Age article about returning Bonds

[Hamsandwich]

Howdy gang,

Long time lurker, first time poster. There's an interesting article in The Age today from a tenant's perspective on how best to go about getting one's bond back. The comments as always are the most interesting and revealing part. http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/renters-getting-back-your-bond-20120706-21kl4.html

A couple of interesting comments that I wanted to get the community's opinion on. Some of the commenters claim that as a tenant it is not a good idea in the long term to challenge bond claims in VCAT (Victoria-centric article obviously) as they claim that even if you win at VCAT, the very fact you took the landlord/agent to that stage will mean you are discriminated against in future if you apply for rental properties. Ie. The agent/landlord will tell any parties enquiring about you in future that you were a bad tenant or at the least were recalcitrant.

What are your thoughts, would the fact that a prospective tenant had challenged a previous bond claim at VCAT or whatever the equivalent is, put you off selecting them for your property?

 

[Lil Skater]

One tenant I had in particular was in a dispute over their tenancy. Basically the property was in a disgusting state (due to repairs not being carried out) and the tenants decided to take the landlord to VCAT. They won the VCAT hearing but repairs were still not undertaken so they were allowed to break their lease without any lease break fees.

The family was lovely, when it came time to process their application it took two days to get ahold of the previous PM and when I did speak to them they tried to say the tenants were always behind in their rent etc. Little did they know the tenant had provided me a copy of their rental ledger as well as previous routine inspection reports, when I brought this up the PM said "oh, sorry I thought we were talking about a different tenant."

Anyway, I presented their application to the landlord and we decided to accept them. Some of the best tenants I ever had.