Have you or someone you know said this phrase: “I don’t want to own a rental property because I don’t want to answer phone calls about clogged toilets at 3am!” I’m not sure who is clogging all of these toilets at 3am. I certainly have never experienced that issue, nor have any of my clients. But let’s talk about the notion that people have that being a landlord requires you to be on call 24/7.
I’ve been at this rental game for 5+ years now. In that time, I’ve had one so-called “emergency” phone call. Here is that story.
About two weeks ago, one of my tenants called me at around 10am on a Tuesday. This particular tenant does not call me. Ever. Mostly because she doesn’t speak very good English. So I answered because it was probably important.
She said that water was coming into the basement, and she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She recorded a video of what she was seeing, and I could hear an active trickle of water, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Since I couldn’t determine the source of the water, and we couldn’t understand what the other was saying, I told her to call 911.
About 10 minutes later, local 911 dispatch called me. They said they discovered that the sump pump line had disconnected from the sump basket. So the trickle that I heard was the water coming from the pipe to the exterior onto the floor. They pumped the water out and disconnected the sump. We got a plumber in there to fix the connection later that week.
Was that an emergency? Probably not. Had I not answered, would it have gotten resolved? Probably. Did I really even need to be involved? Not really.
Do you have to be available 24/7 to deal with “emergencies” as a landlord? No, you don’t. In Minnesota the law requires that landlords fix issues that they are obligated to fix under a lease within 14 days of receiving written notice. Now of course there are problems that require a quicker response. If (for residential properties only) the home is unlivable without a repair the tenant can withhold rent or go to court for other remedies (like no heat in the winter for example). In those cases, I recommend trying to fix those issues as soon as possible.
But if there is a true emergency, the tenant should be calling 911, or an emergency maintenance company, not their landlord. Almost all critical maintenance can be handled during business hours. And emergency maintenance can be outsourced to a service provider. Nearly every vendor now has a 24/7 response line. If one of my tenants called one of those people and paid for it, or referred the payment to me, I would gladly take care of it.
I’m fairly confident I will never be fixing a clogged toilet at 3am. I would bet my financial future on it. I invite you to do the same.