Question about Tenant and PM

[Lee Ze Kiong]

Hi

My PM just told me that the tenant has made some renovation with my property without my consent or informing them (I am an out of state investor). Now PM claims they refuse to pay the rent as they had been complaining about this issue for the past years already (for the record, I just change PM few months ago). My questions:

1) tenants are not allow to do remodel any part of the property right. If so, I do not want to pay for this remodeling which I was not aware or inform of. Am I allow to do that?

2) the tenants I have are not high incomers, at most maybe middle incomers with some needing help on Section 8. This is why I find it funny that given their financial background, they can still offer to pay for the remodeling?

3) with regard to no 2, it leads me to suspect PM is not being truthful. Since she has taken over few months ago, there were constant repairs and I could break even (only) slightly for 1 property. PM kept telling me its the ex-PM negligence. But when the realtor went to look at one of the property, he mentioned that 1 part of the room needs serious touching up. Which I find weird, because if PM has been claiming repairs all these while, why does that particular area of the house still needs touching up? So far PM has only given some receipts as he claims that all items are purchased in bulk so not easy to get the receipts. And out of all the monthly reports, 2 have glaring errors which I need to clarify.

4) PM claims that tenant will bring up to the city authority and refuses to pay rent. We will have to go without rent for 4mths till he moves out in Nov/Dec (when he finalized his financial stuff with his new home). PM is not keen to evict due to cost and other issues (e.g city authority etc). We have requested PM to do an eviction ASAP

5) are courts usually tenant friendly?

Appreciate it if fellow investors here could advise me if there is something unusual about this whole fiasco, especially my PM? I try not to change PM as I am not sure if the next one is good or not. But if something is really wrong, I guess I have to search again. Thank you

[David S.]

I am sorry to say your passive investment is about to get more active.

Check your lease with the tenant. Our standard leases do not allow for remodeling, renovating, painting, etc…

I have not had experience with Section 8 but have heard that the City can with hold their portion of the rent subsidiary if certain conditions in the unit’s state of repair are not met.

I would read up on Section 8 in that property’s city location and how friendly local courts are to tenants. Maybe talk to an attorney.

Why did you change PMs in the first place? Unfortunately, one of the biggest risks for out of state investors is finding a PM that can be trusted not to take advantage of an out of state investor. 

Many BP members are of out of state investors. Consider starting a new thread asking for recommendations for PMs in your property’s location.