Initial Management Agreement Made Easy

EXTENSION AND AMENDMENT OF MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT - ihdaorg form

how strong is your property management agreement how many years has it been since you've updated that agreement to ensure that it's in place and it's solid for the relationship you have with your tenancy your your property management agreement is one of the most important factors of the relationship you're gonna have with your owner because it defines that relationship so I want to take just a few minutes and talk to you about five clauses that we have in our agreement that I think you really should consider putting in yours if they're not already there in order to help you define your relationship to make your business run smoother and to keep your business profitable so you ready here we go first I want to talk about is maintenance right Maness is one of the biggest headaches and hassles of property management the way we define maintenance with our owners impacts everything within the scope of our business one thing I hear from property managers is a frustration with my owners want to be over involved in the maintenance process they want me to call him before I fix any leaky sink they want to know everything before it happens if you define it properly you set expectations and as part of the the management agreement focus you set the expectations on the front end here's a clause we have in our agreement as it relates to the way we're gonna handle maintenance between us the owner and the tenant and it simply reads like this the expense to be incurred for any one item of maintenance excluding work on hot water heaters HVAC systems or roof shall not exceed the sum of and then you put in whatever you feels fair there I think we have 500 bucks in ours unless such expense is specifically authorized by owner there's more but let's pause here for a minute so what we're saying to the owner is look we're not gonna do any one item of repair in excess of $500 or whatever you think is fair without checking with you first mr. owner that's the threshold that's the threshold we determine before we will contact you for your approval on maintenance important factor it does exclude things like water heaters why does it exclude water heaters because water heaters are gonna be expensive to replace it excludes things like HVAC it excludes things like the roof not not that we're gonna go in and replace a roof but if there's a roof repair that needs to be done we're gonna get that done because these are important emergency items that we're not going to reach out to the owner in advance for so the way I explained it to the owner is mr. owner I understand you want to be contacted for maintance in advance how old your hot water heater was about eight years old okay well I can promise you in the next ten years it's gonna go out it just will okay probably five years when that goes out what we're not gonna do is call you and say gosh your hot water heaters out what do you want to do we're not gonna do that well notify you that it went out we'll notify you that we replaced it but we're not gonna ask you for your permission or your input on what to do that's what you're paying us to do so that's an excluded item and it's gonna be more than $500 mr. Onur now this paragraph goes on to say this or is incurred under such circumstances as the agent that's us shall deem reasonably shall reasonably deemed to be necessary such repairs shall be made by agent at owner's expense without owner's prior approval now if you're a prospective owner you may say gosh mark that's giving you a pretty wide latitude there you're saying that you can approve these things if you me mark I deem them appropriate without checking with the owner to which I reply yes that's correct mr. Onur so you're hiring me for my judgment if you don't trust my judgment please don't hire me but if things need to be repaired in our estimation even if they're over that five hundred dollar threshold we're gonna get it done because we know that's important for the safety of your property the preservation of your property the safety of the tenant and the long-term sustainability and durability of the tenant as long as we explain these things on the front end owners are ok with it if they're not ok with it I want to address it now not after the maintenance item has happened that's clause number one clause number two that we were like also relates to maintenance and this is a profitability clause so it simply says this any vendor invoice may be billed to the owner at a rate of cost plus and you put in whatever you think is fair percentage or at current market rate as determined by broker so we do have a maintenance oversight fee for our maintenance I know what you're thinking gosh that that'd be great our owners will never go for that well maybe they would maybe they won't it's in the way you present that process now we don't have time in this short video to go detailed on this we certainly do in our ancillary business services and talk about how to present that how to explain that because it's in the presentation when you can explain to an owner why maintenance is so important that you take it very seriously in your company and you explain what's your maintenance process and how detailed and thorough and in-depth it is then it makes sense to charge for that maintenance oversight it's not an up bill it's not an add-on it's a maintenance oversight fee or a vendor oversight a charge for that because we're all we're in essence acting as a general contractor aren't you when you send somebody out or you have to get bids for work or turnovers you're kind of acting like a general contractor not in the legal definition but in the practical definition this helps offset the costs you incur and I incur by handling maintenance and it's a good profit Center and a necessary profit Center I would argue and a very rational one for your clients do our owners pushback on this no they don't we explain it on the front end we're not we don't hide this somewhere but it's it's real it's necessary for us as a property management company to provide you mr. owner a very high level of maintance services you're gonna find the highest level of maintenance service with our company part of the reason is we've got to pay for that stuff my people don't work for free clause number three rega regarding dispositions of security deposit returns the disposition of the security deposit of all tenants whether the deposit is held by the owner or the agent shall be at the sole discretion of agent I'm the one deciding the deposit return there's a few more words their agent may elect at agents option to forward tenants security deposit funds to the owner and the owner shall have the full legal obligation and responsibility for the tenant security deposit disbursement and any resulting legal actions mr. owner when the tenant moves out of the property we're gonna do a security deposit return now if we get into a dispute with the owner and this doesn't happen very often but if the owner says I want you to charge for those tack holes in the wall they were not there when the tenant moved in they say mr. owners tent was in the property for three years you know little tack holes aren't damaged that's wear and tear I don't care I want you to charge for that I don't want to charge that mr. owner they're gonna come back after me for that well I demand you charge for it okay here's we're gonna do mr. owner I'm gonna turn the security deposit over to you the full deposit you can do the security deposit disposition you can charge for whatever you want to charge for it that's been now between you and the tenant we've removed ourselves from that situation we have to legally disclose to the tenant that you are now holding the deposit who you are so if there's a disputes it's gonna be between you guys we're not gonna get in the middle of this again this doesn't happen very often but it gives us the ability to step out of that situation when the security deposit gets a little bit sticky that way number four owner understands this is related to service animals because what happens if your owner says great I'm ready to sign up let's go by the way I don't want any pets in my property you say great we'll do a no pet property advertising and then suddenly the tenant comes in and they don't have a pet but they have a service animal well how you can explain that to your owner we put this in our management agreement owner understands that state and federal law governs service animals and emotional support animals and those animals are not legally considered pets and therefore pet policies do not apply goes on to say agent shall have full authority to review approve negotiate or decline any and all service animal requests pretty straightforward pretty black and white mr. owner if the tenant comes in with a service animal requests we're not gonna come back to you and get your opinion on it because I'm guessing you don't have a thorough knowledge of the laws federal and state governing service animals we do and we're the ones at risk for this so we're disclosing on the front end that we're taking care of this it keeps owners from getting upset after the fact if you tell them you approve the service animal because it's not their concern it's your concern lastly number five I love this one you got to get this one in there okay at the expiration of the initial and any subsequent term of this agreement okay so when this agreement comes up for renewal all terms and conditions are subject to the change to change by agent with a 30-day notice to owner isn't it difficult to get your owners to agree to changes in your management agreement how do you do that you have to send out new agreements every couple years get them to sign off on those changes what if they don't like the changes now you're getting into a negotiation in discussion this clause allows us to unilaterally change the terms of the agreements with a simple 30-day notice at the expiration of any initial change think of it this way you probably subscribe to a cable service provider have you ever gotten something from your cable service provider in the mail and it says it's like five pages long and five point print and it says the following terms and conditions are adjusted in your contract you don't read that stuff but the first contract you sign had a clause in there similar to this said hey we can change the terms of our agreement if needed simply by notifying you that's what you're doing with this and this isn't a way to sneak stuff into the agreement this is a way to stay current with the agreement so if your state if your regulatory agency requires changes and updates you can just insert those in notify your owners of those changes and you're ready to go now again on all these things check with your attorney make sure it's acceptable for your state but putting these things in place especially as we finish up this is being recorded here the the fourth quarter of 2017 as we head into the new year this is important in place to make sure your management agreement is solid protecting you protecting your owner and making your business run smooth