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Our PMC had communicated with us along those lines. The gist of it are:
1. Unless there is something that modified state law on landlord tenant issues, we follow the law and the lease. It doesn't matter what we or the tenant feels, if the law says to do A we do A. So, emergency repairs are handled like any other pre pandemic emergency repair.
2. Non emergency maintenance will be performed according to an agreed upon solution between all parties. Surprisingly, there seems to always be a workable solution once everyone communicates with each other.
3. Since our PMC has a national presence and isn't some mom and pop operation, our onsite Property Managers and resident Superintendents have been sent to other state where they are deemed essential workers and were able to get their initial Covid Vaccine. They have also been able to get many of their own in-house company maintenance staff vaccinated or scheduled to be vaccinated. Tenants have been informed of their vaccination and it seems to lessen any fears.
4. Unless a tenant has an active virus infection under treatment, has been identified as exposed to a person with the virus or is recuperating from the virus, fear is not a justifiable reason to deny entry when legally allowed. We will work to minimize or do our best to mitigate any concerns but fear itself is not going to stop us from doing what we are legally allowed or legally required to do.
5. We have developed protocols and mandated practices that employees are required to follow from sanitizing the property, wearing supplied PPE to keeping logs of exposure contacts. Similar standards for general protection have been mandated for tenants in the common areas. We have a zero policy for violations.
Since we have been proactive from the start, our external contracted services know that their safety is equally as important as ours. Although there might be delays due to scheduling, nobody has decline servicing out needs. To be honest, it seems some are willing to cancel other landlord calls to service us. Our tenants have been golden on this; often on their own developing safe practices. I guess taking it seriously from the start, communicating between everyone, and not using the pandemic as a lame excuse to lower the standard/quality of service, we don't seem to have the issues many other landlords seem to be experiencing.
The only location I'm experiencing issues is multifamily subsidized units... all others could be summarized as everyone going above and beyond.
Housing Authority is also missing in action... HQS inspections cancelled and not rescheduled...
We do have ordinances passed by city council often unique to Oakland...
The flip side is courts are closed and moritoreum on evictions...
Do your servicing staff volunteer their Covid/Vaccination Status? The reason I ask is we have been told HIPPA precludes compelling disclosure... similar to HIV status.
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 01-25-2021 at 05:51 PM..
Do your servicing staff volunteer their Covid/Vaccination Status? The reason I ask is we have been told HIPPA precludes compelling disclosure... similar to HIV status.
Since the PMC pays for the time and expense of getting the vaccine, it's considered exempt employer records that falls outside HIPPA. Had the person not been vaccinated due to a disability, obtaining the reason from a health care provider and disclosing that would be a problem. Additionally, these employees are essential, their employment makes them or subjects them to the "direct threat" rules, and being vaccinated is a condition of continued employment, their vaccination status is disclosable. Because of the emergency nature of the pandemic, many emergency exemptions have been enacted into these laws and regulations and it's best to have a qualified legal advisors explain all the changes.
I think there will always be certain groups that causes issues and become problem cases. I found that communication is key; talk to each other and things get done and problems avoided. I had mentioned in other post that we had no problems with tenants not paying rent during the pandemic, but that doesn't mean a couple of tenants have not had issues, just they talked and communicated with us in advance, came up with a workable solution and life goes on drama free. We listened to our tenants' needs during the pandemic and we communicated our expectations.
One thing is I believe many landlords anticipated problems so they are reacting as if everything is going to be a brick on their heads. I know one landlord that from day one (and still to this day) is running around like the sky has fallen over the eviction moratorium yet not a single tenant in his building has been late with rent.
There are Other reasons LL Evict. Not just paying rent on time. Could be Destruction of Property, Disturbing the other tenants.
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