Writing a business letter to secure tenant reimbursement for building improvements

Narrative Essay

One of the things that occurs commonly in real estate is that there are upgrades that need to be made to buildings. Sometimes this is just getting the building up to code, and other times a new business takes over a building and wants to renovate it to suit their needs. Whatever the reason, when a tenant does work on a building that alters it, typically there is an opportunity for reimbursement, because the building is being improved, and ultimately the landlord will also benefit from those improvements. This is especially the case for work that make repairs or otherwise brings the building up to code. Writing letters to get this reimbursement is an important task for a company. First, there is a deadline for the letter to be submitted. If you do not submit the letter on time, you will not be eligible for reimbursement. Second, the letter must illustrate how the work done improves the building. If the work done does not result in improvements to the building, then the landlord does not have to reimburse. It is normal practice to discuss such work with the landlord ahead of time, and often there needs to be a permitting process that the landlord is involved in, but nevertheless there are situations where the landlord may wish to avoid this reimbursement. For the tenant, making sure that the letter is written correctly, and submitted on time, becomes a business imperative, and this imperative increases the higher the dollar value on the work becomes. It is against this backdrop that I arrived in my office a bright Tuesday morning in October. I was feeling good – lots of energy at the start of the week, and things were going well. I opened my email to see that one of the tenants was panicking a bit. They were having trouble getting the reimbursement from the landlord, and could I help? I called the tenant to get more details. They told me that they had forgotten to submit the reimbursement request right away, and then hastily submitted one that omitted key details. Now they were past the deadline for submissions and the landlord was refusing the deal with the issue. This is where one needs to exercise some skill in writing a business letter. The basic letter for reimbursement is basically a form letter, but when you forget to include some elements, it can lead to problems. So my job now was to write a letter to the landlord to convince them that it was in their best interests to reimburse the tenant and move on from this situation. First, you have to address the letter to the right person. In this case, there is the person who normally handles reimbursement requests, but this situation required escalation. We knew who the boss was, and addressed the letter there for action – you send the letter to the person with the authority to solve the problem that you have. Second, you need to write the letter in a professional tone, and explain the issue carefully and clearly. This was accomplished by gathering all of the relevant facts, including the normal cost of litigating such a situation. You do not need to include all of this information in the letter, but you need to understand the position from which you are bargaining. In this case, we knew that because the original letter was sent before the deadline, that the tenant had started the process and we could take the issue to court. Going to court would cost the landlord potentially much more than if they just reimbursed the tenant. So knowing that helped. But business communication always should be done with supporting research and facts, to ensure utmost professionalism. We established prior to writing the letter what we wanted to accomplish. Over the course of the letter, we details the facts, and then at towards the end of the letter, we presented the landlord with our proposed resolution. Framing this was quite important. The case that we had outlined framed the resolution as the best case scenario for the landlord, and this helped make the letter more convincing. The landlord agreed to our proposal and ended up reimbursing the tenant for the work. Initially, they had been reluctant to do this, but the letter laid out the facts in such a way that convinced them it was in their best interests to simply make the reimbursement. The letter worked because it had a clear objective, was straightforward in its presentation of the facts, and made a convincing case. One of the best uses for business communication is to work out deals. When you are faced with a challenging situation, you want to use the power of written communication to deliver the best possible outcome. It is easier when you take the time to organize and structure your thoughts, have a specific objective in mind, and then make sure that the writing itself is completely professional. The tenant was frustrated and angry, for example, but we did not wish to show that in the letter. Instead, we wanted to convey our position with confidence, and portra that the tenant and landlord had mutual interests in the matter. By shaping the argument in such a way that the landlord and tenant had their interests aligned, we were able to bring about swift resolution. This is the sort of value that a good business letter can provide to an organization. The outcomes are better for all parties. This event was significant because we had experienced difficulties in the past with tenant-landlord disputes over money. There are often misunderstandings about the issue of reimbursement when the two parties initially agree that work will be done. This letter had a positive impact on the organization because it became the blueprint for how we would resolve disputes going forward. We still use the same arguments and framing structure today when we want to bring an issue to a swift resolution. This type of effective communication can make a big different to organizational performance, and to client trust.