<p>The $40/day is NOT for the tenants to use for a hotel, that is for Zoo and company to use for lost rent to cover their OWN bills for the unit. The tenants need to seek out help at their renter’s insurance company to get their expenses paid for. It is NOT the responsibility of the landlord to cover those expenses. I would certainly pro-rate their rent for the days not used but other than that, you have no responsibility to cover their hotel stay.</p>
<p>Thanks for that info, I will make sure that they understand that it is not our responsibility, and that we will pro-rate the rent. But I still feel obliged to give them enough to stay at a decent hotel, especially since we already said we would. I am getting our ins involved, though I can’t call them till I get off this airplane.</p>
<p>I am re-reading the texts from my husband (really hard to coordinate all this from thousands of miles away when we are flying!) and he says that the tenant hasn’t heard back yet, but the insurance company told him they think his policy wouldn’t cover much of anything. I wonder if loss of use is an add on policy. The wife left a voicemail on my husband’s phone saying they were going to stay at the boutique hotel “only on Friday, or later until other accommodations are found.” Which would almost sound reasonable except the fact that there are tons, tons of hotels available nearby that are way cheaper, that I found on hotels.com. 2 hotels in a good area, extendedstay america, is $69 (it is a newer one, pretty nice), and a Comfort Suites for $105, just as an example of hotels with kitchenettes. I think the “later until other accommodations are found” sounds too open ended, as it took me 30 seconds to pull up all these other hotels online. It’s not a dire search, with nary a hotel room to be found. Early November is not a busy hotel season in our area.</p>
<p>Dang. Looks like our insurance can’t really help us after all. The email response I got was,</p>
<p>"A pricey hotel is not like kind and quality. Suggest you only offer reasonable based upon the lease agreement. If they want to foot the difference, that would be up to them. But the policy would not pay for even you to stay in a pricey hotel under the home owner unless it was like kind and quality.</p>
<p>As for their insurance, we wouldn’t be able to get information either. It is privileged information. As they are not at fault, there is no reason for us to contact them."</p>
<p>So maybe I should go back to plan A? $200 for the first night that they already booked, and $120 per night afterwards. That includes the $40/day we are getting from the insurance company, though I realize it is to cover our costs of loss of rent…it works out to those numbers for them.</p>
<p>Since the situation is settled for tonight, you should look at stabilizing the expenses from tomorrow on. It might be optimistic that all repairs will be completed in only one week.</p>
<p>A compromise might be for you to select the hotel (the 69 one) starting tomorrow and make arrangement to pay the hotel directly. Also realize that the rent proration might be tricky. While you get the rent loss reimbursement, your tenant might think that you pay for both the hotel and credit them the rent. The reality is that if you pay the hotel, they still will need to pay the full rent of that month. No double dipping! Their cost will remain the same as the rent they had to pay without the issue. If they decide to upgrade their stay, it is also their cost. Your extra cost should be the difference between the hotel and the rental loss reimbursement.</p>
<p>I would just email back ‘no’ to the pricey hotel, with links to the hotels you found and a suggested price. </p>
<p>Tell them x dollars per night for 2 nights, they are welcome to pay the difference.</p>
<p>Then they need to provide information on their insurance and you can go from there.</p>
<p>May I make a suggestion, that I haven’t seen here?
If OP wants to pay for hotel or a portion of it(if insurer pays some, too) well, that’s ok.
BUT- don’t let them pick a hotel then give you the bill; reverse the process. Give them the payment for the amount OP thinks is fair, and let them spend it as/where they choose.
That way, if they have $100 a night available(for example) they could choose a place for $40/night or a place at $200/night. But it’s their choice, so if it goes over the amount, then they make up the difference.</p>
<p>Op may have legal and/or moral obligation to pay for hotel, but is not required to make all the arrangements.
I’d also hesitate to pay while I was “waiting” on response from their insurer. It could just be stalling for time to take advantage of LL in fancy hotels. Suggest to put them up in a very modest place while waiting on response. Tell them you can’t afford anything nicer at least, not until you get a response from their agent. That might be incentive for them to hurry. And, let your agent contact their agent so you can be confident you are getting the real story.</p>
<p>So sorry busdriver for what you are going through.</p>
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<p>This is what I have been wondering about. My son’s apartment sustained water damage when sprinklers went off due to a fire in another part of the building. His renter’s insurance covered damage to his personal possessions. If he had been at fault, I believe it might have covered repairs to the apartment. Since he wasn’t at fault, the building’s insurance paid for repairs to his apartment and for him to stay in another of their buildings in the same area until his apartment was put back to the condition it was prior to the sprinkler accident. It is really different for you since you aren’t a big business with lots of buildings ( I assume;)) I don’t know what your legal obligation is to your tenants. I would be interested to know, just out of curiosity. I am really glad we never had to deal with this when we were landlords but if we had, I guess I would be talking to both our attorney and going over the lease to see what our contractual obligations were and to our accountant to see what kind of loss, if any, we were going to be able to declare with regard to this situation. For example, could you possibly deduct these hotel expenses? After I had all this information it might be easier to decide how far beyond the legal obligation I could afford to go to make my tenants comfortable after such an unfortunate catastrophe.</p>
<p>good luck, busdriver</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters who said you should give them an amount, like $69/night and they can pay as much above or below that as they like.</p>
<p>What would your insurance cover if this was your house and you would have to stay in a hotel. I would see if I could find this out and that is what I would offer. IF AND ONLY IF their insurance won’t pay.</p>
<p>If I wreck my car, my insurance will pay for a rental. They gave us enough money to pay for a tin can. If I chose to rent a SUV then I am obligated to pay the difference. This is what I would offer and be firm.</p>
<p>BTW, I hate these things in which I have to make a decision without thinking about it. Good luck.</p>
<p>^^I’m with you there, deb. Hate making decisions without time to think about it. They need a place now, demolition is underway. My insurer said that even if this was our house, they would never pay $200, and would not pay for a fancy hotel. She said if we wanted to pay, it should be similar accommodations, but she didn’t suggest a price. She sounded disgusted.</p>
<p>And no, alh, I’m not big business with lots of buildings. Just someone who bought 4 condos for great deals (though looking like this one is a bad deal). I will look at the lease, but I don’t think it addresses it. Next time, I’ll put in every little possibility.</p>
<p>I’m going to start the calling, and driving back to the unit, on the ground now. I think I will do what many people suggested. Find out what their insurance covers FIRST. Then offer them something reasonable. Probably $40 a day to reimburse their rent, and then either $78-$80 in addition (if insurance doesn’t cover it). I don’t want to get involved in their reservations, for sure. And I will make sure to clarify, “While you get the rent loss reimbursement, your tenant might think that you pay for both the hotel and credit them the rent.”</p>
<p>I shouldn’t get so wrapped up in this. I just feel badly about the situation, but I need to not let that control our decisions, and be reasonable.</p>
<p>Sorry but they are taking advantage of you. Either they can get the “like kind” hotel their insurance is offering, which is probably a Holiday Inn Express or similar, which is FINE or they can foot the bill for the extra. There is NO reason you have to pay for their hotel, NONE. If you want to, fine, but if you prorate their rent AND pay for their hotel, that is a LOT of money. I would come up with a dollar figure that they can take off their rent as reimbursement and NOT send them any money for this.</p>
<p>Thanks, stevesma, you should be our business manager. We are suckers and fools. The latest is that the tenant texted and said he was sending an email, so we will hold off sending our composed email. No reason to show our cards first, I guess!</p>
<p>As a landlord, I agree that your only obligation to your tenant is what’s spelled out in the lease–probably just abatement of their rent for the period they are out of the unit. Whether they have adequate insurance–or any insurance at all–to cover a hotel is not your problem. For all you know, they could stay with friends or relatives for this short period. I would simply cite the lease terms to them, offer the results of your research on cheap hotels, and promise to keep them updated on the progress of the repairs. Just keep it cordial but businesslike.</p>
<p>Does the lease state that tenants are required to have renter’s insurance? Are you sure the tenants HAVE insurance…maybe they don’t, and hence the finagling. Might be a good idea to include language in the lease requiring proof of insurance going forward.</p>
<p>S1 and DIL had to provide proof of renter’s insurance when they got their apt. recently. Never had to do that when we were renting, but it makes sense.</p>
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<p>In this particular case that’s probably true, but it’s certainly not true as a general statement. It entirely omits potential non-contractual liability – such as liability for a tenant’s consequential damages (which would certainly include the entire cost of equivalent alternative accommodations) when an apartment becomes temporarily uninhabitable by reason of a landlord’s negligence (for example, in failing to exercise reasonable care in maintenance and repairs), or failure to comply with statutory obligations. If it turns out, for example, that an apartment in which a young child lives has lead paint on the walls, you can bet that the landlord is not only responsible for the cost of remedying the condition, but is also entirely responsible for paying for the tenant to live elsewhere while the work is being done. </p>
<p>I don’t know much about renter’s insurance, but I think of it as personal property insurance covering only damage to the renter’s property within the apartment (as well as liability insurance against claims by third parties), not damage resulting from loss of use of the apartment itself, which belongs to the landlord. I could easily be wrong, of course.</p>
<p>DonnaL, of course you’re right that in general legal obligations might arise from a landlord’s negligence or from certain statutes, but I was commenting on the OP’s particular situation, which, so far as OP has described, apparently did not involve either circumstance. The one thing that hasn’t been addressed by OP is exactly what the lease provides should the premises become uninhabitable for the short term. Typically, the lease would remain in force with an abatement in rent. OP’s tenants really deserve some kind of chutzpah award!</p>
<p>I just looked over our lease agreement, and basically it is a very general lease, provided by the realtors association of our area. It does not address this. I need to make a much more specific lease for the next time. In this case, they really can’t claim neglect, as we’ve only owned this condo for 3 months, and responded immediately when they called to report a problem. Unfortunately this was catastrophic, with huge water leaks everywhere. The lease also doesn’t mention renters insurance, another thing we need to address! When I talked to the condo association, apparently the failure of the hydrostatic unit is not uncommon, and has happened to two other units this year.</p>
<p>An update on this…the tenant finally talked to his insurance company, who said he had a $1K deductible before he can get anything, even cost of a rental hotel. He doesn’t think he has any damages to claim, so he doesn’t want to claim just for the hotel. It supposedly will only be a week and wouldn’t meet his deductible. I see his point.</p>
<p>We went ahead and sent him an email, telling him we would refund him $40/day towards his rent, and pay $80/day towards his hotel. He can stay where he wants, but $120/day gets you a very reasonable hotel around here. No response yet, but I feel good about it because I do think it is fair on both sides. Though they may have wanted a palace, and we prefer no cost, it seems like a reasonable solution. They can pay the extra for the palace if they want to.</p>
<p>We also told him he could break his year long lease if he was uncomfortable with anything about this situation, with no penalty. We are fine with that. Thankfully the contractor is really efficient, and thinks it will only be a week. Even though apparently it is quite a mess.</p>
<p>I know these are great deals, but I don’t think I want any more condos!</p>
<p>Busdriver11, sounds like a great response. Good luck with everything and here’s hoping the place looks great.</p>
<p>As I would suggest to any LL or tenant, be sure to get documentation of all. For example your email might say: “you have explained to me that you have no property damage, I’m glad to hear that”. You’d sound nice, plus you are documenting. Also, I often write the phrase “as a courtesy” so it is clear to all- now and in the future, that something I am doing is not required of me, but that I am doing more than is required “as a gesture of goodwill” (I use that phrase, too).
Realize that as a person in business, anything you write could end up in court, so be smart what you write and how you write. You might even have tenant sign something that the repairs are satisfactory.</p>
<p>I hope too, that you will specifically limit, in writing, his time to request to be released from his lease. As soon as repair completed? With no specific timeline, he might wait 2 months then give notice to exit claiming " we’re just not happy here, and you said I could!" even if he wanted out for some other reason.</p>
<p>My experience as LL is that it’s good to win a dispute in court, but even better to avoid a dispute. Eliminating “grey areas” with thorough documentation helps avoid disputes.</p>