My tenant in WA has now vacated and says he is suing me for all expenses that were applied against his bond plus for extra stress as a neighbour placed drugs in the shed which caused him to be harrassed by police, etc,etc. As it's totally outragous, will a court order end this dispute? I'm in the process of changing property managers so will that affect my case as it hasn't been heard yet?? Any recommedations/past experiences of paperwork I should get together before court?? I have some weird emails from tenant, can they be used as evidence? It's been 2 months since they left, looking forward to ending the dispute. The bond hasn't been distibuted yet as he is contesting it.
Read your contract (fine print) with your managing agent, meet with your solicitor and don't take any other action until you have done this.
I assume you have building with landlord insurance coverage. If so you should also have public liability coverage too.
Dispute over bonds will be heard by the relevant authority. If your property manager has good reports, pictures etc to prove why the bond (or part thereof) was retained the tribunal should rule in your favour.
Exactly how are you supposed to be liable for the neighbour placing illegal substances in the shed in your property? Me wonders how the tenant didn't know about the drugs in the shed or why they didn't report the matter to police. A colleague in crime perhaps?
Recommendations
Keep good records.
Make sure your have copies of your PCR & each quarterly inspection report and photos all filed and in order.
Retain copies of all correspondence with your PM.Then sit back – chill out & wait for papers to be served. Your tenant could be playing the diaffected tenant threatening you with everything under the sun in order to get their money back. Sometimes loss of money does strange things to people.
A question – how did the tenant get your email address? I take every step possible to ensure my identity is not known to my tenants. You employ a property manager to be your 'go between' – they should be dealing with the tenant and not you.
I was self-managing over a year ago before I employed PM's.
Im a PM in NSW so rules in WA will differ slightly, but in NSW you can represent yourself at Tribunal so I recommend you do that – the new PM wont be much help if they dont know the history anyway.
You will need to show the ingoing condition report and the outgoing report (or just a list of things that were different when tenant moved out), photos will help too.
Then, if you are claiming repairs or damages you may have to provide quotes (in NSW we need 2 quotes) or invoices if the work has already been done. You may also have to prove the age of the items in question ie. the Tribunal rules that carpets have a 10 year lifespan so any damage done to a carpet can only be claimed if you can show they are less than 10 years old – if they were 5 years old and the tenant had damaged them to the point they need replacing you may be awarded 50% of the cost.Thanks Victoria, some good points there and I do have some copies of other quotes I obtained myself that I should dig up. It would be way too difficult to attend court as I'm living 5 hours flight away.
Might be something of use to you at this website too.
Thanks Derek!
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