Category: operations

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Handling Resident Disputes for Damage Charges

Damage caused by a resident, whether it be a hole in a bedroom door or a baseball through a living room window, is in almost all cases, billable to the resident.  Sometimes these charges can be assessed when processing a SODA at move-out while other times, this happens with a current resident household.

carpet damage

Below are a few helpful tips for assessing charges and dealing with residents that wish to dispute them.

When assessing charges be sure to:

-Document the event or damage thoroughly.  Pictures, Manager Log notes, and Maintenance Requests can all be useful tools.

-Notify the current/former resident of charges being assessed in writing.

-Be factual in your description of the charges, including dates, times, locations, etc.

-Address the damage promptly.  You do not have to wait for a resident to respond before fixing the damage.

 

Disputed charges:

-Residents do have the right to dispute charges assessed.

-Advise them to put their disputes in writing and send them to the Site Leasing Office.

-Disputes received on site should be reviewed and responded to by the property manager in writing.

-Managers should consult their property supervisor with questions.                          

 

If you have any questions, please contact your property supervisor.

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First of Month Bank Deposits

As a friendly reminder, the Real Estate Commission requires that all funds shall be deposited prior to the close of business of the third banking day following the date of the receipt of the funds into a Clients’ Trust.  To minimize risk, please ensure deposits are made each business day from the 1st through the 5th of each month.

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Seven Simple Secrets to Successful Advertising!

Don’t miss out on prospective traffic to your property!

Be sure your ads include the following:
1) Your Property Name
2) Property physical address (this engages the map function so they can see the location on a map)
3) Contact information: site management office phone number and e-mail address
4) Link to your property website:
www.cresapts.com/[fill in your property name}
5) Photos! People love being able to see what the apartment and the amenities look like, & it livens up the posting
6) Available kind of units – be specific on what kind of units are available
7) Price ranges for units available

Questions or need help?

Contact your portfolio supervisor or the Site Employee Resource Center (SERC) for help.

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Operations Calendar

In addition to the interactive calendar available on this website (https://cresapts.com/eexchange/calendar/), we have also uploaded the printable Outlook calendars into the eExchange filing cabinet.

To find these calendars, go here:https://cresapts.com/eexchange/filing-cabiinet/order-forms-2/administrative-forms/operations-calendar/

june calendar

These Outlook calendars can be printed for easy reference to keep in your office.  The website calendar provides hyperlinks to step-by-step training and helpful tips.

If you have questions about any of the items on the calendar or in the notes, please contact your AMSI peer trainer or your property supervisor.

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Month End Powersite Tips

Our favorite day is again upon us and we would like to take just a minute to provide you with this helpful reminder for making the most from your Month End Powersite transfer.

It is essential that we have the most complete, and up to date information before we run the transfer program so please take a few minutes to review the following before closing out the month.  Thank you all for your continued hard work each and every day!

Helpful hints for making the most from your Month End Transfer

Administrative Tasks

  • Make sure all your guest cards traffic and lease renewals have been entered for the entire period since your last month end transfer.
  • Make sure you’ve completed all move-ins, out’s, soda’s for the month and that all journals are posted.
  • If you have received any NSF returned checks or corrections from the central office please make sure these are posted and entered as well.
  • Please make sure to complete and include the Monthly Powersite Transmittal cover sheet before mailing in your month end packets.
  • Ensure all scheduled rent increases have been accurately entered
  • For Affordable properties – Ensure all scheduled rent adjustments for recertifications have been entered.

Financial Tasks

  • Run an Aged Delinquency report and make sure you’ve entered all payments correctly, that there are very few if any outstanding balances.  Company guidelines call for an Aged Delinquency of no more than 5% of your property, but this is more indicative of a maximum and there shouldn’t be anyone listed that owes us money longer than 30 days out.
  • Credits and balances for less than $15 can be adjusted off without further supervisory consent provided it is not a repeat adjustment for the same occupant and provided the adjustment is not to a Tax Credit, RD, Section 8, or HUD occupant.  These adjustments are not permitted at affordable housing communities.
  •  Deposit all laundry monies and any remaining checks/payments to the bank today and get them entered into AMSI before closing out.

Helpful Reports

  • Run and Exceptions Report (Reports and Inquiries, Audit reports, Exceptions) There shouldn’t be any exception notations listed except for those pertaining to units on notice.  If there are entries listed, follow the notations to clear up any related issues in AMSI before running Month end.
  •  Run a security deposit audit report (Reports and Inquiries, Audit reports, Security Deposit Audit Report).  The ‘On hand’ vs. ‘Required’ amounts should match.  If not, please contact the resident in questions and have them submit payment for the necessary amounts.

Thanks again and please contact your AMSI peer trainer or property supervisor if you have any questions.

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Move-Out Packet Distribution

Move-outs will result in either 1) the resident owing the property a balance or 2) the resident will be due a refund of their deposit. (RD subsidy is the only exception to this).

1. If a resident OWES a balance, the Resident copy of the SODA is mailed directly from the site office to the Resident. All other paperwork is placed in a Move-Out Envelope and mailed to the Site Employee Resource Center.
2. If the resident is due a REFUND, all of the paperwork should be placed in a Move-Out Envelope and mailed to the Site Employee Resource Center so that a check can be written immediately.

Please remember to be timely. There are laws in place that limit the time given for a refund to be disbursed.  To learn more about assembling a move-out packet, click here.

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Monthly Manager Report

We need your help!

The monthly manager report prepared at each site contains information critical to the timely reporting of financial results to our clients.  When a manager report for even one property is delayed beyond the end-of-day on the 5th calendar day of each month, our internal processes preclude us from being able to generate the final report required for ALL client reporting.    Said differently,  until the last Monthly Manager Report is received, no client reporting can begin.

Effective June 2013, we ask that managers make every effort to complete their monthly report in advance of the 5th day of the month following.  By attempting to prioritize your monthly report earlier in your month, the information you present will be more timely, more relevant and easier for us all to manage.

Goals for the completion of near term Monthly Manager Reports might be:

  • May 2013 Report: Before Wednesday, June 5th
  • June 2013 Report: Before the July 4th Holiday
  • July 2013 Report: Before the close of Business on Friday, August 2nd
  • August 2013 Report: Before Thursday, September 5th
  • September 2013: Before the close of Friday, October 4th
  • October 2013: Before the close of business on Tuesday, November 5th
  • November 2013: Before the close of business on Thursday, December 5th
  • December 2013: Before the close of business on Friday, January 3rd

One excellent strategy for making sure you stay well informed of deadlines such as these is to take a few moments (now!) to make notations on each of the above ‘goal dates’ on your office calendar.

We thank you for your attention to this reporting request as we understand the activity level at any given property tends to increase in many ways during the first few days of each month.

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Aged Delinquencies

Good Morning Managers,

This week please focus on your Aged Delinquency Report and close this month with the cleanest, smallest, shortest, most delightful Aged Delinquency Report E-V-E-R.

We encourage you to seize this opportunity and begin the effort right away and conclude before Powersite closes on May 21st.

Here are some strategies to consider:

  1. Collect balances due by knocking on doors and making demands for payments clear
  2. As an alternative to knocking on doors, the eforms website has a variety of notices and letters that may be appropriate in your effort to collect balances due.
  3. Process the final steps to declare a past move-out bill as ‘uncollectable’ by following write-off directions – click to read more about write off’s on the eExchange
  4. Clean-up small balance dues of $15 or less by completing the necessary ‘adjustments’ in AMSI Powersite
  5. Correct past Powersite posting errors which might have resulted in a balance due from a Housing Authority to exist but a credit to also exist for the same household on the “Resident Paid” portion of their account

Managers are asked to print an Aged Delinquency Report TODAY, to make all necessary corrections they can identify and comfortably collect, and then submit an updated Aged Delinquency Report to the central office by the CLOSE OF BUSINESS TOMORROW.   At their discretion, your Supervisor will either contact you directly or will request that an AMSI Help Desk Manager contact you directly to work through other adjustments and corrections necessary.  So that the records you provide are as informative as possible, prior to faxing your Aged Delinquency Report to your supervisor later today, please make notes on EACH AND EVERY PAST DUE account in the margin of that report so we understand the status.

Remember, if you have technical questions about cleaning up your Powersite your AMSI Help Desk is an available resource.  If you are unsure who your assigned helpdesk is follow this link to the eExchange.

Aged Delinquency Reports shall be faxed to 503.450.0241.

We thank you for your focused attention!

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Incident Reporting

The purpose of completing an INCIDENT REPORT is to notify our insurance carrier of an event at your property, and to create essential records that provide details of significant or serious events which occur at a property.

The Incident Report (form C360) can be found on eforms.  This form should be completed with all pertinent information and forwarded to Laura Mather or your property supervisor as soon as possible following a qualifying event.

Qualifying events that should prompt an Incident Report include:

  • Any event which occurs on property and that results in an injury to any person — resident, guest, visitor, vendor or employee.
  • Any event resulting in substantial property damage.  Examples include but are not limited to:
    • Fire
    • Flood
    • Carport damage
    • Substantial resident damage to an apartment.  Example:
      • Resident does not report to management office that their toilet overflowed.  When management discovers the issue, it is 2 days later- the apartment is flooded resulting in the need to replace carpet, other flooring and interior saturated wallboards.  Costs for repairs exceed $4000. This is a reportable event even though the resident will likely ultimately be responsible for the repair costs.
  • Damage to property from weather related events.  Example:
    • Windstorm blows limbs from trees that damage roof on three buildings
  • Vandalism

The Incident Report is typically completed by the site manager, but can be completed by any member the site staff.

For reference, see Chapter 9 from your Operations Manual.  If you have any questions, please contact your property supervisor.