tenant doing work

[Mark Cohen]

The hoa of one of my units has required everyone to paint their front door from green to red.  Not a job I want to drive there for, and while in general I hire contractors to do work, I am leaning towards letting the tenant paint and take it off the rent, as its a fairly simple job.

Would you make an exception?

[Bill S.]

@Mark Cohen for me absolutely not. What happens if the tenant does a lousy job and gets paint on the sidewalk and door jam? If you don't "pay" the tenant, how do you handle it when they pay you less rent? Do you evict? If so then what do you tell the judge? If not, you just paid for lousy job and ruined your relationship with the tenant. Nothing good ever comes from tenants doing work on the property. Only about 1 in 10 people actually have the patience to paint and probably only 1 in 20 tenants have the skills to paint well. Hire it done and be done with it. Get a number of neighbors together and everyone hire the same guy to do their doors.