I have tenants who are responsible for their own maintenance up to $1,000 per incident. Then I pay the overage. These were initially lease option tenants who did not exercise their option before the time expired.

I have a tenant who may be interested in the same maintenance arrangement without having a lease option contract. His background is HVAC, plumbing, roof and gutter repair plus many other skills. Any idea what reduction in rent I should give him for taking on this role? Anyone have similar arrangements?

If the tenant Does the maintenance they could be deemed your employee and you would be responsible for any injuries on the job. Also, if they determine what Has to be repaired, will they repair everything that should be repaired?

Not all opportunities are good ones, including this one.

But hey, go for it, and come back here and tell us how

In general, my tenants are the types of people who would leave an issue un-reported, rather than come up with $x to fix it. Especially if it's normal wear-and-tear, rather than something they did. So because I want them to feel comfortable keeping me informed so I can protect my investment, I'm much more specific about how much liability they have with maintenance requests. ($100 for each plumbing call, just so I can have the ability to hold them responsible for flushed action figures or a kitchen drain stuffed full of grease and potato peels.)

Since your first people were lease-option people, they rent by lease-option rules. They have expectations of becoming homeowners-- great, you can start taking responsibility now.

But your second people are not. Are these random tenants who heard about your arrangement with the first tenants, and want to try something similar? If so, the answer is no, that arrangement is only for people who intend to pursue ownership. If they're the successors to the first people, then the answer is also no, for the same reason.

Whether your tenant is an HVAC repairman, or a dentist, or a yard guy, or a hamburger flipper-- you have your roles and responsibilities parceled out. They pay $x/month in rent, and you take care of maintenance/repairs/taxes. When you start blurring the line between which way the money goes, or what someone has to do in exchange for a discount--- that's a sure way for someone to be disgruntled.

(Random anecdote: I used to have an odd-job guy who would rent a house. The landlady promised him a free month of rent in December if he would mow his house plus the adjacent vacant lot that she owned, and keep them mowed all year. Guess who mowed all year. Guess who still expected December's rent paid in full.)

Without knowing how old the equipment you have or how often you would expect to use him, it is rather difficult to answer your question.

Where others see a problem, I see where maybe this could work out if you agreed to use him for repairs on your units where he isn't a tenant. If perhaps you were paying him only $75/hour for your trouble calls - he gets business and you get a reduction in service calls. There is an opportunity for him to over call so you will need to know, like and TRUST this guy - so check references on him.

I use a $250 deductible for my L/O tenants per repair. $1,000 is a bet on the roof and HVAC system only. That is a rather sure bet that YOU are making. You are betting the HVAC will not need completely replaced - but you are making that bet against the person you are hiring to make that assessment. What is going to happen when he says a new one will cost you $11,000?

A. You do not want tenants doing (trying to do) maintenance.

it will never work out. If you give him a flat credit on the rent each month, what if there is a major job required, as in a boiler cannot be repaired and has to be replaced at $4k? Is the tenant supposed to cover that? If you give him a credit on the rent based on each particular job done, then guess what, every time he is short on rent there will conveniently be a repair that he had to make.

Candace,

My leases are “tenant does maint for a reduced rent”. We START with a perfectly maintained home so repairs by the res are minimal.

I still repair the roof, HVAC, Water heater, and underground drains.

Few renters would have $1000.

Hiring Rules:

-Only hire people you are willing to fire.

-they sign my Independent Contractor Agreement

-start and test them with small, self contained projects

-written quotes ONLY! No ESTIMATES or hourly.

-pay for the job, NOT a rent discount

-hold pay if they owe rent. He signs it over for me to keep for rent.

-only give the pay if he is caught up and a good payer.

Thank you for all responses. I didn't give you all the details of this 1 possible arrangement. He is currently employed by a Hvac company for several years. Before that he used to be employed by a roofer company, but as he aged the job was to hard on him. He has worked in plumbing too. He is 65+ yo and has been working on my houses for several years-does a good job and charges less than companies with a lot of overhead, mainly HVAC but also some roof repairs. gutter repairs and so forth. He wants to rent from me and I was just exploring this option-he would only work on his leased house as needed for a monthly reduction in rent and other jobs on any of my other houses would still be fee for service.

With all of the issues a lot of you brought up, it would get too complicated so I am dropping the thought. I had not even proposed anything to him yet. So I am going to charge him rent and continue paying him fee for service/materials when I give him jobs on any of my houses, including his rental.

Thank you again.

I am not pursuing this idea. Thanks to all who gave me their input.

I appreciate it very much.