Paying tenant to do maintenance?

Question

Does anyone pay a tenant to handle small maintenance issues? What is an arrangement that works well?

Tracy Streich · Answer

@Michael Leeson The answer is NO set up works well for this.   First they don't have any insurance for screwing up things on your property.  Second, (I have been doing this over 20 years) It is never done to the level you would expect from a 3rd party vendor.   Let them pay rent and your hire out the repairs.   Whatever expectations you have of their timing and quality will not be met.  And just as a bonus never rent to friends and family!   Same outcome

Kyle J. · Answer

@Michael Leeson  Keep it simple.  Collect rent from tenants.  Pay professionals to fix things if/when they break.

Dennis Wayne · Answer

This is a terrible hobby landlord mistake , learn from my past stupidity doing this  , you can go broke saving money guys .just about  Everytime I’ve tried this it bit  me on the a$$ trust me ,just pay a handyman and be done with it .

Michael Johnson · Answer

@Michael Leeson big fat no. You will wind up fixing what they botched.

Bud Gaffney · Answer

@Michael Leeson Do not do this. Will start out okay, and turn out bad. They will start making up maintenance repairs and want $ off the rent. Stay away from doing this.

Cameron Tope · Answer

Michael,

Looks like the answer is pretty clear! haha

Even if our residents are licensed and insured for the work, we don't let them do it.

Stick to your guys!

Dana Baggett · Answer

@Michael Leeson

This is a NO. Too many reasons to list.

Jim K. · Answer

@Michael Leeson

In single family, any arrangement where your tenants do cheap fixes for you works great until it breaks down, and as soon as the arrangement breaks down, you're totally screwed. I don't let my tenants do ANY fixes under ANY sort of arrangement.

It's a bit different in multifamily. @Hans .Suljic pays a licensed guy fair market value for his work. You can have a building handyman who is paid partly with rent.

Hans Suljic · Answer

@Michael Leeson I have an licensed HVAC guy that lives in one of my buildings that has been doing work for me for the past 2 years. Since he lives in the building he can get to the problem immediately and doesn't charge me extra for emergency calls which is nice. I pay him out right for his work but I've heard of people deducting payments out of the rent or giving cheaper rent to those type of tenants. I wouldn't advise this because I think it just complicates things. I also wouldn't I have him do work for me if he wasn't licensed.

On a side note my uncle has a great tenant who is a retired janitor that takes care of small repairs and general maintenance (leaking sinks and toilets, shoveling snow, cutting grass, etc) They've been doing this for the past 10 years and the tenant acts as the eyes and ears of the building. This has definitely helped him out over the years with tenants in the past trying to steal the appliances when they moved out or another occasion when some guys (With the key to the unit??) were supposedly renovating a vacant unit when in reality they were trying to steal copper pipes. Lucky these occasions were stopped since the tenant has a good relationship with my uncle and alerted him.

I think as long as there is a healthy level of trust and the tenant has the proper experience and background. It can definitely be a win win situation.

Michael Leeson · Answer

@Tracy Streich @Kyle J. I appreciate the feedback.  I like simplicity, so I'll take your advice!

Paying tenant to do maintenance?

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