$100 fee if Tenant unable to open the door - Landlord Forum thread 358704

$100 fee if Tenant unable to open the door by Ann on October 25, 2018 @14:31

Lease does say $100 fee if Tenant is unable to open the house for their repair request.

My Former tenant is unable to open the door and unwilling to pay the minor repair fee $100 for many times so that I have to be there to open the door to avoid 3 following things
(1) the delay of the repair,
(2) the cancellation of my insurance, plus
(3) $100 charge by Insurance Service provider.

Now, I explain the above to my lawyer and hope to collect this $100 charge from Tenant per time when Tenant does this. Am I going to win? I hope.

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Re: $100 fee if Tenant unable to open the door by AnonymousFL on October 26, 2018 @11:39	[ Reply ]

It may be helpful to know what state you are in? As far as the $100.00, as long as that fee does not violate any state statutes and is not excessive, you have a good chance to collect it. Now, I think a $100.00 fee is a bit excessive myself, but if you can justify the amount, you will be better off. The way we handle fees that tenants ignore is that when it comes to renewal time, we will make the renewal contingent on taking care of the fees. We suggest the tenant either pay the fees by the end of the current lease or to sit down and discuss them with us. Sometimes we will hold them to the fees, but occasionally they will have an explanation that we can empathize with so we may drop some or all of the fees. I do want to ask though...don't you have keys to all of your rentals? The way we do our maintenance requests is that in our rules, we state that when the tenant makes a maintenance request, that in itself gives us permission to enter the unit during normal hours to make repairs. If a tenant asks to be present, we will attempt to accommodate them if their scheduling is reasonable. However, if they miss appointments or waste our time, we will let them know that we will have to make the repair according to our schedule. Sometimes, we will charge back the 'wasted time' on a case by case basis at an hourly rate, but that happens infrequently. Of course, we do have that 'penalty' written into our lease.

Re: $100 fee if Tenant unable to open the door

Re: $100 fee if Tenant unable to open the door by LAMAC66 on November 2, 2018 @07:35	[ Reply ]

All dependent on state laws and how you word your lease based on state law. State law says that after I have given reasonable notice, I can go in and do what necessary repairs need to be done. As far as your fee, it may be indeed excecessive. If not it can be considered as part of rent and if not paid in full you may be able to give notice to cure or quit. Then file for eviction if it is not paid in full.