Hi,
Need some advice on a community manager who is behind on home payments by 4 months. The manager does a fine job and we have given a great deal on the home. The manager stopped making the home payments when the gas bill was very high. Now the issue is fixed and the gas bill is much lower, however, the manager has not resumed the home payments.
Thank you.
Assuming you have contacted him and insisted he make arrangements to catch up you must now begin the legal process to repo the home and evict the tenant.
Greg,
The challenge is this individual is actually the community manager who is behind on payments not a tenant. The community manager is doing a fine job and I would like to retain the manager.
Can you take some time to see him PERSONALLY?? When you spend some time with your manager that is doing a fine job find out the problem. If the situation can be solved and he could use a helping hand–do it. If he failes to commuicate the problem freely at that point you need to think about why YOU have allowed him to be 4 months delinquent and still there.
That is why I made the assumption that you had already spoken with the manager about making the back payments. If you have and he is still not paying it doesn’t matter how good he is as a manager you have to move forward with legal action and get rid of him. Otherwise gift him the home and forget about it.
Was the high gas bill due to a line that you were responsible for repairing, and how was that handled? Just seems like an odd scenario and more to the story.
In the end the damage is done and you should likely evict, but trying to understand the root cause so this doesn’t happen again to you.
You don’t get rid of a “fine” manager lightly. Forgive the back rent and reduce his salary going forward commensurately to the home rent. Do NOT assign title of the home to him. If the relationship goes bad, you want to be able to get rid of him quickly and easily.
Should he forgive the back rent every time the manager decides he has other more important debts.
Once situations like this develop the owner/manager relationship will be damaged beyond repair.
Your manager is taking advantage of you and simply waiting to be evicted. He knows he owes the money and has no intention of paying. He is no longer a “fine” manager he is now a dead beat tenant.
Either take the house back and keep him as a manager, doubt he will be a “fine” manager after that, or fire his ass and evict before he owes 6, 8, 10 months in back payments.
Regardless of how you resolve this situation he will never be a reliable manager again.
Park Managers should be approached like a Geico commercial - their responsibilities should be “so simple that a caveman can do it.” A “fine” burger flipper is still just flipping burgers. If they can’t flip burgers then they can clean toilets.
The point is that anyone in the Park should be able to do this - the one with the nicest car and lawn should be able to do it the most efficiently and reliably. If this is not possible then your manager has too much responsibility, and should be adjusted down.