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This is a legal question, but any general information or help would be appreciated. I have owned a 3 fam brownstone for 1 1/2 yrs. I have been renovating the place floor by floor (with some tenants in building ) and now I am finishing up the duplex I will be living in. I have a full time job which requires me to travel – not all the time, but enough to be an issue regarding being available for a possible emergency, since I am single. I have a network of tradesmen and my contractor who could help out when something happens when I am away, assuming I know that something has happened, but what is the law regarding building maintenance when the landlord is away. So far, with luck, everything has been OK, no emergencies, but what if there were? What if the tenant wasn’t able to get me (on a recent trip I could only access messages and not be available real time). I realized that there is a big hole here – if something serious happened when I was away, this could be a major liability on my part, not to say to my property or to the health and well being of the tenants. What is the law about the tenants having access to a maintenance person in a landlord’s absence?

Are there any practical solutions to provide service to tenants during periods of landlord absence?

This is another question and I am sorry if I sound cranky — but I recently had an interchange with a tenant couple about being available to meet with service people. In response to a tenant’s issue with having ants, I asked that they call the exterminator I use, that I would pay for the extermination, of course, but would they arrange the scheduling and meet the guy? I was told that they did not want to hang around waiting for workers — they both work very long hours, out most of the time etc. They wanted me to arrange and be avaialble to supervise the workers. I was completely non-plussed at first, but then I wondered rather than get into a “Oh yeah, I’m busier than you discussion” I wondered what other busy landlords do with busy tenants about scheduling these kind of things. What are the laws regarding the scheduling and supervision of workers? What if I hired a part-time super? I am responsible to “super”vise him? Where are the boundaries here?

Any information would be appreciated.