How Quickly do you respond to Maintenance Requests..

Yeah thanks, attendance fee is fine (if I requested it) and I didn’t. But the 5% + GST of the invoice paid to a contractor I can not swallow. It came out of my months rental income so it wasn’t like they even paid it themselves...

 

The invoice fee is reasonably common for project management type things.. It seems absolutely absurd to charge that on every invoice - but I am also in Melbourne and I know things like that are more common in other states.

 

Depends on the request, if its an actual maintenance issue, my PM rings me, gives me the low down- from past experience we have an agreement that she is not to approve anything without my consent that is not urgent (if she couldn't reach me). She knows now that I like to use my own trades as we run a business where we have our own trades on hand anyway, so I call my trade, and get them to call the PM to arrange access with the tenant. One of my tenants has my number, the rest don't as I don't want them having access to me for every little thing. I get my trades to arrange access with my other properties so that the formal process regarding access if followed as I don't have a relationship with the other sets of tenants. Plumbing and electrical issues I action straight away, as I know my trades pricing and have confidence that I wont be ripped off since they work for us anyway, but anything else I always get a quote or two if using a new trade. I tend to hold on to good trades and re-use them. Every year I get the same drain unblocking plumber out to blast the drains at one property, same gutter cleaning/roof tile repair guy for all the properties, and same rubbish removal/yard cleaning/mowing guy as needed. I try to source expensive materials such as air cons etc myself though. When its an "upgrade" rather than maintenance, I tend to refuse, however if they are good tenants and pay the rent and don't give me hassles I generally will come to the party. I installed air cons for a family at one property because I didn't want to lose tenants by having them move to a property that had air con.

 

Same. I don't want issues hanging around.

 

Promptly.
I.e., something urgent, immediately. HWS for example.

Not that it’s ever an issue to repair or maintain anything that is needed, will sometimes check whether a repair is actually needed.

E.g., on one of those record breaking hot days in Jan, tenant called PM to complain air con “wasn’t working as well as it should”.
In this scenario PM gets authorized to send a repairman after they advise the tenant if nothing found wrong the bill will be for the tenants account.

I am a bit cautious about authorizing simply anything and everything, been burnt a few times. Most memorable was on my first IP where I got an electricians itemised bill for a call out and changing a light globe.

 

We got an email mid-January from our PM saying the fence blew down in the December storms and the tenant is making noises because it hasn't been fixed! Well if we had known about it it probably would have been done before Christmas, but it's now 6 weeks later.

The PM has avoided answering when they knew about it, the tenant email they forwarded has the tenant email address removed, fair enough, but the date was removed as well.

 

This is a great attitude. One of the complaints we often hear is that the PM "works" for the tenant not the landlord, at least from an impression point of view. It doesn't always have to be mutually exclusive. Timely responses to maintenance requests is one of those scenarios where PMs can demonstrate good service to the landlord which in turn provides a good experience for the tenant.

-Luke

 

I'm tardy about non-urgent matters, but generally approve them after a few days. For my own place I have annoying things that have gone on for months, even years. But hey, I know tenants are different.

Urgent things I will approve right away, but in most situations the landlord has no choice.

Some things have been fixed about 3-4 times.. now that gives me the *****.