Do you know what constitutes a maintenance emergency and what can wait? Learn about emergency maintenance and get some helpful landlord tips in this Rentec Direct video.
Every landlord should know how to handle emergency maintenance problems, but not every maintenance issue is an emergency. Prioritizing significant maintenance issues is important for ensuring that your tenants can live in a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable environment.
Some problems, such as water leaks and broken refrigerators, should be addressed immediately. However, there are many others, such as minor cosmetic problems, which can wait until a convenient time to address and repair them. In this video from Rentec Direct’s Brentnie and Kaycee, we will discuss maintenance tips for landlords, implied warranty of habitability, and how to determine if a maintenance task is a pressing issue or if it can wait.
Emergency or Can It Wait? Landlord Maintenance Tips – Video Transcript
Brentnie:
Hi everyone, this is Brentnie and Kaycee from Rentec Direct, and today we are addressing some more landlord questions.
Kaycee:
Hey, let’s hear it. What do we have today?
Brentnie:
So today someone asks, how do you prioritize maintenance requests? How do you know if something needs to be addressed quickly because of legal reasons or long-term damage versus something that’s just a nice-to-have for your tenants? Finally, if something was part of the property when you listed it but it broke, does it need to be repaired or replaced, even if it doesn’t impact the habitability? Think something like a hot tub or an in-house washer and dryer or another amenity.
Kaycee:
Okay, so to break this down, I’m hearing a couple of things like what’s a legally required maintenance request that needs to be addressed right away, what’s just a regular maintenance request, and what’s maybe one that you don’t need to even worry about.
Understanding Implied Warranty of Habitability
So let’s break down that implied warranty of habitability because I think that’s one of those standards that every landlord and property manager needs to uphold. There are certain laws that are gonna be for each state and then definitely for each county or city that are certain habitability requirements that you need to provide in every house.
So I know some of them are like providing adequate heat, access to water, locking doors. Some states might have air conditioning requirements or other emergency services. Can you think of some other ones that are under an implied warranty of habitability?
Brentnie:
For implied warranty of habitability, you are legally required to make sure that the unit is working and is safe for your tenants. But also on top of that, it’s pretty easy to spot what is an emergency issue. And habitability really falls under that umbrella. If something is genuinely not habitable, it’s also probably damaging your ROI long term. So something like a leaking roof or your water’s not working, or there’s an electrical issue, that’s also damaging your property. And so it’s something that you need to be taking care of both for your tenants’ safety and also for the sake of your property.
Kaycee:
Yeah, you were kind of mentioning that something that is causing a safety concern could also be causing more damage. And then there are things like, there’s water gushing out of the sink, and it’s filling the apartment with water, and suddenly you can’t even live there. So obviously, in an emergency, you want to fix that right away, figure out how to get water shut off, and then find a safe place for your tenants to live while there is no access to water. But then the other side of it is maybe it’s just a leaking pipe or something that doesn’t feel like an emergency, but we all know how bad water damage is. It’s weighing emergencies versus livability, but then also potential damage that could happen to the property. And that’s kind of how I mentally prioritize. This needs to be fixed immediately. This needs to be fixed within 24 hours. This needs a temporary fix for right now, but then in the next week we need to do that long-term fix to actually get things done. So you can kind of create this priority mental checklist in your mind. And then there might be things where, do we really even need to fix it? I’m thinking like a screen broke on a window or something.
If it’s not a window that you feel like causes a safety concern because it’s on a first story, it’s small enough that there’s not a risk of someone breaking in or something, then maybe that screen doesn’t get repaired. Or like a crack in a window pane; if the tenant’s not complaining about it, maybe you don’t need to repair it right away.
I mean, I always think it’s good to take care of that stuff and maintain the quality of a property so your tenants want to maintain it also, but that’s kind of how I would mentally prioritize some of those maintenance tasks. What do you think about that?
Tips for Prioritizing Maintenance at Rental Properties
Brentnie:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that you and I are definitely on the same wavelength. We do have an article on the Rentec Direct blog that kind of breaks everything down into different layers, and we can link that below if you want to do a deep dive. But basically we’re kind of doing that same mental comparison. So we have things that are emergent and things that are affecting that implied warranty of habitability. We have things that are high priority, and those are things that will impact operations in the near future. Those are the things that you’re saying something needs to be taken care of in the next few weeks.
These are things that, if they’re not addressed, are going to cause damage over time. Something like leaking pipes that maybe even tenants won’t realize need to be as high a priority as they are, because we all know water damage can cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage over time. So it can cause damage over time, and it can diminish the tenants’ enjoyment, but it doesn’t need to be acted on immediately.
And then yeah, you do have those things that are low priority. And low priority to me doesn’t mean no priority. It doesn’t mean that we’re never going to address it, but it isn’t something that needs to be done right away. So those are the cosmetic repairs like you mentioned. I think a classic one is light bulbs in the oven. Something that tenants aren’t necessarily going to replace on their own, but it’s not affecting their ability to operate within the household. And then those seasonal maintenance tasks too, I think could fall under this where it’s something that you can pre-schedule, but it’s not necessarily something that needs to happen right away.
Kaycee:
Yeah. And with that, I was thinking of some other examples of this. This would be something I’d want a tenant to report as a maintenance issue, but I wouldn’t necessarily fix it right away. Like a drawer in a kitchen that got off track so it’s not closing appropriately. That’s not a big deal. I would probably say, okay, can you try not to use that drawer until we get over to fix it? But it would fall lower on my list because it doesn’t need to be fixed right away, but over time that’s gonna cause more damage than just me getting a handyman in to reset the track. So let’s get this fixed in a week, and give my tenants some sort of update on the status of it so they don’t keep using that drawer.
Brentnie:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that especially with those low priority tasks, that’s where software can really be valuable because those are the things that, especially if you have multiple properties, you’re balancing this reaction time for each property based on whether it’s an emergency, it’s high priority, it’s low priority, it’s just a regular maintenance task. Being able to schedule those things and have your renters submit requests whenever there’s a maintenance issue so that you’re not forgetting them, I think, is very key. So that you are for sure getting to those lower-priority tasks in a timely enough manner that your tenants feel like, yes, they are responsive, they do care. That means that your tenants are more likely to reach out when something is high priority and maybe could cause long-term damage.
Kaycee:
I think there’s another part of this question that’s asking about fixing or repairing something like a hot tub or an in-house washer and dryer where it’s like, do you even need to fix that? But I would say, is a tenant gonna take as good of care of that property as if everything was in great working condition when they first moved in? I always like to think of that. Let’s set the tone at the start of a lease so we can maintain it. And then of course we have those really clear checklists of the condition of a property when a tenant moved in versus when they move out, so then doing the security deposit reimbursement is very straightforward with your inspections.
Brentnie:
And if you have a good tenant, you want to be tackling those repairs that aren’t necessary to habitability just because it does ensure that they are enjoying the property more. And hopefully that means that you’re getting that lease renewal, you’re getting that long-term tenant that’s taking great care of the property.
Learn more: What to do When Struggling With Maintenance Workers
Final Thoughts
Kaycee:
My final advice for dealing with maintenance requests: really understand your local laws and which laws impact you for implied warranty of habitability so you can create your prioritization system of deal with right away, figure out how to manage a solution if your tenant can’t live at the property during that maintenance timeline. And then also create your priority checklist of this type of maintenance request falls here and this is our timeline of when we’re gonna fix it, and kind of work your way down the line of when they’re gonna get managed, what the timeline is, and how you can inform your tenant of that. And then even with that, you can start building out your repair vendor list and who you’re gonna work with for each type of major repair that you might need to do.