Property Manager Q&A

Question:

One of our Tenants had a number of problems in her apartment. Stove broke, refrigerator broke, air conditioner problems, fire in the unit next door. We have done everything in our power to accommodate her and make her happy to no avail. She now has an attorney who is making all kinds of threats. My regional manager had sent her a long-detailed letter to the Tenant about what happened and what we did to help her. My attorney is telling me that we should never have sent this letter. We don't understand why. We were always taught to put everything in writing and create a "paper trail". Isn't this just good customer service?

Answer:

You are partially correct. Creating a paper trail is crucial to success in property management and especially in dealing with legal disputes, but there is a problem. When you or someone else makes a detailed response to a Tenant you may inadvertently be giving them information that may or may not be completely accurate. In a sense you are creating an evidence trail that you now have no control over. Sometimes things should not be admitted or dealt with in writing to the Tenant as sometimes how things are said or written can be used against you. Now, we are not telling you to lie to someone but writing long responses creates unfiltered and potentially inaccurate information. Sometimes a regional manager wants to get involved in defending the company against a blatantly unfair allegation, but the problem is that the regional got his or her information from you and things get lost in the translation. The job of an attorney is to craft a response to someone when appropriate and in a legally sufficient manner.

Often our recommendation is to not respond at all or to make a simple response like "We have forwarded your letter to our attorney" This show two things. One, that you have not ignored their letter and two, that you have an attorney. Once your Tenant knows that you have an attorney, often their stance or posture changes. This gives you some breathing room to cool off, remove any emotion out of the situation and get the matter resolved.

The beauty of using attorneys who belong to the local apartment association is that most of them deal with these situations for little or no charge. Few attorneys want to get involved in a long drawn out he said/she said dispute but actually want to help you early on. We all know early intervention is the key and that it is much easier to stop a problem in its tracks early than to fix one that has developed into a huge mess.

Question:

We have begun to address the Three-Day Notices to just one Tenant sometimes both followed by "and all others" . This started when our computer program was putting everyone including non lease signing occupants and even the pet's name on the Three-Day Notice causing formatting problems. It would even put the children's names on the notice. We went to file an eviction the other day and were told that our case could be at risk because we did not put all our Tenant's names on the notice. Doesn't "and all others" suffice?

Answer:

The Three-Day Notice is the most common and important notice to serve. It must be done 100% correctly as it is the very first thing that is looked upon by an attorney or a judge to see if there is a defect. Your eviction attorney has watched the judge scrutinize the Three Day Notice many times in court. The slightest defect can render the notice jurisdictionally defective resulting in your case being dismissed, delayed or you having to pay a significant amount of attorney's fees to the Tenant who ends up getting the eviction thrown out of court. You must place all Tenants on the Three-Day Notice that appear on the lease. Using the words "and all others" or "all others in possession" will not substitute for putting all the Tenant on the notice. There are no exceptions.

In some cases, not all the Tenants have actually signed the lease although they are listed as Tenants. Do you put that non signing Tenant on the Three-Day Notice ? It probably does not hurt BUT when you go to file the eviction, your attorney can only file the eviction against the person who actually signed the lease. When you send any amounts to collections, take care not to send the non-signing Tenant accidentally to collections. Not having all Tenants sign a lease is serious avoidable mistake and your leasing agents need to be trained to never allow anyone possession unless everyone has signed.

Question:

We just took over management of a property and through the management change, all the Tenant's deposit money was transferred to the Florida bank that our company uses. We do not pay interest on deposits but the leases that are in effect on this property state that the deposits are held in an interest-bearing account and the Tenant will receive a percentage of the interest. We do not want the hassle of paying interest, especially as it is such a small amount. How do we change this now?

Answer:

For new or renewal leases you enter into, you really don't have a problem. The new leases will state where the money is being held and you can state that they are in a non-interest bearing account if that is the case. The headache is with the current Tenants who by law and the lease are entitled to interest if their lease stated as such.

One approach you could take would be to notify the Tenant on the current leases that you have moved the deposits to a non-interest bearing account, figure out how much interest they would have received and pay them the whole amount of interest right now having them acknowledge receipt. The amount of interest is so minimal that this would not be a large expense. When it comes time to renew the leases, be sure you do not use a one-page renewal form which will renew the same terms and conditions of the prior lease agreement. We always recommend when you renew a lease that you use your current lease with all the current and accurate terms. One of those terms will most likely deal with the bank where the money is being held and the fact that the money is in a non-interest-bearing account.

It is very easy for a Manager to forget about these things feeling that this is the responsibility of your corporate office but there is a good chance you know more about Florida law than the accounting department of the out of state corporate office. Bring this to their attention as a disgruntled Tenant could later file a complaint against your company for failure to follow the law and your superiors may want to know why YOU didn't tell them.