Tropical Felgate

Dear Vacation Rental Property Owners,
Due to some changes in the security situation in Playas del Coco and some recent developments and increase of rentals in general; we have to implement some changes to our Rental Management Agreement.

Those changes do not affect our rental rates or our level of commission on the rental income. We are just trying to enforce more strictness in handling the keys for the property by the owners and the Administrators due to the fact that Coco in general had suffered a string of burglaries and break-ins into the properties and cars during last month (over 20).

Two of our properties suffered break-ins where "no forced entry" was recorded by the Police.

You know that most of the units with the sliding doors are very easy to access by simply sliding the glass door up and sideways, so we simply secured all ground floor sliding doors by metal screws from inside the unit to prevent opening the back doors.

As our popularity grows among the property owners we receive more and more requests for rental management and property management which is a good thing. We have a lot more units in our rental management than two years ago and now are among the 3 biggest rental management companies in Coco

Unfortunately, some of the owners are trying to use our rental management service as a simple concierge service expecting us just to look after their units and do occasional cleanings. Please try to understand that that's not what we do on a rental management agreement where all those services are included in the commission we charge you.

We DO NOT make money just on the property management or Concierge service. We make money only on rental management and a very simple rule is - If we do not generate rental income for you, we do not make commission for ourselves.

Requests for Concierge service are becoming very frequent, especially after the last year very wet rainy season when the owners realised that, if the property is not cleaned and aired at least once a month or every two weeks for October, you end up with a nasty mould growing on all wooden, fabric or leather furniture or walls which is very hard to get rid of and very often it ruins the furniture or walls have to be cleaned up, treated with the bleach or anti-mould liquids and repainted and that costs quite a lot.
We are thinking about providing this service separately from rental management service at a fixed monthly or quarterly charge.

Another issue which bothers me is the trust between the owner and the administrator...
As most of you now I had to start rental management side of the business back in 2006 because I was royally screwed by a couple of rental managers with my own properties.
Most of you probably went through the same process...

It's hard to find a good property manager anywhere in the world and in Costa Rica in particular. It's hard to find even a good cleaning lady who would do a proper job in Costa Rica!

When you found one, you should try to work with them and try to make your and their life easier.

The trust between the manager and the owner should be if not complete, then as close to it as possible.

Both parties should remember that it takes some time to get a good reputation, but it takes a split second to loose it...

We are trying to generate for you enough rental income so that your property would pay for itself and to give you some cash income. You should remember that rentals are very seasonal in Costa Rica and rental rates differ accordingly. Sometimes we have to go down on the rates in slow seasons, but we rent your units not just for the sake of it, we rent them to make money for you and commission for us. You remember the rule? If you don't make money, we don't make our commission! So, you have to trust us on that.

Unfortunately, a few of the owners try to avoid our 10% commission charge when they find the tenant, saying that they have friends or relatives coming to stay for a few weeks, so that we charge only cleaning fees.

I don't really know what to say to those people...
Please do not take us for slow wits...Please remember - people talk...Don't loose your reputation and our trust over a few extra dollars...

That's why we inserted a new paragraph on termination of the rental management at a very short notice by any of the parties due to gross negligence or breach of the agreement and we'll be terminating agreements with a few owners shortly.

I hope the above comments explained our changes in agreement and we expect you to carefully read the new wording of agreement which is attached to this message and, if you agree with it, print out the agreement, sign it, scan and email back to us by the end of April 2012.

If we did not receive a signed new wording of the agreement from you by the end of April, our agreement with you will be terminated by May 9, 2012.