The balancing act around making and charging for repairs...

[Jeremy Rusnak]

Hi all,

Dug around trying to find something specific to my topic without much success...

While at one of my properties today for an unrelated issue, I happened to notice a hole in the drywall in the hallway.   Not big, but noticeable.  The tenant has not mentioned it to me at all.  I do have a clause in my lease that damage should be reported and that I will inspect units every six months.

When you notice something like this how many of you feel like you want to take care of it right away?   What's your threshold for letting something wait?   And if it's clearly negligent, how do you handle charging the tenant for something that might normally come out of the security deposit at move out?

I've been being the "good landlord" who just fixes wear and tear unless it was obviously intentional.  However, I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm repairing everything for free.   And fixing three holes at once is cheaper than fixing one hole on three separate visits, but I feel like if a place starts to look beat up the tenant and/or guests aren't going to treat things with as much respect.  (Not that I am getting a lot of holes, just illustrating a concept!)

How did you folks learned to strike the right balance?