The management agreement gives us the authority to spend up to $300 per individual repair prior to needing to consult the property owner. This allows us to do our jobs without interruption and provide proper service to our residents. That being said, you will be informed right away when a work order has been issued so you are kept in the loop about all on-goings with your property.  Should the repair needed exceeds the repair limitation of $300 then we will contact you first for approval. This is where things can get difficult because, despite having veto power over a larger repair issue, you need to make the repair anyway. If someone rents a home with a dishwasher then it's expected that the dishwasher will work and, if it breaks, that it will be repaired. You can say "no" to larger repairs but your resident will also have a solid, lawful reason to terminate their lease. Once the repair is complete, the invoice will be paid out of our operating account and posted to your property account on our software system. You'll be able to see it in your account online as soon as it's posted. The funds for the repair will then be deducted from your next proceeds. If the amount exceeds the pending income, we will usually ask for payment in advance in order to keep your account in a positive status. Emergency repairs are handled differently. Standard repairs are only ordered from work orders submitted in writing by the tenant, whether at the office or online. They follow the procedure as detailed above. Emergency repairs don't require a work order and can be fairly common. Anything involving water penetration into the house (plumbing issues, leaky roof, improper drainage), AC in the summer, and heat in the winter are all considered emergencies. We will make every effort to contact the owner but it is very important to remember that 1) even if we can't make direct contact with the owner we will move forward with the needed repair and, 2) even if as an owner you don't want to perform the repair we are legally obligated to do so. Any of the above situations can be critical to the health of the occupant and must be dealt with quickly. Not only do the laws of the State Of Texas allow us to proceed with these repairs, they command us to. Please keep this in mind if there's ever an unexpected circumstance with your property. We will do everything we can to uphold your best interest, but sometimes that involves making the required investment in a needed repair. On that note, we do have an after-hours emergency line that affords tenants the ability to call in emergencies in the evenings and on weekends. While we can't always mobilize a repair crew outside of business hours, in many instances we can and will. Again, it has to be a legitimate emergency in order to rate this level of expediency. On the flipside, if we mobilize a crew and send the crew to a house because the tenant has reported an emergency outage only to find that it was a tripped breaker, we will bill that work order back to the tenant. We try to carefully evaluate every repair work order that comes through our office. We don't repair cosmetic issues during a tenancy. Moreover, even if it's a functional repair, we will evaluate whether or not it was caused by tenant neglect and/or misuse. If that's the case, then the tenant will be required to pay for the repair, not the property owner. What we want both parties to recognize is that your needs will be addressed timely and fairly.