Being prepared with an emergency response plan for natural disasters, declared emergencies, or any other unforeseen threat or disaster can protect the safety of individuals, mitigate property damage, and prevent loss of life. An emergency response plan is a critical risk reduction measure for landlords. Improving readiness to respond and recover from disaster starts with […]

In some states the installation, maintenance and testing of smoke alarms has become the landlord’s legal responsibility per habitability standards and duty of care. Some cities and states require the use of the newer technology lithium powered smoke alarms which have non-removable power cells that last for ten years. A sealed lithium powered alarm prohibits […]

In a home fire a resident may have less than two minutes to realize a fire danger and act accordingly to escape to safety. Being prepared with a fire emergency plan before a fire occurs can help save lives and protect property. There is a greater likelihood of a home fire occurring in multi-family rental […]

Specific requirements and responsibilities concerning carbon monoxide detectors vary among states. In many states, a landlord’s duty of care to take adequate measures to provide for the safety of a tenant includes the landlord’s responsibility to install, maintain, and inspect carbon monoxide alarms. If a landlord breaches his duty of care by failing to take […]

Tenant selection is a critical business decision that can have significant impact upon a landlord’s rental operations. To make an informed decision for tenant selection, a landlord relies upon tenant screenings as a risk assessment tool to identify and evaluate known or reasonably foreseen risks as presented by a rental applicant. Tenant screening is a […]

It is not uncommon for landlords and tenants to disagree over a variety of rental issues such as rents, security deposits, habitability, landlord access, repairs, tenant privacy, and lease violations. Many times disputes are a result of a tenant misunderstanding important rental policies. How a landlord handles a dispute can have a significant impact on […]

As an alternative to security deposits, in some rental markets, primarily metropolitan areas, some landlords use a rental policy of collecting a tenant move-in fee. A move-in fee is a non-refundable fee collected from the tenant for turnover costs associated with preparing a rental unit for a new tenant. Unit preparation costs may include general […]

A landlord has a legal duty under the implied warranty of habitability to provide fit and sanitary housing during the term of the lease. A landlord breaches this duty if he fails to provide essential services, fails to respond and resolve serious repair problems, fails to respond and correct environmental health hazards or substantially interferes […]

Be sure you understand your state statutes regarding handling and return of security deposits particularly the requirement regarding the deadline for itemization and return of the deposit. Once you have conducted the move-out inspection, and determined what will be required to return the unit to good condition, you should prepare a written security deposit itemization […]

Before starting any construction project, you need to define the project by its type and scope of work. Project definition and scope of work will be needed to provide adequate detail to selected candidate contractors to submit a bid based on your specifications. You should research your state and local requirements for building standards and […]