My property management placed a lockbox on my rental property to have her “maintenace” vendor go in to touch up paint & repair an area. She calls to tell me that my appliances have been stolen & the “maintenance” guy is denying anything. No forced entry. After about a week or so, she says that her vendor is willing to pay a certain amount for replacement of the appliances. Meantime, I have purchased them, & I have still lost about $600 due to her negligence. I am asking her to pay the rest. If she refuses, can I take her to court? I am from out of state & I expect her to take care of my property. Just last month, she cost me additional monies from repair issue. I also want to fire her, but her agreement shows that should I terminate services, I have to pay all remaining monthly fees until leases on the properties end. But, because of this case – negligence, can I get out of it without her charging me? Thanks for any advise.
Thanks for the response. I did not know the property management places lock boxes for when she has them repair or fix issues. It is common sense to be onsite to allow maintenance person in the home, whether it’s the tenant or property manager & give a “key to the candy store”. I had to purchase the appliances ASAP because a tenant just moved-in!
I was not aware nor signed anything about lock boxes for repairs being done to the properties WITHOUT the property management being present. Hence, why I feel her “vendor” is responsible; she said he was the only one with the code to the lock box & if doesn’t pay for all, then she is reponsible. It’s been a week & she wasn’t even going to file a police report…I had to tell her to go do it & haven’t even received copies of it! It just seems that I do a lot of work. What gets me is that she is a broker/realtor, it’s her business, & she seems clueless with her job.
Ms. V.- to answer your question..she said she received a call from the “maintenance” guy saying they were gone. She DID NOT do a walk-through with the last tenant. We went to check out the place to make sure it was left OK & it was filthy! I had to call her & she had not even been to the property! I insisted on making sure all the cleaning, carpet cleaning & fixing the wall had to be fixed & taken out of the deposit of the previous tenant. I did sign for lock box to be placed on my properties.
Correction. I did NOT sign authorization for a lock box.