Property manager problem or just bad tenants?
Hi bigger pockets family! I have a question about my first rental house and the property manager I hired.
I’ve had a rental property in Denver for many years, and always self-managed it. Two years ago, I moved to the East Coast and hired a property manager to oversee the tenant screening, lawn care company, and any other issues. One of the main reasons I went with this company was because they said they would do occasional courtesy drive-bys to make sure everything looked OK at the property since we are out of state and can’t check in ourselves. They screened and approved a tenant (three single men) who has been in there for a year and a half now, and this tenant has caused nothing but problems.
I have a strict no animals on the property clause and no smoking of any kind in the house or on the property. The neighbor next door to the house who I have a good relationship with, informed me a year ago that the tenants were doing pet boarding with several dogs on the property and in the house, and also smoking both in and out of the house. When we told the property manager, they said they could go check on the property, but they would have to give the tenants 24 hours notice. The tenants of course denied that they were smoking or had animals on the property. When the manager went to check, of course there were no animals on the property, and the tenants were not smoking, since they knew the manager was coming.
Since the manager didn’t find animals or smoking on the property, they said there was nothing we could do besides remind the tenants of the conditions of the lease.
We also found out that the lawn care company stopped coming to the house several months ago, so now the entire lawn is dead. This will be a huge expense to either re-sod or re-seed. One of the reasons we picked this company was because they said they would do periodic drive-bys to make sure all was well with the house.
Yesterday, the neighbor texted us again and said the county sheriff, the fire department, and the local news stations had been at our house because the tenants were being arrested for possession of a large quantity of illegal fireworks. The pictures and video are all over the news of the garage filled with fireworks and the police confiscating them.
We informed the property manager, and they said they would contact their legal team and get back to us. We have never had problems like this when we were screening tenants ourselves, even though we personally never did background checks or checked credit reports. When we told the property manager that we would like to screen our own tenants in the future for this house, they told us that from a legal standpoint, if we want to work with them we have to take whoever they find. They said that we are required to accept whoever the first applicant is for the house who has a clean background check and credit report.
I’ve never worked with a property management company before so I don’t know what to expect as a normal minimum. I don’t know if I should stick with them because no other company is going to be any better, or try to go back to self managing long distance? Can I hold the management company responsible for the damage done to the lawn since they obviously were not checking on the house to make sure everything looked OK? I’m hoping that since the tenants were engaged in illegal activity on the property, I will be able to get them out of there before the end of their lease. I don’t really trust this manager to find a good replacement tenant but I’m not sure legally what my options are.
Thoughts? Advice? I’m hoping to invest in some additional properties in the near future so I want to make sure I learn what I need to moving forward from this situation.