Tips for Prioritizing Tenants' Maintenance Request

Tips for Prioritizing Tenants’ Maintenance Request

Excalibur Homes
Excalibur Homes

Tips for Prioritizing Tenants' Maintenance Request

As a landlord, you are responsible for providing safe and adequate housing to your tenant. Although the definition of adequate housing may vary among states, maintenance issues that make a home dangerous and unlivable must take priority. But in less obvious cases, how can you decide what tasks should come first? These tips for prioritizing tenants’ maintenance requests will make answering that question much easier.

Make Gauging Priority Easier

To make things easier for everyone involved, you’ll want to be able to gauge the priority of a task as efficiently as possible. To do this, require that your tenants fill out a maintenance request form first. The written request form should contain a place to describe the issue, when it started, how it impacts their quality of life, and any other relevant information you wish to know. To make things even easier, you can have a place online to fill out this form so tenants can submit videos and pictures of the issue. Maintenance request forms make gauging the overall priority of the request a lot easier on you.

Come Up With a Priority System

So, you have the request. How can you gauge how important the maintenance request is? First and foremost, you’ll want to develop a solid priority system. This system will indicate what is and isn’t considered an emergency and how long each task will take based on its priority level. For example, immediately deal with emergency maintenance issues, such as flooding or power outages. Medium to high-priority tasks, such as HVAC system filter replacement or plumbing issues, should take up to a week. Low-priority tasks, usually cosmetic issues, can wait a little longer and typically take two to three weeks.

It may also be advantageous for you to include this system in your lease agreement so tenants have a better idea of when you will address problems that arise.

Identify Requests and Handle Accordingly

Now that you have a priority system, you can handle requests accordingly. You may want to put the written or digital request forms into separate files based on priority level or put them on a checklist from most to least pressing. This way, you can organize each task and get them done efficiently. Plus, with the request form, you’ll know whom to contact to complete the job.

With these tips for prioritizing tenants’ maintenance requests, everyone involved can rest easier knowing that maintenance issues will get handled as efficiently and quickly as possible. However, if you’re still struggling to maintain all your tenant’s issues and requests, Excalibur Homes is here for you. We’re a property management company in Marietta, Georgia, with knowledgeable and experienced employees dedicated to making your life as a landlord easier.

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