The Emergency Phone Call

What I would tell you is the first thing you should do is always make sure that you run your property like a business, meaning that you have policies, you have procedures and you stick to them. By law, in Texas, you do have to be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week in case of an emergency if you do own a rental property. But, with that being said, there should to be things in place to make sure that you explain what is and what is not an emergency.

A lot of that can be stated in the lease as to what is an emergency. What we suggest is that if you do get a new tenant, go and show them where the breaker panel box is, show them where the emergency shut off for the water line is and the emergency shut off for the gas line, so that if they do have an emergency they know where all these things are. I know some owners have gone and taken pictures where they are and posted them in the cabinet in the house. That it’s a quick reference to explain where it is in an emergency. So, just a little proactive approach helps a lot.

What I would say is if you do get called for an emergency at two in the morning, there is nothing you can do about it except to stop the problem. Normally what we call the F’s – Fire, Flood, or Falling Roof, is one of those things that is an emergency. If the house is on fire you call the fire department so that the tenants are safe and deal with it in the morning. Just like anything else. You are not going to be able to get someone out there to fix something, stop the problem. If you have to put them up in a hotel or something for their safety, I would recommend doing that and making sure their safe. You definitely don’t want to try to keep them in a house that is uninhabitable or by the same token you don’t want them calling at all hours.

In the beginning, I would like to say establish what is and is not an emergency and let them know that if they do call on something that is not an emergency they will be charged a surcharge for calling. Trying to pay their rent, a door sticking or a light bulb out is not an emergency. And they need to realize that you are a business even if you only have one property, you are a business and they cannot call just anytime they feel that it’s an emergency in their mind. So again, just make sure you have the policies and procedures in place, you stick to them, you establish those rules in the beginning and you can make sure that if something happens you can always fall back on these policies and procedures.