Tenants evicted… now for the clean up

Hi BlackJack,

Do you have any insurance protection, for your property?

That would be the first step and start getting paper work and evidence together and ready to submit a claim.

Sorry not to give much help, but this would be the main priority.

cheers,
s.i.s

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[:0]Sorry you have had this experience.
I can possibly help with Tradespersons – suggest getting several quotes.

Also can suggest a top Property Manager pending where the property is exactly up here in Darwin.
Email me if you wish. Ill see what I can do to help.

Regards
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Hi Blackjack,

Sorry to hear about the problems you had. We had a similar situation about a year ago. Our tenant left but the place was left in an absolute state, fleas in he carpet due to the tenant owning a dog, dents in the internal plasterboard walls because the son played soccer indoors, broken windows due to the soccer games, etc. Our PM returned the bond before doing the inspection, so we were deeply out of pocket.

You can't reverse the situation but you can have a 'lessons learnt' session, look at what happened to get to where you are now, and if there's anything or any decisions you would do differently. Given what you've said, I'd have a serious look at getting a different PM. We went up to our IP in Queensland, got a list of rental property managers from the REI website (www.reint.com.au for the Northern Territory), a list of questions to ask them (think about what you want from a PM, and base your questions on those requirements) and phoned around for an hour or so. In our case the end result was a new PM that we've never had a problem with!

Sorry to hear about your misfortune mate

I've had experience with this sort of thing and can say the following:

It is necessary to have buffer money in the bank to be able to cope with costs and mortgage for about 6 months in case something like this happens.  That way if insurance is slow to pay out, you're still ok.

I have Landlord Insurance with Tenant Protection, and it's been fantastic.  It was about 5 months worth of lost rent they paid out, plus theft and any damages that could be described as "malicious". 

Take care during conversation with the insurance company – be polite and it's more likely the case manager will help you to the best of his/her ability.  Also take care when describing the nature of damage.  For instance, don't say "Oh the tenant's child appears to have damaged this" because this provides an easy out of "Oh well children aren't malicious, so we don't cover that".  Take care to explain, for instance, that it would appear that a hole has been punched in your wall either with a human hand or a hammer for no apparent reason.  The bottom line is, you were not there while the damage was being caused, and neither was the insurer.  It's a bit of guess work.  With some things, they'll happily accept your verbal explanation of what may have happened, backed up with photos to illustrate that the damage wouldn't normally occur during the normal use of a property.  In other cases, they might say "Get a tradie out to assess what he thinks occurred, and get him to note down what he thinks occurred on the quote.  If the damage is deemed malicious, we'll cover it – if it is deemed to be normal wear and tear, or poor housekeeping by the tenant, we won't."

oh Blackjack I only too well understand the anguish you have gone through.
We just extracted ourselves from a similiar story. Unfortunately as the tenant never paid bond (long story) our insurance was nul and void. Massive clean up and rubbish removal, holes in walls, broken windows and internal doors. Locks replaced, we have to store items left behind for 60 days (grrrrr don't get me started!!). Terrorised neighbours.
We have had no rent since xmas and have found it hard going as we just purchased a property and sunk all money into fixing it up – very bad timing.
In the end I negotiated with the tenant to drop the rent owing to get the house back – we could have requested an emergency VCAT hearing with security and the local police said they would execute the order of possession within 15mins. But this could have taken another plus week. If the court ordered for them to pay costs they would probably only repay at $10 a month. I still think we were very lucky in the end.
Our accountant has just put in tax variation forms for our salary tax to be dropped – wish I had of thought of this earlier on in the piece, we have always claimed at the eof the fy – which is going to help significantly

Maree – why'd you have to keep their stuff for 60 days?  Consumer Affairs turned up at my property and immediately said we could take the whole lot to the tip if we wanted to.

I am in Victoria also.

Might be worth asking them when you start counting the 60 days from.  From the date of forced eviction, or date up until the rent was actually paid for?…

Strange.  I definitely didn't hold my tenant's stuff for 60 days.  Perhaps Consumer Affairs considered it was stuff not worth storing hehehe.  Under what circumstances did your tenants depart?  Perhaps yours left a little earlier than mine did.  It took the full length of time and VCAT hearings to get rid of mine.  Eventually the locks were changed and they were told they no longer resided at the property, and could make an appointment with the agent to collect their "stuff".  Consumer Affairs turned up not long after (ie not 60 days) and said we could get rid of the stuff.  So I guess maybe close to 60 days would have elapsed between when I legally had "possession" of my own house, but the tenants were still in the place until eventually they were removed.

May be a property maintenance company can help your situation as you are remote.
http://www.greyarmy.com.au/?gclid=CLjQ6tyZ06ACFRTSbwod8WbIrw