Avoiding Tenant Confrontation

PlanetRent's research has revealed that small landlords' biggest problem is being chased by tenants who have unrealistic expectations around repairs.

Any long-standing landlord will knows that if they ignore a repair, the cost of fixing it is invariably going to escalate. It is, therefore, rarely the avoidance of repairs that causes problems but the aggravation of arranging everything. This is as well as the need to dampen down the tenants’ expectations. A landlord lets and a tenant rents a property in good faith, on the understanding that each party will behave responsibly: the tenant will protect the property and in return, the landlord keeps things in working order. Having said that, things do break down, wear out, stop working or need replacing.

A good landlord will have a service level agreement in place. They will ensure that this is given to the tenants before they move in, to help manage expectations should anything go awry. Tenants cannot expect a 24-hour in-house maintenance engineer in post, and contractors will not want to turn up on a weekend. Tenants must be realistic and appreciate that this will be the case. They too have a part to play in getting things fixed.

How can PlanetRent help?

PlanetRent provides a standard service level agreement by quoting target response times for the 45 most common rental repair issues. This is as part of its tailor-made tenancy journey and is shared with tenants via email when they move in. It is also on their tenant portal and when they log a repair. This has a 'target date' set by the landlord. This all helps to manage the tenant’s expectations as well as demonstrating that the landlord is acting reasonably while protecting the landlord’s position.