Handling the end of the lease agreement is something that will often sneak up on property owners.
They don’t even think about it until it’s too late. When a tenant vacates a home, you want to have procedures in place that will protect you and your property. Once the tenant is out, go in and conduct a thorough third party inspection. Complete a video walk through and take your own pictures to document everything you can at that property. If you have to hold any money back out of that security deposit, you want to have more than enough proof to back it up.
End of Lease Procedures at RentWerx
At RentWerx, we provide over the top service when it comes to end of lease procedures.
Clear and complete documentation avoids problems
We know that you’ll need receipts, detailed pictures and documentation that shows everything that has happened with that property over the term of the tenancy. The reason for this is that tenants in this day and age will not hesitate to sue you for outrageous amounts of money. They have no qualms about getting attorneys involved, either. You might wonder why someone would hire an attorney for a $100 or $200 or $300 court case, but we’ve found that a tenant will sometimes have a corporate attorney write a letter or file a lawsuit because they happen to work for the same company, so they don’t charge anything.
If we don’t have good proof, like pictures and videos and inspections, we know we can run into problems. We never want to find ourselves facing a legal dispute over a carpet cleaning. Avoid these issues up front by documenting the condition of the property clearly. You want to be able to compare how the place was received by the tenant at the time of move in to the way the property was turned over to you at the time of move out.
Communication with the tenant
We send the tenant an itemized security deposit list, basically explaining why we are retaining any part of that security deposit. If funds are going to be kept, we need to tell them why. All of this needs to be completed within 30 days of the tenant moving out of the property.
If you need help with your end of lease procedures, or you want to avoid any legal hassles, please contact us at RentWerx, and we would be happy to talk to you.
