Friday, April 19, 2013

Cutting the rent during renovation work

I have previously posted about the levy for refurbishment of one of the buildings in which I own a flat. It turns out that the work is very extensive (which I should have expected from the size of the levy) and will including putting opaque plastic covers on all the windows for a few weeks, scaffolding over the entire building for a few months, retiling the exterior and removal of the air conditioning units for a while. The entire project is expected to take about six months.

Quite frankly, I couldn't blame the tenant if he wanted to move out. And he did consider it. And I would have agreed to early termination if he'd asked for it. It would have been unconscionable to hold a tenant to a lease in these circumstances. Given that it would be impossible to rent the flat to a new tenant while all this was going on and I would have to repaint the interior (and probably do a few other things) before a new tenant would move in, I offered to cut his rent by one third while all this was going on. He was happy to agree to that arrangement - a "win" for both parties. The tenant has a lower rent to compensate for the inconvenience and I will have at least some rental income instead of a vacancy and a redecoration bill.

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