3 Steps To Recovery After A Storm Damages Your Rental Property

10/15/2021 (Permalink)

Contact the storm damages professionals at SERVPRO for 24/7 emergency services!

Knowing the best way to navigate storm damages to your rental property is essential, so your tenets stay happy and safe.

The professionals at SERVPRO of Union, Towns, Fannin & Gilmer Counties know how stressful it is to navigate a storm that causes damages, let alone ones that happen to a rental property. For anyone looking to recover from storm damages, we want to ensure that all members involved are safe, and that is why we put together the following blog post.

The best way to prepare is to have a plan in place before a disaster strikes, so you know how to navigate storm damages to a rental property. Continue reading if you are interested in the three most essential steps to take after a storm damages a rental property.

Communicating with your insurance company

Communicating with an insurance adjuster can be difficult right after storm damages occur to a rental property because the insurance company will be busy with multiple claims regarding storm damages in the area. Before your initial call with your insurance adjuster, you will want to:

• Describe the severity of the damage
• Note if the property is inhabitable
• Describe how it impacted the tenants and their belongings

3 Immediate steps directly after the storm damages

As a landlord of the rental property, it is your responsibility to contact your insurance company as soon as possible to start the claims process. Your insurer will most likely want to come out and assess the damages. To ensure that you are well prepared before the property inspection, you will want to take the following three steps:

1) Document the damages: Right after the storm has passed, the landlord's responsibility is to perform an initial inspection of the damages that occurred to the rental. The best way to get started will be by taking pictures and documenting what damages occurred to the rental property. The documentation will be helpful for not only your insurance company but also the restoration professionals you hire for repairs on your rental property.

2) Assess the needs of your tenants: Directly after storm damages, you will want to contact all the tenants that inhabit the rental property. In some cases, you may need to provide temporary housing accommodations if necessary for those who cannot live on-site due to damages. In the meantime, you should advise your tenets to make a claim with their renter's insurance so that they can recover any losses.

3) Avoid further damage: The best way to avoid further damages to a rental property is going to be by being proactive and noticing all compromised areas. Depending on the extent of the damages, you may need to further secure roof or siding damage with tarps and boards to avoid additional damages from occurring before repairs take place. In addition, if there is storm damage to electrical appliances, you should go ahead and shut off all electrical power to prevent any further damages. 

Getting an estimate

Estimating the cost of damages to the property and belongings inside the rental is critical in restoring your rental to its pre-storm condition. And no matter how much damage there is, you will want to hire honest and reliable restoration professionals. The restoration experts at SERVPRO can provide you with an estimate for damages and help make sure that everything is restored to its original state.

Please contact us today to learn more about how SERVPRO of Union, Towns, Fannin & Gilmer Counties can help you get back on track with the restoration process.

SERVPRO of Union, Towns, Fannin & Gilmer Counties is a professional remediation and restoration contractor that provides 24-hour emergency service. We are ready to respond immediately to your residential or commercial property for any water, fire, mold, storm damage, or repairs needs.