All Forum Posts by: Luther Johnson

Thank you all for those thoughtful responses. Learned a few things and happy I asked the question.

I'm going to 'eat' that cost and try to get a few brownie points by calling the tenant and let them know I covered it this time due to them being good tenants, but plant the seed/set expectation future maintenance/repair for supplied appliances are to be handled by the them per the lease agreement.

Hopefully can finesse that message so as not to lose more goodwill than earn brownie points!

Thanks again, much appreciated. -Luther

I had a tenant call about a refrigerator repair. I called a repair technician who did the repair for a couple hundred dollars and I paid it in February. I decided to check the lease agreement for this property a couple days ago (now it's May 1) and it has a line item saying, appliances (including refrigerators) that may be supplied with the residence "are supplied for the tenant's convenience and will not be repaired or maintained at the owner's expense."

Obviously, I should've checked the lease when the call was made, but also think it may still be a reasonable timeframe to bill the tenant even though I paid for the repair in Feb. Or, should I eat this one and let the tenant know all future repairs will be his/her responsibility? Thanks, Luther