Being a landlord is a lot more than being the owner of a rental property.  A landlord has a number of responsibilities to the tenant, the property and the neighbors that, when successfully completed, can significantly mitigate the risk of owning a rental home.

Responsibilities to Your Tenant
When a tenant leases your home, they have a clearly defined list of responsibilities including paying the rent on time, conducting the routine maintenance in an appropriate and timely manner (changing filters, pest control, etc.), keeping the home in a clean and presentable fashion (especially during the times when you are showing the house to the next set of potential renters), and returning the home in the same condition that it was delivered to them at the time of their lease.

Your responsibilities as a landlord go beyond just collecting the rent and making sure that the house is maintained in an appropriate condition.

As a landlord, one of your key responsibilities is maintaining an open line of communication with your tenant so that you can be aware of any unforeseen circumstances that could jeopardize your income.  For example, you don’t want to find out after the tenant has missed a rent payment that he has been worried about his job for the past 6 months and he was finally laid off.  Or that your tenant was going to be relocated by their job (which they found out 3 months ago) and will need to move next month.

In addition to maintaining an open line of communication, another responsibility to your tenant is to be the central point of contact in the event that there is an issue with the property. 

Remember, most likely your tenant did not conduct a home inspection with a qualified inspector, and in many cases tenants are not particularly handy.  Consequently, they may need someone to turn to when an unknown maintenance routine needs to be performed or an unexplainable noise starts in the basement. 

Responsibilities to Your Property
As a landlord, maintaining the property needs to be more than just a response from a complaint by a tenant.  Property monitoring and maintaining your property will minimize expensive failures which can dramatically decrease your net margin over the life of your investment.

Prior to originally leasing the property and in between tenants, you should confirm that all systems are in working order, that all maintenance issues are up to date, and that any systems that may fail during the course of the upcoming lease are resolved prior to or early on in the new lease period.  Pay attention to the details.  Oftentimes, what starts as something small that you can easily resolve early on can turn into something much more significant if it is ignored.  A five dollar fix can become a five-hundred dollar repair if it is not dealt with early on.

During the lease, even though you do not usually have the right to randomly enter the property without the approval of the tenant, you can still drive by the property.  In addition to seeing how the tenants are maintaining the property, you can easily check to see if the gutters are overflowing or sagging, if there is any wind or hail damage to the siding or roof, or if there are any other indications of problems that may occur.  Tenants usually don’t pay very close attention to the exterior of a building – as long as it is not falling down, they may never notice that some of the siding was torn loose at the top of the gables on the side of the house.  A simple drive by inspection will often reveal these issues to you so that you can address them in a prompt manner before they become expensive.

Responsibilities to the Neighbors
Believe it or not, as a landlord you have a responsibility to the property neighbors even when you are not living there yourself.

When seeking out a tenant, try to get a tenant that will work well with the existing neighbors.  For example, renting a townhouse to an individual with two very large, aggressive dogs when the neighbors in the adjoining units have small children is a liability you may not want.  Remember that, as the owner of the house, you are potentially at risk for any activity that your tenant does, even when those activities are done without your knowledge.

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