Open fireplaces: Safe and Cosy or Old and Dangerous?
Open fire places are found in many pre-80′s rental properties in New Zealand. It’s important to check that your fireplace is safe. If it’s not used, you should make sure that it’s clear to the tenant that fires shouldn’t be lit in it and consider how best to heat your rental property safely and effectively.
How to find a missing tenant’s new address
Sometimes finding where a runaway tenant has gone to can be really hard. If they’re not willing to pay rent arrears and don’t want to be found, you’ll need to go through the tenancy tribunal – collections department process. However, you can’t start this without an address to serve the court documents to. Here’s some suggestions for avoiding the problem in the first place or dealing with it if you do get caught out.
A tale of two tenants – handling tenant complaints
Being a property manager is always a challenge dealing with properties and people. The nature of properties is that things will malfunction from time to time. Sure some problems can be minimised by keeping up your maintenance like cleaning your gutters and inspecting drain gullies regularly. However, things do still fail, like burst water pipes and so forth. Landlords need to educate tenants about leaks and other issues so repairs can be attended to before property damage occurs.
DBH improvements to services
The Department of Building & Housing have made some significant improvements to their services since the middle of 2011. They would like feedback from property investors all over New Zealand as to how they are coping with the changes and any suggestions would be welcome.
How to check if your iron roof needs replacing
It can be tempting to keep patching up old iron roofs. Replacing old lead-head nails, wire-brushing off any rust and rust-proofing patches. And if you’ve read Olly Newland’s books, even using a bit of canvas soaked in paint to plug holes!
However, at some point, the risk of a major leak of a roof in the neighbour’s garden will become too great to ignore any longer and you’ll have to suck it up and get quotes to completely replace the whole thing.
How to replace old aluminium louvres
I recently had to replace three sets of aluminium window louvres because the original 1960′s rivets in the hinge had finally broken.
Initially, I thought of replacing the rivet by drilling out the old one, but the amount of force on the hinge would probably be too much for a standard rivet.
It’s much easier to just buy replacement cooper louvres from one of the major hardware stores.
Young lovers still get an eviction
I was lining up an eviction last week. The tiny flat looked cold, lonely and uninhabited. I stood outside hopping from foot to foot trying to keep warm and trying to make up my mind. Do I wait till Friday and get the bailiff or have the tenants already run off? Banging loudly on the front and back doors produced no response. The shivering neighbours said they had not seen the young couple for a few days. I unlocked the back door for a quick peek only to discover the young lovers in bed. Oh dear, that is not the way the DBH guide book says to do it!
Stinking Thinking – Landlords still unpopular
There is no widespread appreciation of what landlords do. Sure the socialists, when they get into power, think that civil servants are the best people to be landlords. Have you ever heard of a tenant saying their civil servant landlord is far more considerate and caring than their old private landlord? With the ongoing news releases from the current Minister of Housing continually patting himself on the back I am yet to read any good positive news about private landlords housing someone that others would not help.
Will interest rates rise due to price inflation of basic necessities?
This would normally be a clear indicator of interest rate hikes to come in double-quick time but the first sentence of this article doesn’t make sense to me. Fuel, food and power are basic necessities. We’re not even in control of these price rises, so what would be the point of raising interest rates? It’s not like people are rushing out to buy tomatoes at $12/kg because they are rising in price! I’m not extending my mortgage to invest in bananas for my retirement!
Tenancy Agreements: pay attention to the details!
Getting the details right on a tenancy agreement can be the difference between winning a tenancy tribunal case or being taken to the cleaners. Several times over the years, I’ve had tenants claim that they weren’t on a fixed term tenancy when the agreement clearly showed they were. Without all the proper paperwork in place, you won’t have any evidence to support your story and tribunal cases quickly go against a landlord who isn’t prepared!
