Even the best of landlords will occasionally have tenants file complaints. Use these conflict resolution and problem-solving tips to handle tenant complaints professionally and effectively.
As a landlord, you can prepare for a lot of eventualities, like repairs, maintenance, and various tenant benefits. However, no matter how well-prepared you are, you may still encounter challenges and tenant concerns. Whether these are noise complaints, maintenance issues, or any other problems that a tenant may have, responding to them in the right way is essential.
Responding to tenant concerns in a timely, professional, and effective manner is crucial to tenant retention and overall satisfaction. Follow these tips to formulate the ideal landlord-tenant dispute response strategy.
Respond to Messages Promptly:
Tenant complaints rarely come without significant stress on both sides. Give your tenants prompt, calm responses with solutions and a plan of action. They will appreciate this dedication to them and their accommodations, which will improve your landlord-tenant relationship.
When something goes wrong in your rental property, respond quickly to their needs. Ask questions and formulate a plan of action with your tenant or tenants. Pursue solutions, organize any needed repairs, then ask them what they need in the meantime.
Tone and Empathy are Key:
When you respond to tenant complaints, maintaining a positive tone is essential. Keep a professional but polite tone, and assure your tenants that you will do everything in your power to resolve their issue. If a tenant is angry, do your best to mediate the situation and remain calm, even if they react aggressively.
Be understanding about your tenant’s feelings towards their circumstances. You may be frustrated, but they are probably feeling the same way. Nobody wants a dispute, so consider not only how you feel, but how they feel regarding the situation.
Hire Quality Maintenance People:
Maintenance workers can be difficult to find, but a quality maintenance person is one of the most valuable investments you can make as a landlord. Take your time to find trustworthy, hard-working maintenance workers who can be relied on for repairs and maintenance.
While not every tenant complaint will be related to maintenance or broken appliances, many of them are. Being able to respond to these concerns with immediate knowledge of who to call and when they can fix the issue will make your tenants feel cared for and heard.
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Set Realistic Expectations:
Honesty is the best policy; no matter the circumstances, keep your tenants up to date on the progress of their complaint and resolution. Repair delay, privacy concern, or security deposit question? Respond transparently. Explain what is happening on your end, offer solutions and compromises if necessary, and be polite but honest in all communications.
Complaints about maintenance requests and rent increases are common issues among renters. Keeping them up to date and setting expectations for these circumstances are the best ways to ensure that your tenants feel heard. Putting both these timeframes and the expected rent increases in your lease may be a good place to start, but ensuring that they’re aware of changes is generally a good idea.
Even if you cannot fix a problem, be honest. For example, if a tenant is complaining about noise, but the source of the noise isn’t within your control, tell your tenant that, while you understand their situation is frustrating, you cannot do anything about it.
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Encourage Neighbors to Communicate With Each Other:
In situations where noise or other tenant-related issues are common complaints, it can be difficult to mediate and solve the problem. Even noise restrictions cannot always alleviate the issues, as reasonable tenant noise can still frustrate neighbors. Babies or small children, footsteps, and tenant activity times can all be concerns for neighbors, despite being fairly reasonable noise levels.
To help resolve this issue, encourage your tenants to communicate with each other. Polite, respectful communication can go a long way to easing the tensions between neighbors. Additionally, if tenants can resolve their interpersonal problems amongst themselves, that puts less pressure on you to mediate potentially angry tenants.
Final Thoughts:
Tenant complaint resolution is an important aspect of being a landlord. It helps maintain positive relationships, improves tenant turnover, and benefits your reputation as a landlord. When you resolve tenant disputes professionally, you can make your tenants feel heard, cared for, and that you value not only their home but their experience living in it.
