Property Management common practice procedures in Cleveland Ohio

[Mark Dreher]

My wife and I own several SFR rentals in California that are being managed by a third party property management company. In California, our tenants pay all of their own utilities that are placed in their own names at the time of their placement.

This past year we have became out of state investors as well and have purchased six SFR's in Cleveland Ohio suburbs of Maple Heights, Garfield Heights and Euclid and are currently in escrow with three more set to close this month. All of these homes were purchased with the assistance an outstanding, professional Agent that we would highly recommend to anyone. If needed, send me a PM.

Our primary concerns and questions that we have, as an out of state investor is with the property management company that we are using. With this company, all utilities must remain in the property owners name even while tenants are living there and the owners remain responsible for all payments. In addition to their monthly rent, tenants are responsible for also paying all of their utility bills each month through the property management company to reimburse the property owners. 

With regard to utilities, the property company uses a procedure in that if the tenants do not pay their utilities, they call, text, email and post collection notices for any tenant with an accumulation utility balance over $300 to try to push them to pay. Emails are also sent with any balance for utilities balance over $100; but they do not strictly enforce anything until the utility balance is over $500 to prevent any unnecessary evictions or eviction filings. (that is confusing, but is verbatem from an email that i received from the property management company). 

So far this year, we already had one fully completed eviction from one of the Cleveland rentals for not only not paying any rent for a couple of months but also never paying any of their utility bills, that we as owners had to pay in addition to leasing fees, eviction fees and property clean up fees amounting to a loss of several thousands of dollars.  Recently we reviewed our rental portal and we have another rental home being managed at the same company, following in the same path of not paying rent on time and they have also not payed any of their utilities for their first couple of months. 

We are asking if this is a common Property Management practice for collecting payment due for utilities with tenants in the Cleveland area?