Tenants With No Water/sewer
I recently purchased a duplex in a lower income area and one of the tenants is living there without running water or sewer. As you can Imagine the place stinks to high heaven. Anyway, the management company just found out about it a few weeks prior to closing and immediately sent a notice but to no avail (so far at least). The lease I inherited doesn't specifically state that there must be utilities on, but I am thinking this must be some sort of health violation. The one good thing is that the mgmt co reports that the tenant is actually a good payer. How should I go about fixing this problem? I will be sending another written notice out demanding a response within 10 days. What else would you suggest? I don't want to loose the tenant right away.
You got a real health code problem there my question is who pays for the water and sewer? I would think that the tenants next door must not like it to much you might wind up losing them also.You need to adress this right away before someone turns around and contacts the health dept.
Is the Water billed seperately and he's failed to pay the bill or is the plumbing broken?
If he hasn't paid the bill you might find out how much it is-- there will be a program to help low-income people with utilities.
you don;t want to lose the tenant??????
Just where exactly do you think they are taking care of their 'business' anyway ??? Why do you think it stinks to high heaven???
What I don;t understand if it is a duplex, does the other unit have water??? metered seperate?
In Minneapolis, your property would have been condemned and your rental license suspended for not having water available (I just had to pay a $400 water bill for one of my units)
If they are not taking care of the unit, they need to leave; if you really want to keep them, get the water back on and consider giving them a rent reduction in the form of $25 of water every month.
Then I'd FIRE the management company - if you are dealing with this, what exactly are they really doing to earn their pay?