Okay. Somewhere on here I listed my saga with a specific Southport REA (aka PM) of a property (aka "Monaco Street" property).
Anyway, I received a letter from this specific REA a long time ago advising me that I owed a further four weeks rent on top of the three weeks rent I had already paid due to breaking lease.
Yes I had stopped paying rent due to financial difficulties. I couldn't afford to keep paying double rent any longer. I only signed the lease to the Monaco Street property under a mis-understanding anyway.
It was a huge huge mistake for me to have signed that lease. You could say I signed it under duress or whatever it is when someone signs something unwillingly.
Basically, I would never have signed this lease if I knew what I new prior to signing it. I never moved in nor lived in that Monaco St property.
Okay. I paid that amount ($1107.39) and have proof of the payment via my credit card statement. Thinking I was finally done with this whole saga I threw out the letter that stated this amount on it (I seriously thought I was done as I had paid what that letter said I owed).
I've been off-line due to moving to a new place and only received an email (no phone call, no letters in the mail) stating that I owed a further $1620.84 !!!!
Supposedly it DIDN'T take them an extra four weeks as I was under the understanding (due to the original letter I received and confirmation by that office via the phone as I rang that REA shortly after receiving that letter) … supposedly I didn't owe just $1,107.39 !! Supposedly it took them 20 weeks and 3 days to find a new tenant for the place I never lived within (and broke lease upon).
20 weeks and 3 days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Am I the only one dumbstruck it took them THAT long in THIS market?
I honestly feel that they are screwing with me. I can't afford to pay this.. I could only afford to pay the $1,107.39 !!*cries in frustration*
Should I take them to the tenancy tribunal? What can I do? I honestly was under the impression I owed only that $1107.39 !! I wouldn't make up such a specific figure if I didn't owe it!!!
I guess sadly they have no incentive to find a new tenant. While you are paying they can focus on other things. If you are paying for it, be sure you have full control over it. It is a very expensive lesson about maintaining personal records. Murphys law always comes back to bite you on the one peice of paper you throw out.
I hope it all turns around for you…somehow…
That's the thing… I was NOT paying on the Monaco Street property. I was under the impression due to the letter I received from their office and subsequently from them verbally as I rang shortly after receiving that specific letter to confirm that I owed that amount… I had ONLY just paid the other day (20th) the $1107.39 !! It took me forever to be able to save up that amount of money and pay it off.
Now I supposedly owe more?!?! I thought I only owed for four weeks rent that I had not paid on top of the three weeks rent I had already paid for that property?
Is there anything I can do on my end to find out whether I am getting screwed here or what???
If you want to know the name of this REA feel free to PM me. You can bet your bottom dollar I will never ever deal with this REA as long as I live and will make damn sure no one else does as well.
It took them 20 weeks and 3 days to find a new tenant?!?!?!!?
O.K I had a similar problem only I was the owner of the property, the tenants, knowing full well they were lockied into the lease until July (this was in January) bought a house, they then stopped paying rent. Being reasonable as they were still locked into the lease I said, fine, all I ask is you pay 8 weeks rent and you can be free of the lease (as the house was for sale and it would be harder to find a tenant for a house that was on the market).
Well they never paid it, I got behind in mortgage repayments etc because of this, we were struggling badly!
They then took US to the tribunal to get their bond back! Th e REA had informed me previously I would at least get that back…but nooooo….tenants cried financial hardship and their bond was released to them. During this time, the REA didn't even bother to let me know it was going to the tribunal etc….I would have been happy to write a letter stating we were in worse financial hardship over this, at least they weren't going to lose their house! Anyway, I went right off, the REA has now had to pay me at least the bond back out of their own pockets, but I am still $960 out of pocket for it! Plus all my overdue fees for the mortage being over due a few months!
Heck we bought that house when we were still in a lease and continued to pay rent until a new tenant was found (which I later found out they never even bothered trying to find since that house was also on the market)
We ended up selling the house 20K under market value just because we had no choice, it was that or let the bank do it!Moral, try the tribunal, they seem to favour tenants! It seems as though you (unlike my tenants) have been given the raw end of the stick.
Great news! I FOUND THE LETTER!!! It is ripped in half yet easily read-able still. It is dated 22 May 2007 and the amount it states that I owed at the time of that letter (btw, the ONLY communication until that email that I had ever received from them in all this time – no other letters, no other phone calls, etc) I owed $1092.96 !!!
I paid that (actually more than that) on 20th June.
Am I the only one who is dumbfounded it took them 20 weeks and 3 days in total to find a tenant for this particular property? Geeze.
I have an appointment with the TENANCY ADVICE AND ADVOCACY SERVICE in re my situation on Monday 2pm. I'll update more then.
I'm putting applications in to the Small Claims Court.
I am seeking an order for the termination of my tenancy agreement backdated to [date]. I never moved in to the property due to my circumstances changing. I signed 'Break Lease' documentation on [date]. [Property Manager] wrote to me on [date] stating I owed $1092.96 for rent, advertising etc. That was on top of my $960 bond which they had already claimed for rent etc. I was under the understanding that the re-letting matter and my liability was then finalised, some 3 months after the re-letting proces started. (I paid the $1092.96 on teh [date].)
Now I have received further correspondence stating I owe a further $1620.84 as new tenants have been found to move in on [date]. So in ttoal it appears that it has taken the agents 20 weeks and 3 days to re-let. I believe they ahve failed in their duty to mitigate loss. I have taken my responsibility seriously but think 20 weeks is excessive.
QUOTED WORD FOR WORD from what I shall be submitting to the Small Claims Court tomorrow (the documentation was done today). So now after I submit the documentation, I await a date and go from there. The PM has to proove that they did everything possible to try to re-let this specific unit.
If they posted a decent advertisement and took plenty of applications (or at least interest) then I will loose the case and have to pay up (and happily will do so). I will also loose if the "judge" is a by the book type of judge as such. I will win if the Judge agrees with me that 20 weeks is rather excessive a time for a place to be untenanted.
So this won't be resolved for another month or longer now. I did take it all seriously as I paid the $1092.96 as well as rent on the place and gladly gave up the bond..
Yes, I will be happy to pay the $1620 IF the ruling works out against me. Until then I want to try this action to see what happens.
This is all very intersting to me as I have never ever had to do this before and I feel this experience will serve me well in the future when I do become a landlord myself…
I'm not forgetting this whole experience in a hurry.
Okay, got an email back from the PM that I'm disputing with ….
Please find attached a copy of the list of advertising that was done trying to secure a tenant. The owner even agreed to drop the price of rent and offered 1 weeks free rent trying to help with securing a tenant. Under normal circumstances average vacancy period is 2 weeks, during the slower months which unfortunately is when you gave notice it can take upto 2 months for older style properties.
The advertising shows that it is listed:
SURFERS PARADISE
Party furn., 2 bed, 1 bath unit, 1 week rent free…. $230with other ads prior to the rent decrease and "1 week rent free" offer
SURFERS PARADISE
Partly furn., 2 bed, 1 bath unit, centrally located…. $240SURFERS PARADISE
SURFERS PARADISE
Partly furn., 2 bed, 1 bath unit, centrally located…. $250So it was basically a couple of lines of text amongst other lines of text (other properties). The $250 per week is what I was paying and have paid so far in re monies owed.
So according to them it is not "unusual" to have a property go for up to 5 months UN TENANTED ???
I know that all this might show that they tried to mitigate loss yet the 20 weeks and 3 days in total is still rather excessive overall.
I have to ask myself what is so wrong with the property that they had to drop the rent from $250 per week to $230 per week with one week rent free?
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in all of those advertisements only TWICE has it got the "OPEN FOR INSPECTION" listed. That's 11 advertisements with the property listed amongst other properties with the "open for inspection" note (in bold) in only two of them.
So does this mean they only had it open for inspection twice in all this time? They had the keys. I gladly gave them back as soon as I signed the break lease to PROVE I wasn't living there.
Hello GoldCoastGirl
I'm certainly interested as to what the outcome of your claim will be.
I agree that 5 months is an amazing amount of time for a residential property to be vacant unless it's overpriced, in the middle of nowhere or has some serious faults.Good luck with your claim (even though I am a landlord
)
ElkaThey had to drop the rent form $250 per week to $230 per week and offered one week's free rent to rent the unit after all this time. It's location isn't a hinderance as it is located CENTRAL Gold Coast just off the Gold Coast Highway. So I have to ask what faults were there with the property that made people not want to rent it ? I know that it didn't have a phone point and is rather small and has the laundry in the bathroom as such…. yet.. woha… 5 months.. that's 3 months (not one) over this particular PM's "normal" time.
Even two months if far too long IMO.
For those interested, my hearing date is August 6th @ 2pm. So it will be awhile before we all find out (including me) as to the verdict. I've taken this all very seriously and will honour the verdict if it does not rule in my favour. I'm preparing for it tho' (naturally) I want to win.
Well it is today at 2pm we all shall find out what happens!
I have been to the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Service locally. I've organised all paperwork on my end. I will (only if the PM does point out the advertisements as 'proof' first) point out that they only put in one advertisement for the month of April… and there are on inconsistencies in their advertising of the property.
I have my timeline done all correctly in table form on one piece of paper.
I wonder if they will bargain/negotiate with me prior to the actual hearing today? Granted, I have a figure in mind if they do want to offer me something. I'm willing to pay a certain amount by the end of October (due date) otherwise to court we go.
I'll post tomorrow or this week the result.
As a Landlord i would hate to have a tenant skip out on a lease, and not pay their contractual obligations.
but as a reasonable person I would most likely come to some agreement with them i.e forfeit the bond as compensation etc
At least with land lords insurance I would be covered and I always keep 3 months interest payments for any emergency.
I also agree 5 months to find a tenant is outrageous and seems like a nasty tactic by the Agent to screw you for the entire lease payment. about a week is the longest vacancy period I have ever had so FIVE months !!!!! no way I'd be looking for a new agent !
Put it behind you learn from it and take time to think if you were on the other side of the coin as an invester how would you feel to loose your loan payments or have the bank on your back for non payment ETC no one like to loose money they desperately need, be used or get ripped off..
tenant or land lord…
Lets hope the tribunal gives a balanced judgement and raps the agent on the knuckles for taking 5 months to re let the unit !
Seems some agents don't give a damn…We ended up settling and thus not really actually going ahead with the whole tribunal.
I'll be paying the 'debt' off in installments (an amount i know i can easily afford thus agreed to) over the course of 15 weeks.
Why? Well, they showed me more information about the whole she-bang and thus after seeing the information I didn't know about and being informed about it all… well.. it was plainly obvious to me that I had no chance in winning the case. They had valid reasons (and evidence) why it took them so long.
They actually had someone lined up in April to take on the lease except the person (at the last minute as such) decided to go with another property. Then the feedback they received from people inspecting the property (and they had inspections even on a Sunday for a few people) was valid as I knew the problems with the place.
I always took this whole deal seriously. I paid all monies owed up until this point. I adhered to being bound by the binding nature of the lease.
So they put it to me that I am allowed to pay the debt off in installments that I can afford per week (automatically debit-ed from my account starting Friday next week) instead of having to pay the whole $1620 (etc) off in one payment………. which was unaffordable for me.
So you could say I lost the case yet ultimately I just realised after being filled in on the whole deal that the $1620 (etc) is justified and actually this PM did do all they could at the time to try to get a tenant… it was just a not ideal unit and thus the unit itself worked against itself from being re-let easily.
So this whole saga and drama is over. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello GoldCoastGirl
Thank you for posting the results. I'm happy that you can now leave all the stress behind.
I'm glad neither of us owns that unit if it takes so long to rent each time.Good luck
ElkaFor the curious, here are some of the reasons (well the ones I remembered) that was given in feedback to the PM about the unit…. thus making the unit it's own worst enemy:
The only readily visible staircase is a spiral staircase at the "front" (or street end) of the property. People would only see and use this spiral staircase during inspections… some of them didn't see the straight stairs at the back of the units where they could easily move furniture into the unit.
The unit is partly furnished. Alot of people thought partly furnished meant that the bedrooms were furnished not just the living room and bits n pieces in the kitchen.
No phone point.
Whilst a washing machine was provided (part of the "party furnished" aspect) it was situated in the bathroom between the toilet and shower. Thus the "excess water" from the washing machine (tube) was pointed to empty into the shower… not the best look. It would've been better to just not have the washing machine in the first place (imo).
The spot where the person would be parking – the carport space alloted the unit – is on a vertical not straight. I can see how that can be a problem… it was for me!
Then the whole advertising "one week's rent free" in the advertisement was not exactly the best move marketing wise IMO. Whilst some people would see the word FREE and especially see that one week's rent is FREE in this supposedly tight competative rental market is a positive… I can easily see how this is a negative… there would've been people going "why are they offering one week's rent free for this property? what is so wrong with it?".
It actually took them 2 weeks less time than the 20 weeks and 3 days in total it took them to find a tenant. Just that the person taking on the lease needed to give his current place two weeks notice thus didn't want to take on the new lease after until his old lease had finished (after his two weeks were up) not during it.
Im still trying to work out why you thought you were 'special' and exepmt from paying what you legally agreed to in writting that you would have to?
OMG! You so have me wrong there buddy. I didn't think I was special by a long shot!
You may want to re-read the entire thread. I paid all monies I owed. I never asked for the bond back. I just thought 20 weeks and 3 days in total to find a tenant was a case of the PM being negligent in its duty to mitagate loss on my end.
Here we go I will spell it out for you
I wanted "an order made detemining that the outstanding monies of $1620.84 that I be not liable for due to believing [Property Manager] failed in their duty to mitagate loss."
Have I made my case clear-er?
Regardless, the past is the past. I settled and never went to "court" as such with them as they ended up proving to me that they in fact indeed tried to mitigate loss for me. I'm paying the debt off..
I never thought I was special. That's your judgement call not mine.
Glad you worked things out
You lost some money but you handled it well !
Shows charecter !!!
thank you !Hi Goldcoastgirl,
I think you've been very brave making this thread and then keeping us all up to date. Its not easy to admit when you've made a mistake but I'm sure you'll read the fine print next time!!
Every stumble is a chance to learn….
)
thank you !
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