Tenant wants to paint...

Rehabbing, Fix and Flip, Rental Properties
1

A tenant in a middle to upper class SFH rental has asked for permission to paint some of the interior rooms. He has asked when he moved in and we said no. Now, the tenant has been in the place for 5 months and has been a good tenant, always on time, pays in cash, and keeps the place in relatively clean condition.

Currently, the whole interior is white. We choose white because it was neutral, clean and easy to touch up. We just got a 5 gallon bucket and went to work. The tenant is an artsy person and has a ton of artwork hung on the walls. He has asked us again to paint and offered to repaint the walls to white upon move out. Personally I do not care what color it is but the tenants do and future tenants will.

Some concerns I have are:

  1. the quality of the paint job and lack of pride because they don’t own the house
  2. preparation - taping, removal of cover plates, drop clothes
  3. color choice - something neutral, not pink or orange
  4. liability

Some of the precautions I am thinking of are:

  1. Requiring an additional security deposit to cover repainting or cleaning.
  2. Owner approval of color choices.
  3. Inspection of preparation work.
  4. Inspection of finished project.
  5. Having the tenants sign a liability waiver.

This could possibly be an opportunity to add value if the tenants do a good job or a liability if they do a bad job.

I have also thought of telling the tenants that if they want to paint they will have to pay for a liscensed painting contractor to do the work so I know its done right.

What are your thoughts?

Thank you

2

Difficult question, but here’s the issues for me:

  • Many LL’s in my area do not clean and paint, telling tenants, here’s the place, you clean and paint it. What’s my problem if my tenant wants to paint it??

  • We normally clean and paint anyway, with few exceptions where the prior tenant was there only a few months. So I’ll just paint over the tenants bad job if it is a bad job.

  • Even when dark colors are used, such as dark blue, a heavy coat of my usual “Navaho white”, would cover it, and tenants would notice a clean apartment, and the only one would would know is used to be a dark blue is me, if I stood in the place, stared at it, and say to myself "the wall here seems a bit darker than the others.

  • I find it enough to tell them what not to paint over:

– Doors, as I’ve been replacing luan with birch, and I like the natural look.
– Windows on older homes that are still wooden as they won’t open right.
– Ktichen cabinets, batroom cabinets etc.

  • I do have lease provisions that prohibits painting by tenants though, and enforced it only once, when a tenant painted over all the doors in the place black. Her complaint was the doors were old, ugly and dirty. There were. I deducted $50/door, and there were six of them, and replaced all the luan with birch, polyutherened them, and the place looked much mcuh better, thanks to the girl that painted it.

Bottomline??

I’m pretty liberal in letting tenants paint since I paint over it anyway after moveout, and once they understand what NOT to paint, I won’t have to replace cabinets, doors etc.

With tenants often living like pigs, why give ones that make the place better a hard time??

In the beginning, I thought like you. Gotten a tenant living with me about six years once, and asked to paint every year, and I said “NO”. Finally, the lady of the house said "the place is small, rent high (it’s not), and it’s finally getting to me, and I just hate the white walls, and I’m ready to SCREAM.

I finally said "if it’s that important to your sanity, go ahead and do it.

With a tenant there six years, and normally the place turns over in every two, I would have to paint it several times already. So if I got a long term tenant going crazy over the over white, let him be happy, and SO WHAT if I have to put a heavy coat of paint over so color I’m not crazy about.

I once mentioned this very issue of not having tenants paint, and I heard some owners insist only on “lprofessional painters”, to some painter I hired.

The guy laughed and said to me “what do think this place is Trump Tower??”.

3

SullivanEnterprises,

All of your concerns are valid. I also do not let tenants paint. Tenants are usually TERRIBLE painters and get more paint on the carpet, trim, and ceiling than they do the walls. Also, when they leave, you’ve often got walls that the next tenant will not like.

Therefore, if you do allow them to paint, follow the precautions in your post. In addition, make them sign something that says they understand that they are NOT being paid to paint. Many tenants will paint (doing a crappy job) and then expect to take their labor out of the rent!

Mike

4

I allow tenants to paint but I approve of the paint color (neutrals) and I make them sign a contract that was written up by an attorney, basically saying by choosing to paint I approve of the color and they occur all costs of any damages to carpet or trim. I have never had a problem with this way, tenants usually do a great job I mean how hard is it to paint?