Tenants play a big part in helping you maintain your Roseville rental property. To work together effectively, you’ll need a good tenant relationship in place. You’ll also need to educate them on their responsibilities and provide a solid process for making maintenance requests.
Here are some of the ways we complete tenant maintenance requests to ensure quality and satisfaction as expert Roseville property managers.
Communicate Your Maintenance Expectations
Establish your process for making maintenance requests before your tenants even move in. There should be detailed instructions in the lease agreement, and you should also have a conversation about it. You want your tenants to understand that you need to hear about repair issues right away. Sometimes, tenants hesitate to make those repair requests. That’s only going to lead to deferred maintenance, which is often more expensive.
Talk the tenants through the process and explain that you’ll be responsive to their repair needs, but you can only do that if you know about them. Discuss the difference between an emergency repair need and a routine repair need.
Document Your Process and Your Repair Requests
All emergencies should be reported immediately. You’ll want your tenants to call you as soon as it is safe to do so. For routine repairs, it’s better to have those requests made in writing. This gives you a documented record of when the request was made, what was described, and how it was handled. This will help you eliminate any disputes about work that was never done or requests that were ignored.
As professional property managers, we have tech-savvy software that allows us to receive and document all tenant maintenance requests. You may not have this type of technology as an independent landlord, but you can ask for routine requests in writing via email or text message so you don’t lose the value of that written record.
Follow Up on the Work after It’s Complete
Hopefully, you have a team of great vendors and contractors who can respond to maintenance needs and complete the work that’s required. Always check in with your tenants after the maintenance issue has been resolved. You want to know if they’re satisfied with the work that’s been done and the timeframe with which it was completed. This type of responsiveness will improve your tenant relationships and your tenant retention rate. You’ll also want to be sure the vendors you’re working with are treating your tenants professionally.
Be Clear About Responsibilities
You don’t want your tenants flushing water heaters or hanging drywall. Make sure you’re clear about what tenants are required to do and what they should not do. For example, changing batteries and light bulbs and air filters are normally the tenant’s territory. It should say as much in the lease. Don’t let them make repairs that a vendor should make, however.
Managing maintenance requests from tenants takes time and resources. If you’d like some help with this part of Roseville property management, we can offer some support. Contact us at Action Properties. We lease, manage, and maintain rental properties in Roseville, Rocklin, Loomis, Lincoln, Granite Bay, and the surrounding areas.
