Small Charge Dispute. Making Sure I’m Being Reasonable.

Location: Utah

We had our property management company come and repair a broken ballast on our staircase.

The technician that showed up was brand new, the one we were use to having had been promoted to manager all the properties.

When he was was repairing the ballast, he said “I noticed you had some lightbulbs out. I have bulbs in my truck, would like me to replace them for you?”, tone heavily suggesting it to be a courtesy.

We were surprised by the offer, as we have always taken care of those ourselves. We thanked him and said “sure! We would love that”

The next day, we got an $84 charge for replacing the 7 or so lightbulbs.

The lease agreement states we are responsible for general upkeep around the house and always understood that to include the lightbulbs. And for the 5 years we have been in the house, we always replaced the lightbulbs ourselves.

The lease does not, however, state they will charge us if they provide services for such tasks. Nor does it list charges for if the management company were to do it themselves.

FACTS UP TO THIS POINT:
- We agree with the property management company it is our responsibility.
- There is no listing of charges for services rendered by the management company
- The replacement of the lightbulbs was offered to us as a courtesy
- There was never any disclosure that we would be charged for the service

I’ve been going back and forth with the office on this and they keep stating “this is the responsibility of the tenant”, which I already told them I agree with, and that it isn’t what we are fighting. We are fighting the undisclosed charge for the service offered as a courtesy by the technician.

Additionally, the technician is arguing that we initiated the request, not him.

We offered to pay the material cost of the lightbulbs, but not whatever service charge they tacked on top.

This really just seems to be a misunderstanding of protocol on the new technician’s hiring.

Thoughts?

NOTE: there are a few lines in the lease that say things like “all service requests must be submitted through their portal” (which the light bulb repair was not). I don’t care to make this argument about technicalities in the lease… but should I start pulling that card if they are to keep going back to the agreement?