Using a tenant to do contracting work

[John Lindemann]

So, I've made a mistake that is very frustrating and I want to warn other investors.  I hired one of my tenants to do some work for me on a fence.  He currently does handyman work for one of the big RE companies in town and he regularly tells me how happy they are to have him.  I recently bought a house to flip and the fence was leaning over, it wasn't in bad shape...just leaning.  So, I had him out to quote the job of removing the existing fence, installing new posts and then putting the fence back up.  He quoted me $250 + supplies.  That is what I was planning to offer somebody on CL so I hired him.  Better deal for me...some of that money will be coming back to me in the form of rent, "keeping it in the family" so to speak.

Now, he put up the new fence and it is standing up straight but it is crooked as a dogs leg! Looking from above it would look like this: 

He also left all of his scrap wood, and trash at the house. He knew I had to have the trash removed because my mowers were coming.  So when I called him to discuss he said that he left the scrap wood because he thought I'd burn it in the fireplace...uh no, its treated wood!  He did come and pick up the trash...well, most of it anyway.  When I told him about it being unacceptably crooked he said that it wasn't possible to straighten it out because the ground was hard and he couldn't dig in some spots.  He said he would've needed a power auger.  If he'd just have called and told me that then we could've rented one.  No problem but now the whole fence is up and will have to be completely taken down to repair.

I believe him that the ground was hard but...the fence looks awful, you can see from the street how bad it looks.  I got zero ROI from the fence repair. As it stands, I would expect a potential buyer to ask for a fence allowance on the sale and it makes the whole house look shoddy.

I haven't paid him yet and I'm going to try to work something out with him but I feel like I can't be as assertive and demanding with him since he is a tenant.  I was very upset with him for making me have this awkward conversation with him.

Point of the story: don't hire your tenants.  If you do, write everything out to minute details so that both parties know what is expected.

This is in the Broken Arrow (Tulsa), OK market.

[John Lindemann]

@Michael Slockers - It was an awkward conversation to say the least.  I told him that the fence wasn't right and that for me to get any return on my investment that it would have to be fixed.  The way that it was just did not solve the problem and that I would expect a buyer to ask me for a fence allowance.  If I wanted to give an allowance then I would not have paid to have the fence fixed!

Fortunately for me, I have a good relationship with my tenant and he is a generally upstanding person.  At first he told me that he was not going to fix it and that I could just keep my money and hire somebody else.  I explained to him that I really wasn't trying to get out of paying him, I just needed the fence fixed.  After some conversation he agreed to fix it, and he has.