Any rental property manager knows that dealing with tenant complaints is just part of the job. So what are some of the most common tenant complaints and how should they be addressed? Nick Scarabosio of Jackson Group Property Management in San Francisco is no stranger to dealing with tenant complaints. Here Scarabosio talks about some of the most common issues reported by tenants and how his company deals with them.
As rental property managers, a big part of our role is listening and responding to tenant complaints. At Jackson Group, we believe strongly that a timely response to any type of tenant complaint is extremely important, not only for our tenants, but for our owners as well. For that reason, we’ve put several systems in place to help us capture, document and respond to complaints efficiently and effectively. Ensuring that issues are addressed quickly keeps tenants happy and helps keep small issues from ballooning into major disputes. And ensuring that issues are dealt with efficiently helps keep costs down for our owners. Here are two types of tenant complaints and how we address them.
Maintenance and Repairs
There are several types of maintenance issues we expect to deal with on an ongoing basis, regardless of property’s age or condition. These include burnt-out light bulbs, jammed garbage disposals, dripping faucets and minor problems with ovens or stoves. At Jackson Group, in order to ensure that we’re able to respond quickly to this type of complaint, we work with each of our property owners to set a spending limit. This allows us to address small problems quickly even if the owner is unavailable.
Although minor maintenance issues are usually simple to fix, they still involve a visit from a contractor. As property managers, we do everything possible to minimize the contractor’s time while still ensuring that the issue is resolve to the tenant’s satisfaction. When a tenant reports a problem, even a small one, we make every effort to identify the issue in detail so as to provide the contractor with a finite scope of work and keep costs under control. One way we accomplish this is by requesting everything in writing. We use online forms to capture tenant complaints and concerns. These forms require tenants to be very specific about their issues (such as “my kitchen faucet is dripping” as opposed to “I have a plumbing problem”) and allows us to capture as much detail as possible before sending out a repairman. These online forms also provide us with a record of each and every complaint and the time and date it was submitted. In the event that an issue eventually becomes part of a dispute, this type of documentation is critical for the owner to have.
Disputes between Tenants
Unfortunately, disputes between tenants are also fairly common. We handle disputes between tenants much differently than we handle issues related to maintenance and the property itself. We find that the best way to deal with issues between tenants is to establish clear guidelines in our rental agreements and do our best to enforce them. For example, in order to minimize noise from upper-floor apartments, we require that at least 80% of hardwood floors are covered by area rugs or carpets. If a lower-floor resident complains about noise from above, our role is simply to ensure that the upstairs neighbor is abiding by the terms of his rental agreement.
For disputes that fall outside the terms of a rental agreement, we generally refer tenants to the San Francisco Tenants Union. The Tenants Union offers a tenant-to-tenant mediation service at no cost. This is usually the best option for tenants who cannot come to agreement on an issue that is outside our purview as property managers to resolve.
