An important part to any housing community are the condo boards and management companies. But what’s more important is the relationship between these two entities.

When you have property managers disappointing tenants, the relationship can be difficult to re-pair or remain united. All of this makes daily responsibilities difficult for every party involved if it comes to that.

Because keeping everyone happy in this type of relationship is so important, here are a few methods that you can use to strengthen the relationships between everyone. These methods can ensure you don’t run into worst case scenarios and can allow parties involved to work as allies rather than opponents.

Setting Clear Policies And Expectations

Clarity is an obvious thing to aim for in any situation. Be sure that applies to everything from the roles, responsibilities, to the processes. You want these to be outlined and clear as soon as you have a partnership with a property management company.

What this does is it allows both parties to refer back to documentation in the event that things weren’t clear or there is a dispute. Having it all laid out removes any confusion. Beyond that, it also reduces either party ever stepping out of line since both teams know where the line is and what might happen if it’s ever crossed.

Furthermore, you want your initial meeting to be clear as well. Be sure that they include the following points:

• Who is responsible for enforcing bylaws and regulations
• How you handle budget negotiations
• How you negotiate and approve vendor contracts
• What sort of emergency response plans are in place and the processes involved
• Expectations and methods for communication

Whether you’ve been working with a condo management company for a while or not, you can always ask them to schedule a meeting to evaluate any existing processes or make improvements at any time you’d like.

Hosting A Tenant BBQ Or Other Social Gathering

You may have to take some measures with this during the midst of a pandemic, however social gatherings are always a way to bring communities together. Especially if the organizers join forces to bring this together.

Whatever kind of event you are planning on doing, ask your property management business to pitch in however they can. This can be providing food, entertainment, and interacting with ten-ants during the event.

Doing something like this allows the opportunity for people to start seeing eye to eye and be able to connect. On top of that tenants themselves will appreciate the gesture of food and having a fun time.

Having Methods Of Convenient Communication

While we live in an age of instant communication, there can be times where you are playing tag with one another through traditional methods. It can be a huge inconvenience in most situations, but it’s worse when it involves condo boards and the management company you’re with.

You can still use email and texting, but it might be smart to also provide a web portal or some other online communication platform. These are powerful as it allows you to catch unanswered calls or miscommunication and solve it quickly.

Better yet, many of the modern platforms like this send notifications directly to mobile devices once a message is received. It’s a great feature for property managers who are busy. Furthermore, those same platforms can offer video call and voice note capabilities.

Some of these platforms to look at are Flock, Slack, and Asana. On top of that, these can also improve your own productivity. Take a look at those and make sure you do some research to see which one will best fit your needs.

Having A Welcome Package For Any New Tenants

The biggest complaint from tenants against the condo board or management company stems from lack of clarity. The chances of that complaint occurring are higher in cases where new tenants move into a condo and don’t get any kind of introduction to the property management team or the condo association.

To solve this, either meet tenants in person or consider putting together a welcome package. In every package be sure to cover the most common concerns. These would be things like:

• Steps to take during the event of an emergency. This should include point of contacts too.
• Policy regarding pets.
• What kind of monthly condo fees are involved and how the tenant can pay them.
• Policy on visitors and parking.
• Options regarding garbage and recycling removal.

Again, you want to be clear and upfront about everything. If all of this is made obvious then new tenants are less likely to be caught off guard or out of the loop in case something happens.

Never Take Things Personally

Even with all of these practices, there are going to be times where people won’t see eye to eye on certain issues. This is part of the course. However, you have the choice of patching things up or making the situation worse. Not taking those situations personally is one way of patching things over.

How you can do that is to remind yourself that everyone involved is there to do their job the best they can without stepping on everyone’s feet in the process. With this in mind, don’t let differences of opinion become unprofessional altercations. Instead, aim to find some kind of common ground as most people are willing to budge on occasion if it comes to that.

Building Trust Between Takes Time

Like any relationship, it takes time and effort to grow and strengthen them. With these methods, you can ensure more positive interactions between both parties and overall better living experiences for all tenants.

Does your Condo Board need to work with a new Management Company?

Prince Property provides management functions for Condominiums in Edmonton Alberta, and the surrounding areas.  If your Condominium operation needs a Management Company – we’d love to talk to you.

Contact us Today!