant-landlord relationship. Your property manager will assess the tenant’s repair request, and give you feedback on a solution – advising if the repair is necessary or otherwise. Upon receiving a valid repair request (i.e. in most cases), be decisive and give permission for works to be done. By addressing small problems quickly, you can stop them becoming larger ones later.
- Use Insured Professionals and Respect Boundaries
Don’t fall into the trap of using uninsured handymen, or giving the repairs ‘a crack’ by yourself. If undertaking repairs yourself (should you be qualified and capable of doing so), only come into your rental property at a mutually-agreed time brokered by your property manager with your tenant.
- Work with your Property Manager
Your property manager wants your property to be a great investment for many years to come. Trust their judgement and work out a budget that you’re happy to have them spend to on small-to-medium reparations on your behalf. The speed of repairs done means that your home is in good condition, and that your relationship with the tenant continues to be in tip-top shape.