Renters should think twice, talk to landlord about fix-ups
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
Home improvement is the new American pastime, and renters don’t want to be left out of the game. But tenants have to talk with their landlords before tackling fix-up projects, and they may be disappointed with the results of the conversation.
By and large, landlords say they don’t want tenants to make changes to property, citing concerns about turnover and liability. Tenants who make renovations should do so cautiously.
“I’m sure you’ve been in an apartment where one wall in a room has been painted red,” said Anthony DeThomasis, Partner in AR Building and Construction, which owns and manages more than 100 units in the Albany, N. Y., area. “That may be your particular taste, you may like that, but the next tenant coming in may not.” “Improvement is subjective,” said Steven Farer, partner with Farer & Schwartz P. C., a law firm that concentrates in real property law. Tenants don’t own the building, and they cannot make any renovations to the rental unit without the prior consent of the landlord, Farer said. Leases can also require that the unit be restored to the owner in the condition in which it was rented, he said, which means that any work done has to be undone. The reason they do this is to ensure that their property stays in top condition, and they can find another tenant when the current tenant’s lease is up.
“You’re borrowing the space,” said Sandy LeVan, housing counselor with the United Tenants Association. “Basically, you’re not going to have it forever. You’re going to have to return it.” Usually, the landlord’s philosophy depends on the type of property, said Jesse Holland, president of Sunrise Management and Consulting, a property-management company in Albany.
Typically, owners of multifamily homes are fine with renter renovations, so long as they get prior consent, Holland said. Apartment complexes, on the other hand, usually say no to renovations, and that’s because they can’t control the quality of the work done, he said.
“We try to be reasonable, but we really discourage tenants from making changes,” said Duncan Barrett, chief operating officer for Omni Housing Development LLC in Albany, which owns and manages 96 senior citizen housing units. The Omni lease specifies that tenants may not make alterations to their apartment or appliances without the company’s prior approval.
“The lease says no nails in the walls, but we don’t go after people for that, obviously,” Barrett said. Bigger changes can turn into messy situations for managers, especially when tenants do the work, Barrett said. If tenants want a room repainted or an appliance replaced, Omni tries to “honor the request ourselves, so that we can control property value and turnover,” he said.
Sunrise Management has an apartment program that allows tenants to customize their apartments, Holland said. A tenant can choose an accent wall color or select countertops. All the work is done by the management company, and sometimes costs extra, he said. Accessibility is becoming an important issue for tenants, and by law, landlords have to make reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities, including widening doors, adding ramps and installing handles in the bathroom, Holland said.
Usually, the tenant pays to have this work done, he said, and when they leave, they have to pay for it to be restored to its former condition if the accommodations diminish the value of the property. Turnover isn’t the only issue for landlords. Home-improvement projects can turn into legal nightmares. Building owners are liable for the property, Farer said, so if a contractor is injured on the job, landlords can be named in lawsuits. Contractors can also file liens against the property if the tenants don’t pay for the work in a timely fashion, Farer said.
Although the landlord didn’t contract with them for the project, they could find their property on the line, he said. Many times, tenants in older buildings can make good arguments for improvements. These tenants are surrounded by dated fixtures, scuffed hardwood floors, or cracked linoleum, and it seems natural to ask, “Can I fix this ?” Tenants who have lived in a unit for a while can begin to feel invested in it, but they have to remember that the place is not their investment. Think carefully before sinking money into a rental unit, Farer warns renters. Consider the amount of money you’re putting in, in relation to the length of the lease. Expensive fix-ups, like redoing floors or bathrooms, may not be worthwhile.
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