Selecting a tenant but not 100

[Nadir M.]

Has anyone had any experience with picking tenants that were maintenance supervisors or handyman? I ask because I’m not sure if anything were to break whether they would want to fix it themselves or not and ask to take the amount off the rent or charge the landlord for repair. How do I go about this? I’m just curious   

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Nadir M.:

Has anyone had any experience with picking tenants that were maintenance supervisors or handyman? I ask because I’m not sure if anything were to break whether they would want to fix it themselves or not and ask to take the amount off the rent or charge the landlord for repair. How do I go about this? I’m just curious   

You can rent to them, but set some very clear boundaries. All maintenance must be approved by you. If they want to be paid, only accept it if there's a financial benefit to you. Ordinarily, you don't want to pay the tenant the same you would an independent contractor because you'll end up in a bind if they do sub-par work, don't finish the job, etc. My recommendation is to always hire professionals, not the tenant.

I also never allow work in exchange for reduced rent. You'll often end up with a crappy job or an incomplete job, and you've lost the rent money. If you are going to hire the Tenant, have a written agreement that clearly spells out what they'll do, materials they'll use, who pays for materials, whether labor will be paid for, what happens to the improvement when the tenant leaves, and a deadline for completing the work. They pay the full rent, you pay them for the job just like an ordinary contractor.