Landlords: What would you do?

[Trevor Dominique]

What's up Landlords out there. 

Making this post to get some feedback on what you guys would do to address a situation I am in regarding a single family home rental property I have. 

We purchased the property back in October of 2020 and had it listed for rent by November. The property has a good sized backyard with a private wood fence, however, the wood fence is very old and rotted, and it also appears to have been poorly installed. 

When we listed the property for rent and found our tenant of choice, we told the tenants that we would repair the fence prior to them moving in (they have a large dog and wanted to ensure it would be safe for the dog to run around). We sent in our maintenance guy to fix the worst of the fence spots, which at the time seemed to have solve the issue.

However, the fence has continued to deteriorate in the past 9 months and at this point our only option is to do a full replacement, as the rotting is just about everywhere. Our tenant is angry and is telling us that per our original agreement, that the fence problems would be taken care of. 

I have started collecting quotes and a full replacement of the fence will cost us about $5-7k. Part of me wants to do this to keep the tenant happy, but my gut tells me that the tenant will only live at the property for another year or so before purchasing her own home. I am having a hard time justifying spending $6k to keep the tenant happy for a year, especially when we could just rip the fence out without it really impacting the rent we get on the property.

What would you all do here? Pay the $6k to replace the fence, or do nothing and just deal with the pissed off tenant?

[Greg M.]

You rented the property with a working fence. You are legally obligated to provide a working fence. 

In many places, the tenant could withhold rent until it is fixed. If the tenant leaves before they normally would, what is the extra turnover cost to you? What is your liability for not fixing the fence? 

$6K for a fence sucks. However, it probably works out to less than $1/day for the life of the fence. Suck it up and fix it. Welcome to being a landlord.