Pro­tect your prop­erty from vi­o­lent crime

Lesotho Times - - Property -

De­vel­op­ments with­out ad­e­quate se­cu­rity mea­sures or prop­erly screened res­i­dents are fall­ing vic­tim to on-prop­erty of­fenses. sim­ple safety mea­sures and pre­cau­tions can be taken to en­sure that your neigh­bours and res­i­dents are safer in their homes, and that your prop­erty man­agers have all of the in­for­ma­tion needed when mak­ing leas­ing de­ci­sions. some items to con­sider are: does your prop­erty have se­cu­rity cam­eras? If not, is the area out­side well-lit?

If the en­trance is not gated, and there is not money in the bud­get to do so, how are the in­di­vid­ual locks kept up-to-date? Do man­agers hold com­mu­nity meet­ings to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on how res­i­dents can pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies? Us­ing your com­mu­nity to help re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­ity, and fol­low their in­stincts can be greatly ben­e­fi­cial.

Other items to be aware of: l Watch out for gross in­con­sis­ten­cies in ap­pli­ca­tions l Watch out for Fri­day af­ter­noon ap­pli­cants who say they must move in that very week­end l Cre­ate a Guest visi­ta­tion pol­icy l main­tain the com­mu­nity’s com­mon ar­eas l Know your res­i­dents l Cre­ate House Rules — i.e.: cur­few, laun­dry room and pool op­er­at­ing hours

Com­mu­nity meet­ings to ed­u­cate res­i­dents prove ex­tremely ben­e­fi­cial in bring­ing aware­ness to the fam­i­lies af­fected by on­prop­erty crime. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is key, as well as be­ing prop­erly in­formed. lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers work to­gether with prop­erty man­agers and own­ers to help ed­u­cate on proper crimepre­ven­tion tech­niques such as: prop­erly screen­ing ap­pli­cants; build­ing de­sign changes that can dis­cour­age crime; and man­ager and com­mu­nity aware­ness train­ing.

In most cases the po­lice are more likely to rec­om­mend rent­ing from a prop­erty that has com­pleted and im­ple­mented the pro­gram, as they know it is more likely to be a safer al­ter­na­tive. even if your prop­erty is lo­cated in what you deem to be a safe neigh­bour­hood, it only takes one bad egg to com­mit a crime that can ruin the rep­u­ta­tion of your com­mu­nity.

many crimes com­mit­ted may not even be from the res­i­dents them­selves, but from unau­tho­rized guests or room­mates. proxy renters are also an is­sue, as they are renters with ex­cel­lent credit whose name is used on the ap­pli­ca­tion and lease doc­u­ments, but who rent on be­half of some­one else who ac­tu­ally moves in to the res­i­dence, such as drug deal­ers, sex of­fend­ers and sex traf­fick­ers.

Re­mem­ber that any process put in place should be ap­plied across the board with ev­ery ap­pli­cant, not just the ones that you think might be prob­lem­atic. An­other key to pro­vid­ing a safe com­mu­nity is to per­form due dili­gence with all of your res­i­dents.

How of­ten do you fol­low up with ref­er­ences, or even ask for ref­er­ences from your prospec­tive res­i­dents? more im­por­tantly, what steps do you take to ver­ify the ref­er­ences that are given are the ac­tual pre­vi­ous land­lords and/or man­agers? A phone call can make the dif­fer­ence and help you in your leas­ing de­ci­sions.

there are also on­line data­bases that are able to track lease vi­o­la­tions, prop­erty dam­age, skips, and evic­tions to bet­ter pre­pare screen­ers for what pre­vi­ous man­agers and land­lords dealt with in the past.

Re­mem­ber to run a crim­i­nal back­ground check in ad­di­tion to a credit check, and make sure that wher­ever you are re­ceiv­ing your in­for­ma­tion from is Fair Credit Re­port­ing Act com­pli­ant. Af­ter pro­tect­ing the safety of ev­ery­one in­volved in your prop­erty, other is­sues to con­sider that can be caused by on­prop­erty crimes are: de­cline in prop­erty val­ues, the costs from a bad res­i­dent (re­pair, evic­tion) and the loss of val­ued res­i­dents.

Re­mem­ber — com­mu­ni­ca­tion, education and shared in­for­ma­tion are all key aspects of mak­ing your in­vest­ment prop­erty as safe as pos­si­ble for ev­ery­one who lives and works there. there are so­cially re­spon­si­ble com­pa­nies out there who want to help pro­tect your com­mu­ni­ties, and your in­vest­ments.

— mul­ti­hous­ingnews.com

Most bur­glar­ies are re­sults of less se­cu­rity mea­sures and for­get­ing to lock some of the back-doors.

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