Assuming Property Management of My Rentals

[Tait Sougstad]

When we moved out of our last home, we turned it into a rental, but knowing we wouldn't have the time to find renters and manage the property, we enlisted a property manager recommended to us.

Six months in, we are very disappointed. Not only did the manager not market the property very aggressively, but we have had to nag on every thing, from feedback on maintenance items to getting our rent deposits! An expensive mistake, our fault, time to move forward.

We want to take the property back. Our lease with the manager (we realized later) had very weak consequences for their delinquency (20 days to resolve any written issue!) but thankfully they said that we just had to give 30 days notice, so we did. My question is: What should go on my master checklist for taking over the property?

Do I take it over with a lease amendment that replaces the property manager's name with our name on the existing lease? Do we can the existing lease and start anew? (I got the BP document suite.)

We don't have a PO box for rent collection. Should we set one up for 1 rental? Only collect through Cozy.co or another digital means?

Anything else you would do to ensure you are above board on everything?