Lawn Mowing Issue

[voicev13]

What do you do about lawn mowing if your rental property is a freehold townhome, the 3rd one in the middle of 6 townhomes (the other 5 are owned by other people), each property has a fence separating their property in the back yard.

If you hire someone to maintain the lawn, do they have the right to bother the tenant go through the house each time they need to mow the back yard?
Do you make it the tenant`s responsibility to mow the lawn at the back? If so, who pays for the lawn mower?

Any ideas or experiences would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[jseib]

I suspect having a outsider doing the lawn would be very very difficult... The tenants don`t have to be home when they arrive and the person doing the lawn mowing has no right to enter the property.. So I could see that wasting your money and causing conflict easily..

The only solutions in my mind is making it the tenants resposibility (As long as you understand its probably not enforcable) and offer them a rebate of X dollars for cutting it... Don`t give them a deduction, send them a cheque.. Maybe have them email you a digital picture or something of the backyard with the invoice.. People usually respond better to earning something then they do a deduction to a bill.

and/or

Ask one of the neighbors to do it and offer to pay them

 

[NeilUttamsingh]

QUOTE (voicev13 @ Sep 14 2009, 09:31 PM) What do you do about lawn mowing if your rental property is a freehold townhome, the 3rd one in the middle of 6 townhomes (the other 5 are owned by other people), each property has a fence separating their property in the back yard.

If you hire someone to maintain the lawn, do they have the right to bother the tenant go through the house each time they need to mow the back yard?
Do you make it the tenant`s responsibility to mow the lawn at the back? If so, who pays for the lawn mower?

Any ideas or experiences would be helpful. Thanks.

Hi,

Put in your lease that it is tenant`s responsibility to mow the lawn and remove the snow.

I have a freehold townhouse with similar access to the backyard that you mentioned. To access the backyard, you have to go through the house, or through the garage.

You can buy a non-gas / non-electric law mover from Home Depot for a few hundred dollars. Provide this to your tenant.

Regards,
Neil.

 

[luckyluciano]

Should be part of you rental agreement. Tenant agrees to maintain the grass at their own expense. (Includes providing lawn mower, cutting, weeding, watering)