Tenant Withholding Rent For Repairs ....
... with no notice to me (the landlord).
I have a long term tenant who is quickly becoming a problem tenant. His rent has been late the last 4 months and he has refused to pay the late fee(s) as per the lease. Today I receive his June rent payment by mail (11 days late) with a receipt for $268 to unblock a toilet which was deducted from the check. Now I have a major issue with this of course ... it is one thing if the tenant could not contact me but this tenant made NO effort, based upon lack of any contact, no voice mail messages, NOTHING!!!
Of course this came in the mail too late to contact my attorney for his opinion so I was hoping that I could get some opinions here on how I should handle this .... any thoughts would be appreciated. This is in Ohio.
What does the lease say? Mine clearly states that I will hire all work and if they chose to hire someone else than they pay the cost.
I have worked hard to have a select group of people (Plumber, etc) that I call and I get a discount for using them. I understand things do happen. I had a furnace go, shot, red tagged do not use, on Christmas eve at 8:00pm. My tenents called my emergence number when it went out. I checked to see if they paid their gas bill and called the HVAC guy. He got there by 10pm and gave me the bad news at 11pm. My tenents went to family and I put a new furnace in the day after Christmas. I got a better deal and my tenents followed the rule. (I also offered to put them up in a hotel but they chose their family)
So again what does the lease say. Do you have a property managment company? What did they say? If not be careful it may cost you more than you think.
J
Quote:
On 2006-06-17 21:06, JamesStreet wrote:
What does the lease say? Mine clearly states that I will hire all work and if they chose to hire someone else than they pay the cost.
Well ... here is likely mistake number one on my part ... there are no stipulations in the lease as to this type of siuation, although the tenant has been told numerous times to contact me with any issues.
But to address the point made in an earlier post ... MUST I consider this deduction by the tenant as rent paid??? Anyone? Of course I know to seek the advice of my attorney which I shall do but I am curious if anyone has any actual experience with a similar situation.... Thanks in advance!
Chris -
My two cents - I would suggest that a landlord NEVER - NEVER EVER - take something off of the rent due. We learned the hard way that its better to write them a check for anything we might (emphasis might) agree to let them do.
Jim
Quote:
On 2006-06-18 16:18, jimandlacy wrote:
Chris -
My two cents - I would suggest that a landlord NEVER - NEVER EVER - take something off of the rent due. We learned the hard way that its better to write them a check for anything we might (emphasis might) agree to let them do.
Jim
I agree ... I have always in the past, without exception, reimbursed a tenant by check for anything that I agreed to cover. Problem here is that I never agreed nor did the tenant ask ....
So, I am hoping that the payment the tenant made is not considered rent ... off to look at Ohio tenant/landlord law now.