Personalizing a living area is part of enjoying a home, and even though renters don’t own their home, they want to personalize their space too. However, a rental property is unlike an owner-occupied home. Owners and renters of single-family rental properties in Safety Harbor both know that any modifications done to the home’s interior require permission from the landlord. When tenants of your rental homes move past furniture and décor and start making unauthorized changes, you could be put in a hard place as the owner.
The best tenants are those who ask for permission before making changes to the interior of your rental property. After a tenant has signed the lease, they might realize that they want to alter some aspects of the home. Perhaps they want to replace the paint color in a couple or all of the rooms, install new bathroom fixtures, change the blinds or other window coverings, put in a new light fixture or ceiling fan, or even paint the kitchen cabinets.
Part of you may consider allowing them to remodel your home for you at their own expense, but there are a few things to think about before agreeing to this. Perhaps the most significant of these is quality. You have no guarantee that the quality of the tenant’s work is going to meet any professional standard if they are doing the modifying themselves. If they do a poor job, it could reduce the value of your property and cost you even more money to fix it in the future.
Another important matter to think about is that trends in interior design swiftly come and go. Painted cabinets might be in right now, but in a year or two, tenants might opt for more natural wood tones. While it is within your rights to charge a departing tenant for any essential repairs, maintaining a neutral rental home is still the most cost-effective choice.
Tenants who ignore lease terms and make unauthorized alterations are liable for restoring the home to its original state when they leave. Of course, a handful of tenants will try to avoid the expense involved in reverting the home to how it was when they initially came, potentially resulting in expensive collections or even legal action.
When tenants start making unauthorized renovations to your Safety Harbor property, it can be difficult to know what to do next. That is why you must have the right property management company to keep an eye on things, pick quality tenants who will take care of your property for you, and act to safeguard your real estate investment when it is necessary.
At Real Property Management TradeWinds, we provide all these services and more to owners of single-family rental homes. Our professional property managers can create a maintenance program tailor-made for you while taking care of the hassles and headaches of handling lease violations. Do you want to learn more? Please contact us online or call us at 727-400-4722 for more information.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
