Impatient Tenant
I have a tenant whos refrigerator died thursday night. He left me a message thursday evening, say 7pm, and i didnt receive the message until 11pm. Friday morning, he leaves me a message saying that he can’t wait to hear from me regarding the matter, and that he is going to go to HomeDepot later…
I have a tenant whos refrigerator died thursday night. He left me a message thursday evening, say 7pm, and i didnt receive the message until 11pm. Friday morning, he leaves me a message saying that he can’t wait to hear from me regarding the matter, and that he is going to go to HomeDepot later that afternoon and pick up a fridge himself, and that he will deduct the cost from this months rent. I get the message sometime around 2pm and try to call him before he tries to make the purchase. He winds up buying a refrigerator that costs $600! Which is a considerable figure considering I had one picked out for less than $400, and what he was replacing was a basic, bare minimum unit. Tonight, I get his rent check minus $700, which includes the cost of the fridge, tax, and delivery.
In a situation like this, am i responsible for the entire cost of his appliance considering the difference of what I would have purchased? Is it unreasonable to only reimburse him $400 and try to collect? Any advice is much appreciated
read the OP again, 11:33, it was the TENANT who called Friday morning. the Landlord received both messages but for some reason didn’t bother to get back to him until it was too late. by my count it’s Tenant:2, Landlord:0
we have no idea what kind of lease they have, but real life often comes up with situations far more complex than what can be stated in your average lease. this is one of them.
OK wait…
everyone here is jumping down this person’s throat because he/she didn’t respond “fast enough”.
how is getting the message at 11pm Thursday and trying to address the problem Friday morning not fast enough????
puh-leeeeze!
That sounds pretty damn fast to me. Less than 12 hours of time elapsed, according to the poster’s account.
this landlord, while cheap, is within his/her rights and being cheap is a landlord’s prerogative. we don’t know the full picture here – the renter could be getting sub-market rent or they could be month-to-month for all we know.
i agree with the poster above who said to jack up their rent when their lease is up (assuming they have a lease).
this isn’t a class issue. why the hell do renters in NYC assume they have rights above and beyond their agreement with the landlord but the law as well (which is already weighted heavily in their favor)???
also, if they’re paying their rent on the 4th of the month, depending on the wording of the (assumed) lease, you may be able to charge a late fee, which could help with recouping your lost rent. if they don’t pay it, pursue legal means and do what you can to get them evicted, or when they move out, take any unpaid balance out of their security deposit.
Your tenant was frustrated after not hearing from you and acted hastily. All you needed to do was call and acknowledge the problem. The tenant/landlord law of – leave one another alone as long as everything is working and tenant is paid up – was violated.
Now the trust is gone and problems begin. Bummer. You could have avoided this. The tenant’s behavior is not the problem here, that will always be the variable in the equation. The problem is that being a landlord is a job with no vacation days and you took a day off.
I’ve been a both a tenant and a landlord, and I tried to use my tenant experiences to make me a good landlord. Nothing is more frustrating to a tenant than a non-responsive landlord, which you clearly were in the case of this refrigerator…and maybe with other things as well? Your original post doesn’t say.
I once had tenant call me at 1 a.m. to complain/inform that the water heater had reached the end of its lifespan, and, from another state and with the tenant’s help, I managed to hire an emergency plumber who installed a new water heater before dawn the next day. It was expensive, but worth it. Not only was the tenant happy that I resolved the problem so quickly, but he then trusted me to handle any problems in a timely fashion and probably stayed a tenant longer than he would have otherwise.
agree 100% with above poster,
its like some class warfare in here
as if tenants really don’t have real world problems and should just tend the plantation while masta makes deals and helps make the world turn
“All you people who think that the landlord responded late in returning the tenant’s call in less than 24 hours must be tenants – – or you obviously have little experience as a landlord. In the real world, a refrigerator repair could take at least one day for a repair man to come out – longer if he needs parts. You do not even consider the availability of the tenant to be home and scheduling the appointment. If a refurnished or brand new refrigerator was needed, it still could take days to be delivered.
Too many tenants mistakenly watch too many TV remodeling shows and think they are owners. They have no right to replace a refrigerator – even if there is inconvenience. A refrigerator is a fixture. If repair was not cost effective, a refurnished one is perfectly fine. It need only be in working condition. ”
huh?? its not so much about getting the refrigerator replaced within 24hrs…rather its a simple phone call acknowledging the messages were received and the issue is being addressed…its called setting expectations
Usually, tenants don’t behave like this jerk. Since he’s already bought the refrigerator, I wouldn’t fight with him, but when it comes lease renewal time, jack the mo-fo’s rent like there’s no tomorrow.
“If a refurnished or brand new refrigerator was needed, it still could take days to be delivered.”
Huh? In New York? I don’t think so. Even if you’re getting the POS $400 fridge, or the fancy $700 one, there are enough distributors here that you should NEVER have to wait more than 24 hours for a new fridge to be delivered.
Unless you’re insisting on getting it from Home Depot. Which is a crappy idea.
I am a landlord with two tenants and can only say what I would do. It seems to me that you did take a little too long in calling the tenant back. It seems you had time to pick out a new refrigerator but didn’t bother to return his call to let him know you were working on it. However, the tenant had absolutely no right to go out and buy their own fridge and then deduct the cost from their rent.
If I was in this situation, I think I would calmly explain to the tenant that it was inappropriate for them to buy the fridge and you had a cheaper model picked out. You can give them the option of either returning the fridge or giving you the difference in the price for what you would have spent. I would choose this route b/c it seems the path of least confrontation, hassle for you and them and the most reasonable. I would not renew their lease. If for some reason this doesn’t work out I would definitely deduct the amount they withheld from the rent from their security when they leave, and i wouldn’t let them know I was doing that until they were out of the apartment.
In the future i would make sure to respond to calls a little more promptly – even just to let the tenant know you got the message and are working on the problem.