Owner FAQs

We are Pennsylvania licensed real estate agents, along with our broker of record, and we are regulated by the PA Real Estate Commission.

We respond to all routine non-urgent matters within 1 business day. For urgent matters, tenants have a 24-hour maintenance hotline.

Around the 15th of each month, you will receive an owner disbursement directly into the account of your choosing. In addition, you will receive a monthly owner’s statement and access to your online owner portal, which shows rental income and expenses as they happen.

If you would like a copy of our lease, or wish to add any additional provisions, our portfolio manager or leasing agent can assist. The lease is between DeSantis Property Management and the tenant, therefore there is not a need to sign.

YES! We frequently get requests from our owners who are unsure if they want to sell or rent their property. We can assist in providing a Comparative Market Analysis and create Rent vs Sell worksheets. If you do decide to sell at any point, we can assist.

In addition, we offer our clients access to real estate deals from other clients that wish to sell before those properties are sold on the open market.

Owner ACH disbursements are done around the 15th of each month, depending on weekends and holidays.

DeSantis Property Management will collect rent from the tenants, and pay out owner proceeds mid month.

Leases are typically 1 year, however if there are extenuating circumstances, let us know.

The Security Deposit is typically equivalent to 1 month rent.

Immediately! The more notice you can give the better. If you are acquiring a property on a certain date, we can take care of the paperwork and be ready for your closing. If you are moving out on a certain date, we can also get your property in our system and start making arrangements. If the property will be vacant, we can start searching for a tenant right away.

Single-Family Homes, Condominiums, Townhomes, Multi-Family, and some commercial.

You will have access to an online owner’s portal to view in real time all property income and expenses. In addition, a monthly owner’s statement will show all transactions including any copies of receipts and be posted to your portal.

As security deposit is property of the tenant, DeSantis Property Management will hold all tenant security deposits in escrow.

Our management agreement, like those of reputable property management companies, mandates landlords to obtain specialized insurance tailored for rental properties. This insurance is crucial for shielding against liabilities that may arise during a tenant's occupancy. Standard homeowner's insurance typically doesn't cover such situations, leaving landlords vulnerable to denied claims and potential financial losses if the property is damaged while rented out.

Securing landlord insurance ensures coverage for scenarios like property damage, tenant injuries, or neighbor disputes due to incidents like dog bites. We advise landlords to acquire a minimum of $1 million in liability coverage, though personalized recommendations from insurance agents are encouraged.

Furthermore, it's essential to name the property management company as an additional insured party. This not only protects landlords from potential claim denials due to management involvement but also shields the management company from liability concerns.

In addition to landlord insurance, we enforce a requirement for tenants to maintain renter's insurance, covering their personal belongings. This provision, specified in our leases, absolves both the landlord and management company from responsibility for tenant belongings, further mitigating potential disputes and liabilities related to property damage or theft.

For landlords interested in our management services, please reach out via our website or phone for further assistance.

A new tenant has just moved in, and suddenly the repair requests start rolling in. You just moved out of that property and you didn't have any problems while you lived there. So what's the problem here? There are several reasons this happens:

• Many owner-occupants have just become used to certain issues and don't mind them. For example, maybe a guest bathroom toilet doesn't flush right, but you never have any guests, so you ignore it. Well, the tenant won't. They're paying rent, so they expect everything to be working.
• Sometimes a tenant, especially a long-term tenant, starts to view the property more like an owner-occupant does, so they don't report some issues that a new tenant would spot and report immediately.
• Some tenants are just more lenient than others overall. One tenant may allow something to go, while a new tenant is a stickler.
• Is this a bad thing, though? Probably not. You want the property kept in the best possible condition in order to preserve your investment. A tenant who doesn't report legitimate issues may seem like a good tenant on first glance because they're saving you money now, but in the long run, they could be costing you a lot more money. For example, a dripping pipe under the sink could lead to mold and wood rot that will cost many thousands to repair if it's not addressed for a long time, but it would be a simple $150 repair if the tenant reported it right away.

Ultimately, the landlord has a legal obligation to get legitimate repair issues taken care of. However, there are things that you don't have a responsibility to fix, and any unreasonable requests or tenant caused issues will be responsibility of the tenant.

Every property needs some rent-ready repairs between residents; here are the standards DPM requires in order to comply with state habitability standards, as well as DPM's own internal standards, every property must meet the following requirements prior to a move in:

• Professionally cleaned to ‘Hotel Room Clean’
• Carpet professionally cleaned and looking fresh
• All walls painted to professional standards
• No holes in walls or unpainted patches
• No missing, broken, or cracked outlet or switch covers
• No personal property or items in the unit. This includes furniture or any personal items.
• No lawn equipment including mowers, tools, etc.
• Garage floor swept
• No exterior debris
• Lawn cut and trimmed
• Landscaping fresh and clean
• Smoke detector on each floor (or per state/local requirements) and not expired
• All light bulbs installed and working
• Doors open & close smoothly and doorstops installed on all doors
• Bathroom caulking must be fresh and free of any mildew
• All mechanical components working as designed. Includes HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems, kitchen appliances, laundry appliances, sump pumps, water softeners, sprinkler systems, gas fireplaces, water filtration systems, etc. Essentially, if it's in the house, it must work as it was supposed to work by the manufacturer.
• Safety railings secure
• Wood-burning fireplace(s) must be either clean and functional, or permanently sealed.

DPM has several things that need to be done at the end of a lease, so here's how that process works before you can get keys:

When a tenant moves out of a property, DPM is required by both state law and the lease agreement to complete a full move-out inspection of the property to determine any tenant-caused damage to the home. This is not an optional step. Even if you don't care about the security deposit, we still need to complete this to document property condition for liability reasons.

Technically, the tenant is allowed to occupy the property until the end of the day on the last day of the lease. This means if a lease ends on the 31st of the month, DPM must allow the tenant their full time through the last day of the lease. This means that we may not be able to complete the inspection until the beginning of the following month. With many move-outs happening all on the same day at the end of the month, during busy months we aren't always able to complete all move-in inspections in a single day. This means it may take a few days for the inspection to be completed.

We recommend that if you are moving back into the home after the tenant vacates, or you are scheduling vendors to do work, do not plan on having access to the home until at least the 5th of the month. Even then, we sometimes run into situations where tenants don't vacate until late (we do charge them holdover rent for this), so please do not put yourself into a situation where you have nowhere to stay until you are absolutely certain that the tenant has vacated.

We are not able to provide you keys to the home until the tenant has fully vacated and we have completed the move-out inspection. We cannot make any exceptions to this. It is for the protection of you, DPM, and the tenant.

After this is all completed, you may schedule to pick up the keys from us.

Whether it's because the tenant just didn't put the utilities into their name like they were supposed to when they moved in, or just because the utilities have to stay in your name due to an HOA rule or a shared meter, sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you need to get a utility bill that you received charged to the tenant or paid out of your account with DPM.

When this happens, DPM has a standard form for you to fill out to make this request. Please do not just email the bill to DPM, because we can pretty much guarantee that it will slip through the cracks that way and not get charged to the tenant. Using the form will guarantee that our checklist is generated to make sure the utility bill is handled properly and billed to the tenant as needed.

Fill out form

It just isn't possible for us to have the staffing to call every client for every repair. If we did, we would have to charge a lot more for our management fee to cover the cost of those extra employees, and it certainly wouldn't be in your best interest to have to pay a higher management fee.

Most repairs are required by law, anyway. Multiple statutes makes it very clear that the landlord is responsible for repairs on a rental property, unless the tenant causes the damage themselves. Now, this doesn't include cosmetic issues, such as replacing carpet or painting, but if something breaks, the law does make it your responsibility to fix it, and our responsibility because we're your agent. The law does not even allow for a lease provision to waive this requirement and make it a tenant responsibility. Any such provision is void and unenforceable.

When repairs are delayed, your tenants get very angry. Surveys show that the #1 reason that a tenant doesn't renew a lease is that repairs aren't getting done well, or aren't getting done in a timely fashion. When a tenant reports a repair issue, they expect it to be handled very quickly. Remember, many tenants are coming from previously renting apartments, and they had on-site repair people who fixed things almost immediately. That's their expectation. Waiting on approvals slows this process down considerably, and since it's not legal to deny the repair anyway (see above), it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to put this delay into the process and needlessly anger your tenant. Angry tenants don't renew leases, they don't take as good care of your property, and they report minor maintenance issues for you to fix that they otherwise would have overlooked or fixed themselves. In other words, angry tenants cost you money.

While very rare (only about 1% of our tenants must be evicted), evictions do unfortunately happen. It is usually the result of someone losing their job, getting a divorce, or suffering some other major life event that renders them unable to meet the financial commitments that they made. While responsible tenants will vacate voluntarily under these circumstances, some tenants aren’t so honorable and have to be forced out. When that happens, we file the eviction on your behalf.

In Pennsylvania, there are multiple steps involved including filing appropriate paperwork, making court appearances, and being on top of the strict court timelines and processes at each step.

DeSantis Property Management will take care of and manage this entire process from start to finish. You don’t have to worry about any of it and will keep you updated along the way. All in all, from eviction filing to lockout, the process can take anywhere from a few weeks to many months. We know it is frustrating when someone is living in your property without paying rent, but we have no choice but to go through this legal process, so please try to be patient. We and our attorneys will do everything legally allowable to move the process along as quickly as possible.

When management terminates, there needs to be an orderly process for transferring everything to whoever will take over management. Here is how that works:

In most cases, when DPM management of a property is terminating, the tenant is also moving out at the same time, so it's a very simple process. However, in some rare cases, management may terminate while a tenant is still in possession of the property. When that happens, it is very important that everything is done in an orderly fashion so that there is no confusion for the resident.

DPM will continue to manage everything at the property until the actual termination date of management. This means all rent collection, repairs, lease enforcement, lease renewals, etc. will have to take place through DPM.

For this reason, DPM does not transfer keys or any tenant contact information until the actual termination date of our management. We do give the tenant advance notice that management will be terminating, and we do let them know about 10 days prior to termination where to send the next month's rent so that it isn't late.

We want to ensure that the tenant is not contacted by anyone but DPM during the time that we are still responsible for managing. That creates potential liability concerns, as well as just being confusing for the resident about who to contact at that point.

When management terminates, DPM will send the tenant's contact information to whoever is taking over management, along with the tenant's ledger, lease, and move-in inspection form (if applicable). DPM will not transfer tenant applications or other personal data, as this is considered confidential and protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). We will also not transfer any photos that DPM has taken aside from move-in inspection photos. Please do not ask for these items.

If you are closing account and terminating management with DPM, then there is a final accounting process that must take place. Once we have moved out the tenant and processed the security deposit (if applicable), a 30 day hold will be placed on your account in case there are any last minute bills that come in for utilities, repairs, etc. At the completion of the 30 days, we will generate your final year-to-date owner statement, send you any money remaining in your account with us (including your portfolio minimum/reserve), and completely close out your account.

Please note that once we close out your account, you will no longer have access to your Owner Portal, so it is important to save your final statement that we send to you and make sure you have any documents downloaded from your portal that you want to save.

We try to do everything paperless, but if you really need a paper document, here's how to get it.

DPM prefers to handle everything electronically. This keeps our costs down, which helps us to keep your costs down, too. That said, if you really need a paper copy of a document sent to you, we can certainly accommodate that.

Please note that there is a fee of $25 per paper document, as this helps to offset our additional costs for postage, printing, and our staff's time to manually process these requests.

When you want to keep renting out your house and using DPM as your management company, but you don't want to keep your current tenant, all we need to do is give the tenant notice of non-renewal for at least two (2) full calendar months prior to the end of their current lease. In order to request that please reach out to your PM or Leasing Agent.

Please note that if we're already past the two-month notice requirement, then the tenant has already been offered a renewal, and we will not be able to terminate their lease, so it is important to get your notice in on time if this is your intent.

We don't get this question very often, because most of our clients hire a property manager precisely because they're hoping to avoid having to deal directly with tenants. But on occasion we get a question from a client who wants to speak directly to a tenant, so we've prepared this article to go over why this is a very bad idea, and why our policies and your management agreement don't allow for it.

Here are just a few reasons why this is our policy, and why it's in your best interests:

Confrontations between tenants and landlords can be heated and even violent. There is no reason for you to risk your safety when these communications should all be handled by our staff.

Anything that you say or do at the property could be held against you legally. It's easy to read in the news examples where many landlords have gotten themselves in serious trouble by saying or doing something at a tenant-occupied property that they didn't realize was illegal.

When we're managing the property, we need to know everything that is going on so that we are best able to represent you and protect your interests. If communication is taking place directly between landlord and tenant, this creates a barrier and conflict from us doing our job.

For these reasons, among many others, we do have a strict policy on this.

DPM does not handle paying taxes, insurance, or association dues. These should be paid directly from the owner to the municipality or association.

If there is anything we can do to keep you as a client, please contact us at support@desantispm.com to discuss! We would hate to lose your business.

But if you do need to terminate, please email your PM or Leasing Agent, or the Director of Property Management and we will be in touch to start that process and go through details.

Your Exclusive Leasing/Management Agreement with DPM includes a requirement for you to maintain a landlord homeowner's insurance policy, and to name DeSantis as "additional insured" on the policy. This is to ensure that you and DPM are protected in the event of a lawsuit from a tenant, a neighbor, a vendor, etc. These lawsuits can arise from things like injuries on the property, dog bites, etc. And while rare, they can be expensive if you don't have insurance to cover you, so it is very important to make sure that you are properly insured to avoid that expense.

If an owner does not provide DPM with a copy of the policy or does not list DeSantis Property Management as "additional insured" on the policy, then DPM charges a $25 per month Homeowner's Insurance Risk Mitigation Fee. This fee helps to offset DPM's additional risk in managing your property without assurance that we are properly covered by your policy.

Please note that we would much rather have a copy of your policy showing us as additional insured than charge this nominal fee. As soon as you provide us a copy of your policy showing as covered as additional insured, we will gladly stop charging this fee.

When a tenant is in place in a property, they have several rights, including the "right of possession," and the "right of quiet enjoyment." Because of this, things can be a bit tricky when trying to sell a rental property with a tenant in place. We have to be very careful to not disturb the tenant's "right of quiet enjoyment," which basically means that they get to live in the house without being unreasonably disturbed.

Sometimes an owner needs to sell a property while a tenant is in place. When that happens, we need to make sure it's done the right way in order to protect both DPM and you as the owner from litigation. If a tenant's right of quiet enjoyment is disturbed, then it can lead to lawsuits, and we definitely want to avoid that for both of us. We also have to be careful about who accesses the property while a tenant is in place. Allegations of theft, harassment, etc. can be serious problems.

For these reasons, DPM only allows our employees and our approved vendors in a property while a tenant is in place. This ensures that our insurance will cover us if there is a problem with the tenant. We cannot allow real estate agents from other brokerages, vendors from outside our approved network, or other individuals into a house that a tenant is occupying.

This obviously makes property sales with a tenant in place very difficult. For these reasons, it is in our agreement that we are unable to manage properties that are placed on the market by another broker.

While a tenant is in place, the property would need to be listed for sale by DPM if you are in a situation and need to get the property sold before the tenant vacates. That way our employees can handle showings, inspections, etc.

Please let us know if you would like us to get your property listed for sale.

In the average month, DeSantis processes hundreds of work orders. The vast majority of these are pretty typical issues that we handle all the time (air conditioning/heating out, toilet running, turnovers between tenants, etc.). For that reason, we generally know what they're supposed to cost. When you handle dozens HVAC issues in a single month, you learn pretty quickly how much a reasonable cost is to replace a capacitor, do a Freon charge, replace a 2-ton unit, etc. Sending out these issues for multiple quotes obviously wouldn't make sense, for several reasons:

We see these same issues and bills over and over again from a variety of vendors, so we know who is charging fair prices already Vendors simply don't want to do free quotes, and they definitely won't do free quotes over and over again on the same issues for the same company just for different houses.

Generally, the same vendor will keep getting selected each time, because that's the vendor that provides the best price for the same quality of work, so the vendors who always bid higher figure out quickly that they won't get the job, and they stop participating in bids; eventually, you run out of vendors willing to give bids and you're just down to your usual vendor who gives you the best price for quality work.

That said, there are some limited circumstances where we will sometimes get multiple quotes. Generally, these are unusual cases that we don't see very often, and we don't know for sure which vendor will provide the best price and best work, or even what the appropriate price should be. In those cases, we will send it out for quotes and give you options. But again, those cases are rare.

Generally, we get estimates for repairs in the following circumstances:

Cosmetic repairs, such as exterior painting, landscaping, etc. Repairs that are recommended but are not required by law or the lease, such as a deck that is deteriorating but is still safe.

Large repair jobs that will take more than a month's rent to pay for, such as HVAC system replacement.

Repairs that have more than one option; for example, a vendor may provide an option to do a short-term fix that would resolve the problem for a year at a lower cost, but he might also provide an option for a permanent fix that would be much more expensive.

In these circumstances, we will usually have a vendor prepare an estimate for your approval. Our staff will send that estimate to you, and you can make a decision and let us know what you want to do. If we send you an estimate for a required repair (a furnace issue in the winter, for example), and we don't hear back from you after 72 hours, then we will have to make a decision. In that case, we will usually decide to do the least expensive repair, unless there are extenuating circumstances that make us feel that another option is in your best financial interest.