Don’t Use Home Warranties

14 Mar Don’t Use Home Warranties

Some landlords come up with the idea of purchasing a home warranty to process maintenance on their residential rental property. Or they have recently acquired the property and the home warranty was included as part of the sale transaction. So why not have rental property maintenance completed through a warranty company and save your owner client money? Oh, let me count the ways…

If you’re a property manager, you absolutely do not want to agree with an owner client to go through their home warranty company to facilitate maintenance. I had so many seasoned PM company owners warn me against this in my early days and I thought I knew more than them. I was determined that I would be able to cater to these owners and accept their home warranty where other PM companies wouldn’t. As time went on, I quickly realized that I wasn’t cleverer when it came to this topic and learned, the hard way, that those other PM company owners were absolutely right!

Watch this video and learn some of the risks as a property manager associated with using a home warranty to handle maintenance on residential rental properties:
1. Increased risk of violating habitability or other landlord/tenant laws
2. Disgruntled tenants due to scheduling issues and the length of time to process repairs
3. Disgruntled landlords because home warranty companies never pay for everything the owner thinks they should.
4. Resentful property manager (you) because they are investing so much more time to process maintenance when they aren’t compensated for that additional time investment.

Ben Parham

Founder at Property Management Training Headquarters

Ben Parham is the Founder of Property Management Training Headquarters as well as the President and Managing Real Estate Broker of Integrity Realty & Management, Inc., a cutting edge real estate sales and property management brokerage operating throughout the Greater Denver Area. Ben served as the 2018 President of the Denver Chapter of the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) and currently serves NARPM National as a Southwest RVP Ambassador. Ben is a U.S. Navy veteran where he was a Cryptologic Technician (Technical) and was awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal, two Navy Achievement Medals, and a Good Conduct Medal. He has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and is licensed as a real estate broker in both Colorado and Florida.