How to deal with slacking property manager

[Christopher Davis]

Hi, I have an out of state rental property that has been managed without issue for one year. The manager is a salty dog who I did not know, but who was recommended. 

Lease renewal comes up on Sept 15. During the renewal process this month, the property manager has slacked in communication and has not provided me with the signed renewal lease for the tenant.

She has ignored a message or two, and finally responded a week+ later that she was on vacation. (All it would have taken was a quick response originally to let me know instead of letting me hang indefinitely.) She replied that she would send the lease "this week." Well "this week" was actually last week. No further word from her. 

I'm pretty pissed about this for obvious reasons, but I'm not sure if I am over reacting? My problem is I don't know how to proceed. I want to be firm to her but not create a tense confrontation. Should I just relax and wait longer? My instincts are the opposite - I am irritated by this gradually deteriorating lapse in communication and effort. I have no problem if she is on vacation, but that does not explain ignoring messages and not doing what she says she's going to do. I have had issues with deadbeat builders and clueless realtors in the past, and when I start to get a bad vibe I am usually correct, and my patience is very thin. 

To me this is two strikes on her. If things go further south I will be interested in firing her and then my next post will be how to do that.

So to recap, how should I gauge my response and what should I say next that I need the renewal lease and maybe indicate I don't like the direction of things?

Thanks for any guidance.

  

[JD Martin]

Quote from @Christopher Davis:

Hi, I have an out of state rental property that has been managed without issue for one year. The manager is a salty dog who I did not know, but who was recommended. 

Lease renewal comes up on Sept 15. During the renewal process this month, the property manager has slacked in communication and has not provided me with the signed renewal lease for the tenant.

She has ignored a message or two, and finally responded a week+ later that she was on vacation. (All it would have taken was a quick response originally to let me know instead of letting me hang indefinitely.) She replied that she would send the lease "this week." Well "this week" was actually last week. No further word from her. 

I'm pretty pissed about this for obvious reasons, but I'm not sure if I am over reacting? My problem is I don't know how to proceed. I want to be firm to her but not create a tense confrontation. Should I just relax and wait longer? My instincts are the opposite - I am irritated by this gradually deteriorating lapse in communication and effort. I have no problem if she is on vacation, but that does not explain ignoring messages and not doing what she says she's going to do. I have had issues with deadbeat builders and clueless realtors in the past, and when I start to get a bad vibe I am usually correct, and my patience is very thin. 

To me this is two strikes on her. If things go further south I will be interested in firing her and then my next post will be how to do that.

So to recap, how should I gauge my response and what should I say next that I need the renewal lease and maybe indicate I don't like the direction of things?

Thanks for any guidance.

  

 Question: why renew the lease at all? If you have language in your lease that just converts it to a month to month, why not just do that? That of course doesn't answer the question about the PM but there's no real advantage for you in locking yourself into another fixed lease if you can just let the current one ride, especially if you've baked in a method for rent increase.

As for the PM, as much as I don't like non-communication either I get the same feeling as @Nathan Gesner - you come across as pushy or needy and your personalities just don't jive. Are you from up north? Your bio says Nashville but are you originally from there, and where is the property? I ask because I grew up 10 miles from NYC and I have lived and invested 30 years in the South and there is a definite cultural divide between the two. I look at inaction as laziness and ineptitude, southerners look at it as "there's no rush and we'll get there eventually". Since I live here, and invest here, I have had to temper my own instincts to fit the area instead of the other way around. People here are not hustlers. It's been a blessing, because my own kick-*** hustle has allowed me to thrive in a crowd of slackers, but I also depend on that same mentality to get rehabs done, clean houses, show properties, and the like. It's just the way it is, and there's no point in me getting mad about it because the culture doesn't match my own.