Duplex Landscaping - Who Takes Care of Yard?

Question

Hello,

My wife and I are house hacking in a duplex, but are hoping to move out soon into another duplex that we hope to house hack as well. Currently, we are taking care of the entire yard ourselves, but once we move out, how should we handle the landscaping and yard care (watering, cutting, maintenance)? Is the best solution to hire a company to handle the landscaping or ask the new tenants to handle the lawn care? If the tenants are taking care of the lawn, how do you ensure the tenants are properly caring for the yard?

We would appreciate any feedback or suggestions! Thanks!

Alecia Loveless · Answer

@Shane Bishop With my SFH when I signed the lease I asked the tenants if they wanted to take care of the yard maintenance or if they wanted me to add a certain amount more to the rent and have my lawn guy take care of the lawn maintenance. It is in the lease that if they don’t take care of the lawn to my standard I will hire somebody to do it and charge them for it.

They immediately agreed to take care of the yard. Come April I credited them $200 off their rent to help them buy a lawn mower. Then in May they asked if I would help them buy a weed whacker so I credited them $100 off their rent. First thing every Saturday morning the husband mows the yard and weed whacks it. They’ve put in new flower beds and trimmed the bushes. They’ve removed over grown diseased rose bushes and planted new. They’re rock stars. They also renewed their lease for a second year in November.

At my other properties my contractor also has a yard company and mows those lawns. Mostly they only take him about 25 minutes because given the option I try not to buy properties with large lawns that need to be mowed all the time. Mostly we mow every other week. We also allow certain areas to grow Long for the butterflies and bees and then mow them down once winter comes.

Julien J. · Answer

@Shane Bishop

I've house hack a duplex and came was in the boat. Couple options:

1) Hire a landscape company and bake the cost into the rent.

2) Let the tenant handle the basic stuff and write in the lease. Such as: mow grass, fall clean up, flowerbeds, etc. The major stuff such as hedge trimming and tree maintenance handle yourself. Of note, if there is an item that is not easily fixed if tenant destroy, keep the responsibility.

The transition of the current tenant and their set of responsibility:

1) Leverage the lease if that's covered

2) Inform of new responsibilities, negotiate if you have to.

Theresa Harris · Answer

Unless the new tenant will have exclusive access to the yard, then it isn't fair for them to take care of the yard.  If it is a side by side duplex-it would be easy to have each set of tenants take care of their half.  As your existing tenant is used to you doing the lawn, I doubt they will want to do it.  I'd hire a lawn care company and add the cost into the rent.  for the current tenant, increase the rent when their lease is up for renewal to cover the costs.

You can also use it as a marketing tool when advertizing-access to the yard, but not responsible for cutting the grass.

John Underwood · Answer

My lease requires all my tenants maintain their yards.

I seldom have any issues with this.

Shane Bishop · Answer

Thank you all for the feedback and input! We are currently renting the other unit as a midterm rental so I am fine with taking care of the yard to keep it looking nice! Once we move out, we will rent both sides as long term and at that point, we will certainly explore our options. We appreciate all of the input!

Jonah Hartsburg · Answer

Exciting! Congrats on your first and now working towards your second house hack. When I house-hacked a duplex, I found it advantageous to add a yard maintenance fee to the lease and hire it out. This way you know it's taken care of professionally and are placing a third party between your neighbor/landlord relationship.Once I moved out, I added a similar fee to the lease on the unit I was formerly living in. This added a little bit of revenue to ensure the landscaper coordination and billing were worth my time.

Melanie Thomas · Answer

As stated in our lease agreement, tenants are responsible for lawn maintenance, and we reserve the right to step in and mow the lawn after receiving two HOA notices. However, if the condition of the lawn at your rental property is a concern for you, we recommend arranging for professional lawn care services at your expense. Please be aware that in Texas, we cannot compel tenants to handwater the lawn, and legal action can only be taken if there's a sprinkler system in place. Some property owners may not fully understand this aspect and may wrongfully consider charging for new sod installation. While it may be a small expense to service the lawn, it can provide peace of mind if lawn care is a significant issue for you. Good luck on your next hack!

Marcus Auerbach · Answer

I'd say depends a little on your property and on your tenants.

In Milwaukee it is very common on a duplex for the tenants to cut the lawn and shovel the snow and have had okay results for 15 years with that. Not fantastic and we still send someone to trim the bushed in fall, but acceptable.

On a 4 family they won't, there is no sense of responsibility and you have to make arrangements. For legal reasons I would stay away from making compensated arrangements with one tenant - liability.

You may have to train them a little and call them out if its not done right, so you definitly need to keep eyes on it. If it fails you can always hire a service.

Kevin Sobilo · Answer

@Shane Bishop, as soon as you mention things like watering and lawn-care I think that the answer is to hire a professional and bake the costs into the rent.

If you have nicer landscaping that you feel you needs special care, its often not realistic to expect a tenant to do that and for you to monitor that it gets done.

If this were a basic rental where all you needed from them was a bi-weekly mow then having a tenant would be fine. With an up/down duplex I would assign use of the yard to one of the tenants and they would be the ones responsible for the yard.

JD Martin · Answer

You are not far from me (TriCities TN). You should 100% farm out the lawn care to a professional company and just include it somehow in the rent. Tenants *suck* at cutting grass, most of them really suck at edging if they even own an edger, and you sure as hell don't want them trimming bushes or trees. Back before we started including lawn care in all of our properties, maybe 10% of the tenants did a passable job on lawn care. The rest would:

1. Cut the grass only after we got a violation notice from the city;

2. Cut the grass without a violation notice, but do it every 4 weeks so they left huge piles of grass everywhere which killed the lawn;

3. Scalp the grass to 1/2" high as their way of having to cut it more often than necessary, killing the lawn and turning it into weed central;

4. Never edge anything such that in short order invasive weeds and trash trees were growing in the areas you couldn't easily cut with a mower.

I *promise* you that you will be sorry if you don't include lawn care in a duplex in Greenville, SC. Your grass season is a little longer than ours, and ours runs almost 9 months. This is just a cost of doing business; we build the cost directly into the rent. 99% of tenants are thrilled that they don't have to worry about the lawn care at all.

PS: Years ago we used to give tenants the option to "opt in" to lawn care as an added service on their lease. Approximately 5% would opt in. The rest would follow 1- 4 above. If you give tenants the option they always go for the cheapest choice. So don't give them the option. If you build it right lawn care becomes a feature, not a penalty.

Duplex Landscaping - Who Takes Care of Yard?

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