Repairs & Maintenance: Biggest Gripes and Issues

Hi everyone,

As property investors, we all inevitably come up across all sorts of building repairs or unexpected issues with renovations. I am interested in finding out more about what investors here have been up against or experienced with their own properties.

norwoodman

 

As a tenant, responding to
Repairs & Maintenance: Biggest Gripes and Issues
I would have to say, getting a LL/REA to acknowledge and/or enact upon a repair/maintenance is the biggest hurdle. You rarely hear back, not even an auto response. And if you do hear back, it takes forever. And after it takes forever to hear back, then you have to wait for the actual repair to happen, and that takes even longer. I notice some LL/REA often come up with the "well if you really wanted it done, you would have taken me to xCAT" and "since you didnt you obvioiusly didnt really need it...". That's in my experience. I know all LL/REA are not like this. But a lot of tenants are put in this position time and time again, and this is from a tenant that PAYS RENT on time every time. I once believed LL had an obligation to repair, in a reasonable time. Apparently not. I wish there was some rule where the LL/REA was obligated to respond to repair requests, just like the tenant has a duty to report them.

 

Some annoyances:

1. Where tenants don't report issues and they become bigger issues.
2. Tradies who don't follow instructions to talk to the owner about the works and go ahead, often creating rework problems for themselves.
3. Related to (2). Tradies who think that treating the tenant as the customer helps their position when they have not followed instructions. It doesn't.
4. PMs who pay for repairs without checking for the quality and completeness of the work.

However, for the most part, I find tradespeople very good but I do aggressively filter out the ones I don't want to work with.

 

My two issues are not on your list.

1. Current tenants are really hard to organise a time/day for repairs.
2. The REA property managers often have no idea about maintenance processes (I don’t mean the technical stuff).

For example: recently, I asked for the agency to organise a couple of quotes from air con installers for installation of an air con that I would supply (delivered new, from the supplier to take advantage of a very large builder’s group discount my builder mate has access to).

The REA insisted that no installer would install a unit they had not supplied themselves. The REA seemed to think it was a dodgy thing to be doing! How do they think air con gets installed in new builds or renos ...sigh.

 

Having a useless PM. Constant reminders to PM and finally arranging the repairs myself. Which leads to the fun part....telling the PM off over the phone.

 

when the agent just takes for granted every request from the tenant and just sends LL notification without checking the issue

 

In the carton with AC units is the warranty card which requires the licensed tradie to sign off. Bunnings can arrange supply and install and the AC units is collected by the tradie from store and delivered and installed. Its a bit like supplying the part to a mechanic. They may want to charge extra to cover the 30% (example) they make on the parts.

But I can also agree with the tradie. Mate of mine is in air and I mentioned the other day a $420 split system at Bunnings. He said "No way would I install one".. Its a warranty issue for me and they are all rubbish at that price. He only installs well known brands to avoid call backs. The major brands have subcontractors who attend warranty service calls v's the cheapies who dont offer any support. You need to remove it and return to Bunnings. And guess who they call?