All Forum Posts by: Jeff T.

Well, let me clarify a bit. The tenant and the maintenance worker both thought the tub was in bad shape.  

I did know about it ahead of time and okayed the resurfacing.

The real question what to do when they got someone in there and started working on it and it turned out it's a cleaning issue.  The PM would normally charge it back to the tenant, since they caused the issue by not cleaning the tub, but was asking me if I wanted to charge it back or not because I had the tenant for a long time and the PM had recently taken over the property.

Now that I know the PM standard practice is to charge it back, and the tenant asked for the service and it turned out to be something the tenant should be responsible for, I agreed with the PM and asked them to charge it back.

Tenants asked to resurface tub but it turned out to be soap scum. Should I charge them back for the $175 cost?

The long term tenants asked to have the tub resurfaced after I increased the rent (up from way below market to 15% below). They have been good tenants and haven't asked for anything until I switched PMs and they raised the rent.

I got this note from my PM after the tenant requested the tub to be resurfaced. I'm paraphrasing parts of it.

"After our recent visit to the property the bath tub  looked to be worn and needed to be re finished.

The vendor used to do this scheduled with the tenants to have this completed, however we received a call from their office whilst their tech was onsite and they mentioned that the tub did not need to be refinished. What was initially thought to be worn surface paint was in fact a build up of soap scum. The tech was able to get the tub clean and looking good.

We have received the final invoice from the vendor and the total amount came $175.00. What I wanted to find out from you if you are okay to leave the bill as is or if you would prefer for us to charge it back to the tenants? "

I'm inclined to charge the tenants as it was just cleaning that was needed and they asked for it, but I wanted to hear from some experienced people out there.

@Account Closed You can contact a company like Paul Davis Restoration, they will understand how to deal with fire damage.  They work with insurance companies, typically.  They might not be the cheapest though.  

Even though fire may not have damaged some parts of the house, the smoke gets everywhere and they have to pretty much cover everything in primer to cover the smoke damage and smell.  You also have to make sure wiring and things like that are still ok

@Laura Kayes has an excellent list of questions in her other post. It's worth looking for.

Yes, 12:30. Thx

Thanks @Nathan Gesner

Those are good questions.

Has anyone used a good property manager in the Orlando / Polk county area?

@Gregory L Hobbs There are some good points made by folks here. I think in general, people would prefer to live in a house. 

People will live in a condo when they get priced out of houses, or there is something special about the location of the condo.

So in general I think condos are better purchases in populated areas, like @Ray Johnson mentioned. 

You have to be careful of the type of condo and the location. You probably don't want a studio condo in a rural area, but it might do very well at the beach or an urban job center or college area.  

My experience in renting them in an urban area near the beach is you can get good tenants and the maintenance costs are low. The HOA costs are there, but they are at least predictable, except for sometime they have special assessments.

Just make sure the HOA is renter friendly.

Does anyone have recommendations for a property manager in Central Florida?  More specifically west Orlando/east Polk County?

I am planning to switch to a new PM soon and would like to get some references.

Thanks

@James Anderson 

For lunch on Wednesday Dec 12, how about Panera Bread at 10990 Jefferson, Culver City?

@James Anderson sounds good, I will have to think of a place that's easy to get to and get a table.