Property manager's responsibility?

Question

Asking for advice.  I have a former tenant who filed a complaint with the Landlord-Tenant Relations.  I have a property manager who was my agent at the time the operative facts arose, but currently is not my agent.  Is it that property manager's responsibility to respond to the complaint?  I've looked through my property management agreement and there is no mention related to this type of responsibility. Thanks for any input.

Deanna McCormick · Answer

Former tenant, Former property manager,, interesting, well your property owner so you should take steps to contact the former property manager, or the management company at the time whom she worked for and find out who their attorney is.

Former tenant could have action against all of you.. Call your attorney and give him the scoop,

Hope it works out.. Did the complaint give specifics as to the action of the complaint. any paperwork you have dig it out..

Catherine German · Answer

Were you named in the complaint? If so, you should respond. If not, you should still respond and indicate that you had a property manager in place. Best advice is to contact an attorney who specializes in these matters.

Deanna McCormick · Answer

I tend to agree. if damages are less than attorney fee's I personally would opt for returning the balance of the security deposit, unless she is suing for like 3 times the amount or other damages. Letter to her she signs releasing owner and it's management company of any further actions or damages.

get it done with.

Todd Plambeck · Answer

How much are we talking here?  How much is it going to cost you to go to court over it?  Do you just need to respond to the board with the facts of the case?  If it goes to court, what percentage of the time does the landlord prevail in these cases over a broken lease?  I would wager that big bad landlord is going to lose the majority of the time.  It breaks down to simple math:  If your time + headaches + legal fees > half of the security deposit then give her the deposit back.

Kim Meredith Hampton · Answer

The management company will need to respond, as well as yourself because you were both named in the response even if they no longer manage the property.

I find it has much better impact if it comes directly from legal counsel, find someone that has landlord tenant experience

Peter Chen · Answer

Two things - this is a preliminary complaint to the county's Landlord-Tenant Affairs, so as of right now, we just need to respond.  Secondly, another factor in the complaint - tenant threatened to sue because we could not fix a broken AC unit immediately, even though we provided tenant with rent credit of prorated daily rent for everyday the AC was not yet repaired. The AC was repaired within 10 days.  One aspect of this complaint stems from the fact the tenant was out of town when the AC failed, and requested the PM to repair before returning.  The PM replied that a repair cannot be scheduled until tenant was back or tenant have someone on premises to meet with repair tech.  Tenant complains it is not her responsibility to be at the property and it took unreasonably long to repair.  PM states it is reasonable because it is not considered an emergency repair, and tenant is responsible to be at property to meet repairman.  How long is it considered a reasonable time to repair AC unit?  Who must be at property?  I must admit, I don't really know.  But, I thought I was being reasonable providing daily rent credit.

I think that if I were dealing with this rationally and economically, I might consider returning the early termination charge.  However, I want to defend my action out of principle.  Further, this is my first responding to tenant complaint and I want to learn from this.

Peter Chen · Answer

The complaint was sent to the property manager who forwarded it to me.   So, the property manager is fully aware.  It named both PM and the landlord.  The PM refused to respond but provided me with all the documentation.

Complaint did give specifics.  First of the complaint states that 1/2 of the security deposit was unreasonably withheld.  The tenant had a one year lease agreement which she terminated early due to "reasonable cause beyond tenant control." This clause in the lease agreement provides that "In the event of termination under this covenant, Tenant may be liable for a reasonable termination charge not to exceed the equivalent of one (1) month's rent at the rate in effect as of the termination date, or the actual damages sustained by the Landlord, whichever is the lesser amount."  When the tenant vacated, I attempted to lease the property immediately and so far unsuccessful for over two months.  Because of this, I calculated that my actual damages were at least one month's rent.  However, I tried accommodating the tenant and decreased the early termination charge   to 1/2 month's rent.  The tenant complained that this was unreasonable.

Property manager's responsibility?

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