Landlord Right to Access the Property Given Proper Notice Time

[Mohamed Ghoneim]

Hi All,

I am new to being a Landlord and went through the property management (PM) path. Lately, I fired the PM company and decided to manage myself (which is what I was doing anyways, since PM was useless and only causing me more work pushing them to do their work).

I am currently having a hard time understanding the law and rules on my rights as a landlord to access my property. The law says, in Oregon I need to give 24 hours notice to the tenant. At the same time, I cannot go in except with tenants permission. So I can give the 24 hours notice and still be denied access to my property, which does not make any sense, given it is my property after-all, especially for a reasonable cause. 

For instance, it took me 10 days to schedule my mid-term preventative maintenance inspection, after almost begging the tenant to agree on a time. They just kept saying they are busy this day working/the other day having a birthday party...etc. It just doesn't feel right, does it?

Now, I am considering a really good refinance deal for my investment property, and my main concern is access to the property for appraisal. Lender already mentioned appraisals are statistically the thing that causes most delays, and that they would work through it if it is not due to a fault on my side. That includes my ability to schedule the appraisal promptly. Now, I am stuck knowing that it would be almost impossible with current appraisal delays and difficulty to schedule to align with the tenant who needed 10 days notice and only confirmed last minute changing the time. I had to comply to move forward but this will not work with appraisers busy schedules for sure.

Can you please help me figure out these 2 challenges:

1- Is there a way I can enforce my right as a landlord to access the property for inspection or provide access to appraiser if I can prove I gave proper notice (24 hours in Oregon), regardless of tenants cooperation? if not, any possible ways to get this to work more efficiently?

2- If tenant lack of cooperation resulted in loan delays and extra fees, is this something I can sue them for to cover my monetary damages? given I can prove I gave proper notice multiple times and their lack of response / uncooperative responses?

Your help is highly appreciated!