Maintenance Ticketing and Rent Reductions
- info6040917
- May 2
- 3 min read
As the Landlord, there are certain maintenance and repair items that are deemed to be your responsibility to remedy. Those items are determined by the language in your Lease Agreement and can vary in each lease.
Receiving a Ticket
Dollar General will notify the Landlord when maintenance items arise by submitting a ticket both through email and by USPS certified mail. The Landlord must then make the requested repairs in a reasonable time frame, which is within 30 days. It is highly recommended, upon receipt of the ticket, to reach out to the contact person named on the ticket and communicate an action plan. This will make the tenant aware that you are going to be completing the repairs so they do not send their own vendor out and charge you for it.
Tenant Follow-up
Each week following the initial ticket, the tenant will send reminders by email and certified mail. The second and third notices will be simple reminders and restate everything in the initial ticket. If the Landlord fails to respond to the notices or to complete repairs within the allotted timeframe, they will receive a Proceeding Notice, which will state the Landlord is in default of the lease and that the tenant is completing the repairs as allowed under the Lease.
Emergency Maintenance
In some cases deemed as emergencies, the tenant will only notify the landlord of their intent to complete repairs. This generally happens when a store is without working HVAC or toilets. For the safety of their customers and employees, Dollar General will move forward with emergency repairs and notify you by sending an emergency letter via certified mail. In these cases, that letter is the only notice you will receive.
Closing a Ticket
If the Landlord completes the repairs within that time frame, they can close out the ticket by sending notice to the tenant. This can be done in two ways:
Emailing the Lease Coordinator directly (Their contact info will be on all notices)
Respond to the contact that sent the initial ticket via email (this will vary depending on store territory) with the following information:
Dollar General Store #
Store Street
Store City
Store State
Repair(s) Completed
Additional Comments
Your Name
Business Email
Business Phone
Rent Reductions
In the event the landlord is unable to complete their repairs in the allotted time frame, Dollar General will exercise their rights under the Lease Agreement and move forward with their own vendor to complete repairs. This will incur a rent reduction.
When a ticket comes up at your store, you, as the landlord, have 30 days to resolve that issue. Typically, this would involve finding a vendor and paying them yourself to go out and complete the repairs. However, what happens when you aren’t able to find the right person for the job?
The good news is that Dollar General has the right to find their own vendor, so the issue will be fixed. The bad news is that the cost of that vendor will then come out of the rent that your store pays you every month.
Example:
Let’s say you own a Dollar General that pays you $5,000 a month in rent. The store tell you that there’s a plumbing issue, and that you contractually have 30 days to fix it. For whatever reason, you are not able to find a plumber within that time. Dollar General then finds someone to do the repairs, and the cost is $1,000. They will deduct that $1,000 from your rent, meaning that this month you will only receive $4,000 from your store.
The vendor that Dollar General chooses is typically not the cheapest, so it is in your best interests to find a vendor to complete the repairs within the 30-day period.