Rental Property Investor · Member since 2018 · 10 posts · 2 votes
I'd like to know the best way to deal with heating in a single family home. As a landlord, I get a substantial discount on fuel oil that amounts to $500 per home per year. In multi-families I just include heat with the rent, but how should I go about this in a SFH? I see three options:
Option 1: Have the tenants pay for it in their own name for full price with a local oil company.
Option 2: I put the oil in my name and bill them back.
The pros of this is that they will save about $40 a month, which means I may be able to charge more in rent or they may stay longer.
The cons is that is they may not pay me back. I would have a clause in the lease that says that they only get to use this method if the pay me back for the oil within 30 days or they will have to purchase their own oil at full price. I would also charge a larger deposit to protect me from loss.
Option 3: Include heat with the rent.
I'm not a fan of this because they have no incentive to conserve fuel.
Single families, let them pay EVERYTHING, keeps things easier, and its one of the perks of having single families. They are also in charge of snow removal/and any lawn maintenance(unless you want to include that in the rent)
Single families, let them pay EVERYTHING, keeps things easier, and its one of the perks of having single families. They are also in charge of snow removal/and any lawn maintenance(unless you want to include that in the rent)
I have a similar question. On move in day should I have the oil tank full and require they fill it at move out or should I leave it as empty as possible?
@Justin Giroux As others mentioned, have them pay for heat. I prefer to have a full tank at move in and full at move out, and charge a slightly higher security deposit in case it's not full at move out.
Leaving the tank as empty as possible is never good, as you can get sludge build up at the bottom that can be sucked into the heating system.