Need assistance with lease provisions regarding nail holes (Austin, Cove: leasing, how much)

[JCali2016]

Hi Everyone! I just purchased a beautiful home that I intend to make my retirement home some years down the road. Until I am able to move there (the home is in a different city than where I currently live), I plan to rent it out.

The home has two types of walls - some made of sheetrock, and others (the perimeter walls) made of large pine boards and beams that were hand milled by the design/builder. These boards and beams are natural (unpainted). I have no problems with the tenants hanging art on the sheet-rocked walls - which are repairable, but I do not want any holes placed in the pine walls and wood beams. Is it reasonable, and enforceable, to put in a provisions that tenants may not put ANY holes into the woodwork?

I'd appreciate any and all thoughts!

[Aquitaine]

You can put anything you want in a lease. Whether you are willing to go to the trouble to enforce it, or whether it will be a detriment to leasing the place is another question.

How big an ask this is depends on how much you're expecting to remain pristine. People want to put things up on the walls. Can they still do that or is your 'no hole' order covering 70% of the house?

When your tenants invariably do put a small nail hole in one, how will you measure damages? This is where it gets tricky. You'd need to be very explicit in the lease about what happens.

Or to ask the same question another way -- would an ordinary family living in your house want to put holes in those walls, or do you feel that your restriction is particular to your taste?

[JCali2016]

Thanks for the response, Aquitaine. Those are very fair questions and the same ones I'm struggling with. The wood walls really are a work of art unto themselves (I usually hate wood walls, but these are gorgeous). There are definitely more wood walls than sheetrock walls, but the wood walls are also full of windows so there are fewer large areas to hang things.

I don't want to be "that" landlord that micromanages everything the tenet does, and certainly want the tenant to be able to enjoy the space. At the same time, this home is really a work of art and somethings would just not be repairable. I own three other properties that are regular rentals (with sheetrock walls throughout), and I would never think to restrict nail holes in those instances.

[Novacek]

Would it be feasible to cover up the walls with a layer of sheetrock (temporarily) to protect them while you rent it out?

[JCali2016]

I'm attaching a picture of one of the areas with the wood walls. Covering them with sheetrock really won't work.

[CptnRn]

Yes you can include that kind of prohibition in the lease, but you should also specifically point it out to the tenant before accepting them, as many tenants don't read their leases.

By the way, the Renting forum is a better place to ask this kind of question.

[Eastcoasting]

I believe you should write up the lease as such:

Nail, tack holes and other minor blemishes to drywall surfaces - Right On!

Nail, tack holes and other minor blemishes to perimeter wood wall surfaces - Verboten!

[JCali2016]

Thanks, EastCoasting! That is exactly the sort of language I'm looking for.

Much appreciated!

[turf3]

From the picture, it looks as though there are some wide areas of wood, where I think it would be reasonable to want to hang an art work. Also a lot of narrow areas where no one could argue with a "no nail holes" statement.

So, how about putting in your own nails on the wide panels, and saying "hang it on my nails if you want, but thou mayest not drive in thine own nails." Then also you could try to find some kind of "peg" like things that would hang pictures but would not look bad if nothing was there. Maybe brass finishing nails?

Have you ever seen a house with picture frame moldings? These look like crown moldings, up at ceiling height, but you actually hang pictures from them using real long picture hanging wire and special little hooks that interface with the molding. I wonder if you could figure out some kind of scheme reminiscent of that? I mean, sooner or later you are going to want to hang artwork yourself, and you might want to change it from time to time.

By the way, the wood walls and the interior look fantastic.

[TexasHorseLady]

OP, I feel your paint. The kitchen in our house in Austin, build in 1959, has mahogany paneling and cabinetry. After living in the house for years, it never occurred to me that tenants would bang BIG nail holes into the paneling - but they did. We had provisions against painting (they did that without permission, too, even though the house was freshly painted just before they moved in, guess we're lucky they didn't decide to paint the paneling).

The advice above to put your own holes in the wood ignores the fact that once those holes are in the wood, they can't be removed or truly disguised and will never go away. (Trust me on this one - the master bedroom in our house in the country has similar walls and the prior owners put LOTS of holes in them and then tried to disguise them.) That's like saying "someone is going to want to deface your art work so why don't you go ahead and deface it yourself?" Plus, if the tenants see holes already in the wood and want to hang something that doesn't quite fit where that hole is, they will justify to themselves putting their own holes in because there's already some in it so "it won't hurt anything".

Picture frame molding would be a good solution except that it won't go with that style of house at all, from the picture. (Beautiful, by the way!)

As CptnRn said above, make a HUGE point of pointing out any prohibitions that are written into the lease, and hopefully get them to initial said prohibitions to show that they read them.