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Hi PTers,
I have a touchy situation and I'd like some thoughts from some of the more experienced investors here.
We have a house that's been trashed by the tenants... I mean REALLY run into the ground. Insurance is declining the claims on the basis that it was "progressive damage" and anything over the cost of the excess happened sufficiently instantaneously as to be an emergency event. They keep saying that our RM should have been onto this and seen the problems coming and prevented them.
Here's where it gets tricky. Our current PM is very good, very onto it. His boss is not responding to our concerns, however, that RM should have alerted us earlier that there were issues. Our property is in a provincial market... not too many RMs around to choose from, and the others are of unknown quality.
The problem started when the tenants were placed by a previous RM who has since left the company. He placed the tenants and we would get the occasional an email from him saying everything looks fine. This RM quit the company over a year later, and a new person took over. New RM is doing a great job and helping us repair/replace everything that was broken and/or missing, BUT he's also discovered the property was completely run-down when he took it over, and thus never said anything about it being bad; assuming that's just how it always was. On one hand, we have the insurance company denying us on the claim because RM should have (and could have) evicted the tenants and averted much of the problem. There were also many lease violations that were not enforced.
The other side of the coin is that the person who placed those tenants has since left the company. The RM company is a branch of a major Real Estate franchise in NZ.
This is a 5-figure repair bill we're looking at... nothing small. We feel that there has been a huge failure of the property management, but not the current person in the role - we feel it was the previous person who was letting it slide.
We live a solid 6-7 hour drive from the property, so managing it ourselves isn't an option, and we rely on this RM company, or others like them, but I worry about not getting the same level of quality and dedication from another manager.
Any thoughts on how to proceed or resolve this?
We would like the RM company to offer to pay for a lot of the preventable repairs that most likely wouldn't have happened the house was looked after better the whole time -- again it was the 1st RM *person* not the current one, who caused the problems, and she's since walked away.
I'm not keen to burn bridges with the managers with a big fight, because the new guy is really good and this should all fall on the shoulders of a former employee, not him. We figure the RM company should pay a significant amount of the damage bill due to their failure to report the excessive wear and tear on the house leading to damage being allowed to continue and expand the problems and costs.
We are not sure where the old RM is now, or how to contact him.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I have a touchy situation and I'd like some thoughts from some of the more experienced investors here.
We have a house that's been trashed by the tenants... I mean REALLY run into the ground. Insurance is declining the claims on the basis that it was "progressive damage" and anything over the cost of the excess happened sufficiently instantaneously as to be an emergency event. They keep saying that our RM should have been onto this and seen the problems coming and prevented them.
Here's where it gets tricky. Our current PM is very good, very onto it. His boss is not responding to our concerns, however, that RM should have alerted us earlier that there were issues. Our property is in a provincial market... not too many RMs around to choose from, and the others are of unknown quality.
The problem started when the tenants were placed by a previous RM who has since left the company. He placed the tenants and we would get the occasional an email from him saying everything looks fine. This RM quit the company over a year later, and a new person took over. New RM is doing a great job and helping us repair/replace everything that was broken and/or missing, BUT he's also discovered the property was completely run-down when he took it over, and thus never said anything about it being bad; assuming that's just how it always was. On one hand, we have the insurance company denying us on the claim because RM should have (and could have) evicted the tenants and averted much of the problem. There were also many lease violations that were not enforced.
The other side of the coin is that the person who placed those tenants has since left the company. The RM company is a branch of a major Real Estate franchise in NZ.
This is a 5-figure repair bill we're looking at... nothing small. We feel that there has been a huge failure of the property management, but not the current person in the role - we feel it was the previous person who was letting it slide.
We live a solid 6-7 hour drive from the property, so managing it ourselves isn't an option, and we rely on this RM company, or others like them, but I worry about not getting the same level of quality and dedication from another manager.
Any thoughts on how to proceed or resolve this?
We would like the RM company to offer to pay for a lot of the preventable repairs that most likely wouldn't have happened the house was looked after better the whole time -- again it was the 1st RM *person* not the current one, who caused the problems, and she's since walked away.
I'm not keen to burn bridges with the managers with a big fight, because the new guy is really good and this should all fall on the shoulders of a former employee, not him. We figure the RM company should pay a significant amount of the damage bill due to their failure to report the excessive wear and tear on the house leading to damage being allowed to continue and expand the problems and costs.
We are not sure where the old RM is now, or how to contact him.
Thank you for your thoughts.
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