How to Tenant: The Plain-English Guide to Royal Rose Properties’ Lease, Part II

2018-06-25

How to Tenant: The Plain-English Guide to Royal Rose Properties’ Lease, Part II

Don’t get stuck with the entire legal responsibility. Make sure all your roommates are named on the lease.


So we missed a month on this because it took a while for us to put this together, but if you’re a follower of our blog, you may recall that a couple of months ago, we put together a guide describing exactly what responsibilities you, as a tenant, were agreeing to when you signed Royal Rose Properties’ lease. Now it’s time for us to explain what you get out of the deal.

Our Responsibilities
As your landlords, we agree that we will do certain things for each of our tenants, as described in our lease.
• Receive and process your payments in a timely fashion.We do not allow you to dictate what your money is applied to, however. All of your costs get paid in this order:
– outstanding dishonored check fees,
– outstanding late fees,
– outstanding legal fees &court costs,
– outstanding utility bills (if they’re your responsibility in the first place),
– repair costs of damages you cause,
– collection agency fees, and lastly,
– rent.
• Collecting, holding, and returning the unused portion of your Security Deposit. We have 30 days by Michigan law to sort out how much of your deposit to return to you, and it usually takes most of that time. We have todo a MoveOut Inspection to identify damages, get the necessary bids, then review internally and finally get the property owner approval.
• Providing one key for each different lock. Typically, this will include one key for the front and back/side doors, possibly a key to the garage door and man-door, and possibly a key to the mailbox. Garage door remotes fall into this category as well.
• Providing lockout services. We charge for it, but we do offer lockout services if you accidentally find yourself outside and your keys inside.
• Making any major/capital repairs needed. If your hot water tank gives out, or your roof starts leaking, or other significant or structural repairs become necessary, we will take care of those items.
• Fixing reasonable issues you point out in the first 14 days of your occupancy. By Michigan law, you have 14 days to tell us about everything wrong with the home. If it’s something that will affect your use of the home, it should be repaired. After those 14 days are up we can charge you the first $150 of any and all repairs. Pest issues are covered for the first 30 days of your lease, then you have to address them.
• Possibly performing lawn/snow maintenance. Normally, you’ll be responsible for mowing, landscaping, snow shoveling/blowing, and so on, but in some leases (usually when it’s a multi-unit building), we handle those things.
• Inspect the property once a year and subsequently make necessary repairs.

And there you have it — the complete list of responsibilities that we as your landlord are obligated to uphold by the lease that we ask all of our tenants to sign. Above and beyond just providing a safe and warm place to live, of course!

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