Friday, June 23, 2017

Fighting with my tenant....

Fighting with my tenant to give him his full security deposit back but he insists on getting paid less
Sounds familiar? May be not. At least, doesn't happen often. He is staying in our apartment for last 2 years. No complains. Rent on time always without any reminders.

Well, what more can you ask ?

He has a daughter around the same age as ours (around 4 yrs). Kids know no boundary so she does like to color the walls :) We knew this when we were giving the flat to a family with little kids and mentally prepared that we will anyways have to get the painting done again. While we treat anyone else's property with utmost respect and our daughter is brought up with the same thinking. We had standard 2 month security deposit if there are any major damages.

Well, my tenant, Syed is vacating our apartment as he is moving to a different city. As expected, the walls were bit colorful by now and bathroom had some usual wear and tear

I am a reasonable person. I need to invest my own property as this was our first home.
I told him, i am going to return his security deposit in full and thanked him for staying with us.
He comes back and says, no and i should deduct the damages from the security deposit to which i am surprised but i politely decline.

He insists that i should keep half of the security deposit. We negotiate for sometime that i don't want to deduct more than minimum required for fixing. I reluctantly agree because there is indeed some damage and glad to see that he strongly feels that same way.

Finally, we agree. What's the lesson here ? Nothing that we don't know but we don't practice much.
Be kind and others will be kind to you when you least expect.
In life, when we think of negotiation, we always think that you negotiate for getting "more" out of the situation but i learnt today that you can negotiate to get "less" and still get "more"
Reminder to myself, be nice to people more often without expecting anything in return.

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