Communication Channel with Owner

As a tenant, I have lived in 3 different properties over the last 3 years. In my experience, I never had a direct communication channel with the owner, it was always through a property manager.

In the initial years, I never felt the need to have a chat with the owner as everything was handled smoothly by my PM.

However, during covid, with rental assistance and other requests, I felt the need for a direct chat with my owner.

As the situations got worse when covid first hit, quick responses and decisions made all the difference.

I faced a bad experience as I had to rely on my PM to communicate my requests effectively and get things approved. I do not blame my PM as I don't expect them to work on weekends and persuade owners with my requests. But in that situation, I felt dealing with the owner directly could have resulted in a better experience.


I recently came across this forum and I am curious to know -

1) If anyone of you faced such an experience and felt the need to have a communication channel with the owner?

2) Why can't we have a three-way communication channel between owners, tenants and PMs in critical situations?

3) Do owners/investors choose to not communicate with their tenants?

Would greatly appreciate the forum members thoughts here on how to deal with such situations in the future.

 

Owners hire property managers to act on their behalf and handle issues in an objective way by someone who understands the law.

The property manager is likely to know more about the covid rules, rental assistance etc more than the owner. So your desire to communicate with the landlord directly is to get them to agree to more than is required by law through a personal connection. This is exactly why some owners prefer to act through a pm.

 

It's not about you ["Tenants"], sorry. This isn't a charity or public service, it's business.

The Lessor forks out $ and risk and usually sacrifices to their lifestyle in the short term (5-10-15-20 years) to later benefit in the long term (their retirement), to have the investment property, then employs the Agent (professional service) to manage it for them. If they wanted to deal with Tenants they would manage it themselves.

'Appointments to Act' instruction levels vary from micro-managed to almost completely hands off, most are towards the latter end in my experience, where the appointment authority basically lets the Agent make all decisions as if they were the Lessor, in that regard, there is no obligation to relay or communicate anything to the Lessor from the Tenant.

A lot of Tenants seem to think/"demand" the Agent play intermediary, in practice, doesn't work like that. A lot of Tenants also seem to think the Agent works for them or is there to have the Tenants best interests at heart, they don't. The Agent works for the Lessor and is governed by the relevant legislation with regards to how they manage the property and deal with Tenants, and their clients - the Lessors.

Hope this clarifies @Keet, Nb. this is my 2c only, others may have different views and opinions.

 

In NSW the legislation has changed so that an owner contact number or email needs to be on the lease, however I don't think most owners would welcome the intrusion. Personally as an investor of multiple properties I would want my PM to deal with the issue, however only because I know I have great PMs who can handle it.

 

Yup. I started receiving communications from my tenants last year. They were forwarded to my PM for them to respond to.

 

Thank you for your response and agree with what you said. I also agree that I might be biased in that situation to think direct communication would help. My situation was time-sensitive and I needed a decision to move forward, and it made me wonder what if I had an option to speak to the owner. Just curious to know others perspectives. Cheers.

 

@Michael Mitchell, appreciate your response. It was good to learn about 'Appointments to Act' and it totally makes sense.

However, as a rent-paying tenant, I do look up to the owner or the agent (acting on behalf of the owner) to look after my best interests too and give me a good rental experience. Hope I am not wrong in expecting this. In my case, I was only requesting my PM for assistance and not demanding.

In my overall rental experience, I felt my PM's always took care of my interests. In just that one situation, I felt a three-way communication channel might have helped. I may be wrong and I don't blame my PM for that. I am just curious to know if the three-way comm system would make the overall experience better.

 

The 'three-way comm system' might have made your experience better, but might not have made the owner's experience better. You are looking from your point of view as a rent paying tenant, and thinking the owner should treat you well because they need you. They do need renters, but not necessarily you.

The law and rental agreement should be your expectation. Anything above that depends on the owner, the agent, and the market. A good market for owners is usually a bad market for renters, and vice versa.

 

Hi @Keet,

Personally would say it is misguided, and through no fault of yours as there's simply little education to Tenants that the Agent does not work for them and the Agent is accountable to the Lessor who is their client (not the Tenant).

100% and wasn't meaning yourself just in general, apologies if it came across like that.

In most cases an experienced property manager is worth their weight in gold, they know how to effectively handle and manage the Tenant whilst balancing their responsibility and interests to and of the Lessor.

I don't know the specifics of your scenario so can't comment on the whether the three-way option would have been a beneficial experience or not.

 

Three way communciation rarely ends well, most Landlords don't have the experience and mindset to add value to the situation (assuming effective Property Management). I've had so many cases where the owners end up going "Oh my god I'm never giving them my number again". Without the boundaries, Landlords tend to overpromise and tenants tend to overdemand.

However, there are plenty of Landlords who do get involved and add value- I've probably got somewhere under 10% of my clients who know the tenants and have their details, in these cases all three parties communicate effectively, have clear boundaries and it works really well!

 

If you are referring to the weekend when the media told everyone about the government's moratorium on rental agreements and rent freezes, we were all wanting to know how we would be individually affected. PMs across the country were bombarded with enquiries from both landlords and tenants and their unanswerable questions. It took the various state governments at least a month to clarify the matter and we were all hyper stressed about how we would be affected.

 

This was very insightful. I'm sure it's very difficult to find the right balance but with proper boundaries and supervision of PMs such as you, it could be possible. I'm sure it all come's down to tenants being more responsible and respectful to have a smoother system.

 

@wylie It was great to hear your perspective as an owner. Good to know that you are open to having a friendly connection with your tenants. In my opinion, this would give me extra motivation as a tenant to take good care of the property because of the personal connection.

 

Just remember that depending on the rental market, the balance of power shifts. To a tenant it might seem more like a one to one relationship. From the owners point of view, it isnt.

if you were looking for a place to rent in the cbd right now in mel or syd, would imagine you can ask for rent free periods.

 

Cannot debate with that....haha

 

Talking about Syd & Mel CBD's, I have seen reports on "build to rent" housing units with on-site managers and facilities. Do you think with this trend, the balance of power shifts towards tenants?

 

do you think a large company would be more personally sympathetic to tenants than individual owners? If anything the tenant is even more of a number. Might be more professional in terms of repairs etc though.

think about joining the other side instead.

 

As an owner for many yrs i have never spoken directly with tenants.
The last thing I want is the PM calling me with tenant requests. Every time that happens it ends up costing me money.
Occasionally they asked for permission to paint a room or fence etc and on an older property it was never a problem.

Of course, just like I as an owner am interested in looking after my best interests.
If yours coincide with mine we have a deal. Otherwise nope.

Most owners would give the PM a response like "Why are you calling me with this? There's a rental agreement".

In my opinion, unless you look after my property you would be looking for another place to stay.

This may sound harsh but compared to the real conversations between LLs and PMs I think it's very mild.

 

As I tenant I consider the property manager to work for the owner and myself, afterall its the management agency I am paying.

The NSW legislation now requiring owner contact details to be provided certainly helps in the all too familiar case of non-responsive property managers.

As a side note, im surprised at the reluctance of some owners to want to know whats going on with thier million dollar asset. Afterall, how do you know whether the PM you've appointed is acting in your best interests if you are only exposed to one side of a story?