All Forum Posts by: Michael Nahm

The rental rate listed on the lease. If rent is $800 but you charged them $750 and exchanged the other $50 for a repair, you've still essentially received $800 for rent.

As an aside, you should never reduce rent in exchange for labor, for a couple reasons:

1. If the tenant fails to complete the work or does it improperly, you've lost the rent income AND still have to pay for the repair.

2. Tenants tend to do repairs poorly or incompletely and you'll end up fixing it in the future, anway.

3. You open yourself to liability if someone is injured because the repair was done wrong, or you could fail to qualify for an insurance claim if the insurance company learns you "hired" the tenant instead of a licensed contractor.

If you decide to hire the tenant, my recommendation is that you separate the work from the rent. Tenant pays their rent like normal. You pay the tenant an agreed rate after the work is done to your satisfaction, just like you would any contractor. 

I also recommend you have it in writing. Be specific about what work they are allowed to do, what materials they will use, when it will be complete, who pays for materials, how much you'll pay for a labor, and be sure to set a cap on what you will pay so they don't go over budget.

@Michael Nahm The problem point in all this is the PM company, and they are obviously working to cover their own butt's at anyone's expense. 

I would cut them out of it all together. Call that garage company and demand to speak with the GM. Then say you'd like to double check their exact statement as to what they found wrong with the door and what they repaired, just to get some good info before your attourney contacts for a sworn statement because PM has some answering to do for endangering residents and it's starting to "feel" like they may throw the garage door company under the bus on this one and something feels off about that. Odd's are they will launch into "that's BS!!! We told them, that damn chain drive was shot, we told them that weeks before and then it jumped just like we said it would, hell no that's not on us!". 

Then with what you find go back to PM and ask who the broker is on file because you'd like to make sure the complaint to Ellisons office and Dept of Commerce dosn't get the wrong person on it. When they ask what the issue is you reply the endangering residents is bad enough but then trying to extort an injured tenant harmed in their managed property due to their negligence, wow that's bad BUT then to work to cover it up..... well I'd just hope Ellison is pro-PM and anti tenant, oh yeah, not so much huh. OR you could just cut the crap here and now and step up and make this right with BOTH me and my tenant. "Are you trying to extort us???" No, of course not, just giving 1 last opportunity to do the right thing and avoid the hard way, your call. 

I'm sorry but everything with how there doing this is wrong. There is no scenario where this should be tenants fault. The only way it would be her fault is if she rammed the door, which would be obvious as it would fold the door in and off track. This strongly sounds like a chain drive where the gear or chain (most likely gear) "jumped". Door came down and jambed. Not to mention they are supposed to have deadfall safety catch which obviously did not work or is not present. Those doors will kill a person if they fall on them, hence why regulated for safety features preventing such. 

I would go at them hard just for how they are being about it. 

@Michael Nahm The problem point in all this is the PM company, and they are obviously working to cover their own butt's at anyone's expense. 

I would cut them out of it all together. Call that garage company and demand to speak with the GM. Then say you'd like to double check their exact statement as to what they found wrong with the door and what they repaired, just to get some good info before your attourney contacts for a sworn statement because PM has some answering to do for endangering residents and it's starting to "feel" like they may throw the garage door company under the bus on this one and something feels off about that. Odd's are they will launch into "that's BS!!! We told them, that damn chain drive was shot, we told them that weeks before and then it jumped just like we said it would, hell no that's not on us!". 

Then with what you find go back to PM and ask who the broker is on file because you'd like to make sure the complaint to Ellisons office and Dept of Commerce dosn't get the wrong person on it. When they ask what the issue is you reply the endangering residents is bad enough but then trying to extort an injured tenant harmed in their managed property due to their negligence, wow that's bad BUT then to work to cover it up..... well I'd just hope Ellison is pro-PM and anti tenant, oh yeah, not so much huh. OR you could just cut the crap here and now and step up and make this right with BOTH me and my tenant. "Are you trying to extort us???" No, of course not, just giving 1 last opportunity to do the right thing and avoid the hard way, your call. 

I'm sorry but everything with how there doing this is wrong. There is no scenario where this should be tenants fault. The only way it would be her fault is if she rammed the door, which would be obvious as it would fold the door in and off track. This strongly sounds like a chain drive where the gear or chain (most likely gear) "jumped". Door came down and jambed. Not to mention they are supposed to have deadfall safety catch which obviously did not work or is not present. Those doors will kill a person if they fall on them, hence why regulated for safety features preventing such. 

I would go at them hard just for how they are being about it.