Tenant Let Contractors onto Property Unannounced

[Jason Maguire]

Hi All,

Have a little bit of a weird situation that i was hoping to get some insight on- One of my tenants at my duplex reached out to me about an hour ago, stating that National Grid was at our property exchanging gas meters with new ones- Once National Grid was done, they re-started everything & now my hot water tank didn't turn back on. (I never scheduled anything with National Grid or ever spoke with them)

My question is, how do you put into your leases that your tenants need to reach out to you to confirm work/ confirm contractors are allowed to even come onto your property pending landlord's permission ? Would it be as easy as adding something into the lease to state "Please reach out to landlord & confirm visit is OK, if unable to get a hold of landlord, please tell XX to reach out to landlord's # to schedule a visit?"

I have told my tenants in the past to not let anyone onto the property without first receiving my permission, but it's not included in my lease so i know I'm **** out of luck on this one & should have added it before :(

Any advice moving forward would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you all!

[Matt Devincenzo]

The tenant isn't your problem here, the utility provider is if you expect notice. The tenant did what any reasonable person would and provided access when requested, so if you have an issue with that then reach out to the provider and address it with them. 

That said they don't need to provide any notice most likely as they have a easement right to access and service their equipment any time they need to. Often they do provide advance notice, but they often do not. My personal residence had the meter's swapped a few month's back and the provider also just showed up on a Sat morning got to work. In my case since the meter was close to the driveway he'd have done it with no notice or request for access. They did a hot swap so none of the pilot's even go out and they can simply do the work and leave a door hanger when they're done.