Well the rent and bond can't be retained by the LL without a proper legal basis.
Even on a termination for breach, there has to be damages arising from the breach.
Friend AirBnB'd her rented place, PM found out, received 48 hour kick out notice
- Thread starter DavidMc
- Start date
Well the rent and bond can't be retained by the LL without a proper legal basis.
Even on a termination for breach, there has to be damages arising from the breach.
Fixed lease or periodic?
On what basis would the PM hold the bond and months of rent?
If they want to evict her, I don't think they say that she break the lease and therefore need to pay till date of the contract. Landlord want her out, then she need to pay until the day she's out and hand over the keys, not anything more - that's my perception anyway.
On what basis would the PM hold the bond and months of rent?
If they want to evict her, I don't think they say that she break the lease and therefore need to pay till date of the contract. Landlord want her out, then she need to pay until the day she's out and hand over the keys, not anything more - that's my perception anyway.
Various crying game 6.30 nightly tv shows would love a story like this ,,48 hours no way ,,the PM here and depending on what is in the lease,as there would be some clause to cover this the PM may well be standing on thin ice..
Periodic - due to end in Sept.
I can't think of any.
Question - What do people think about paying the pro-rate re-letting fee?
DMc,
"Periodic" = month by month (no lease period)
So periodic ending Sep doesn't make sense....
The Y-man
David, give me a call tomorrow morning if you want to talk further - but by the info given this is my advice....
Your friend shouldn't have sub-let the property, but the landlord cannot reasonably withhold consent. Ie. If it's a two bedroom apartment, it's reasonable for your friend to be allowed another person in the property.
Linky
Beyond that, the landlord can give a notice to vacate (yes, the Victorian legislation basically contradicts itself depending on how you read it) but it must be no less than 14 days. That's 14 days plus postage, so by my calculations the tenant would need to be out around the 19th/20th May.
Link for good measure.
Rent is only payable up until the vacate date. The 48 hours is well and truly illegal, so let's go by the legal time frame and call it 20th May.
NTV served to expire 20/05, but tenant hands back keys prior to this date. The tenant is responsible for rent until the 20/05 - unless the landlord agrees to refund to the day keys are returned (unlikely). Any refund of rent, or calculation of rent due is done on a daily basis.
Tenant is not responsible to pay any break lease costs as the owner has terminated the tenancy.
The bond follows the same process as usual. Once keys are back it must be refunded to the tenant within 10 business days or the agent needs to apply to VCAT to claim costs/extend the time in which they have to claim.
If your friend is happy to leave, then I'd let it be and just get all her stuff out and clean up the property. BUT make sure she knows that she has the right to a refund on rent and bond as per usual, and that the situation doesn't change the fact she is entitled to her hard earned cash back.
If needed your friend may need to apply to tribunal herself to have the rent refunded, depending on whether the agent cooperates or not. I would expect the agent to cooperate as if this got to tribunal not only would your friend get all her money back, but the agent will get in a lot of trouble.
It annoys me that there's still so many agents/agencies that circumvent the legislation, this agency should be reported for their behaviour. I'm sure the landlord is pretty upset, and I would be too, but doing the dodgy is never the right way of going about things.
Your friend shouldn't have sub-let the property, but the landlord cannot reasonably withhold consent. Ie. If it's a two bedroom apartment, it's reasonable for your friend to be allowed another person in the property.
Linky
Beyond that, the landlord can give a notice to vacate (yes, the Victorian legislation basically contradicts itself depending on how you read it) but it must be no less than 14 days. That's 14 days plus postage, so by my calculations the tenant would need to be out around the 19th/20th May.
Link for good measure.
Rent is only payable up until the vacate date. The 48 hours is well and truly illegal, so let's go by the legal time frame and call it 20th May.
NTV served to expire 20/05, but tenant hands back keys prior to this date. The tenant is responsible for rent until the 20/05 - unless the landlord agrees to refund to the day keys are returned (unlikely). Any refund of rent, or calculation of rent due is done on a daily basis.
Tenant is not responsible to pay any break lease costs as the owner has terminated the tenancy.
The bond follows the same process as usual. Once keys are back it must be refunded to the tenant within 10 business days or the agent needs to apply to VCAT to claim costs/extend the time in which they have to claim.
If your friend is happy to leave, then I'd let it be and just get all her stuff out and clean up the property. BUT make sure she knows that she has the right to a refund on rent and bond as per usual, and that the situation doesn't change the fact she is entitled to her hard earned cash back.
If needed your friend may need to apply to tribunal herself to have the rent refunded, depending on whether the agent cooperates or not. I would expect the agent to cooperate as if this got to tribunal not only would your friend get all her money back, but the agent will get in a lot of trouble.
It annoys me that there's still so many agents/agencies that circumvent the legislation, this agency should be reported for their behaviour. I'm sure the landlord is pretty upset, and I would be too, but doing the dodgy is never the right way of going about things.
Would AirBNB and not being able to vet the potential renters be classed endangering the neighbours?
Further, is there anything about changing the class of the property from standard residential to boarding house situation? Health/Fire code?
And does it allow immediate eviction or 'evacuation'?
No.
No, renting out a place short stay doesn't change the class of a property.
There's no such thing as immediate eviction or evacuation. You always need a court or tribunal order, and generally the applicable notice period before the application.
While I do not know the Vic legislation, however I believe that if a breach was committed, a breach notice is all that could have been issued. Should the breach not have been rectified, then application to terminate the tenancy could then be applied for in the Tribunal. I am not aware that anyone can arbitrarily terminate a tenancy.
Thank you Skater (and everyone else) for the information. Kudos 
She's already half moved out and the other half will be today.
Fingers crossed in light of the illegal 48 hour eviction claiming the bond, the rent in advance and no re-let fee should be smooth sailing.
Right now the PM has not been responding to calls and emails - the old silent trick. I will persist.
We need the NTV as she needs it to exit her internet and utility contracts without penalty, although perhaps the PM is trying to finish it up without issuing one (as they can't legally write it)?
She still has the keys and plans to hand them in today, although I'm not sure if she should do this until the situation is resolved (or at least the PM has responded in some way - the only communication we've had so far is the 'you've got 48 hours to get out' phone call on Thursday). We don't want to hold the keys but we'd prefer to sort this out with them rather than have to take things further.
She's already half moved out and the other half will be today.
Fingers crossed in light of the illegal 48 hour eviction claiming the bond, the rent in advance and no re-let fee should be smooth sailing.
Right now the PM has not been responding to calls and emails - the old silent trick. I will persist.
We need the NTV as she needs it to exit her internet and utility contracts without penalty, although perhaps the PM is trying to finish it up without issuing one (as they can't legally write it)?
She still has the keys and plans to hand them in today, although I'm not sure if she should do this until the situation is resolved (or at least the PM has responded in some way - the only communication we've had so far is the 'you've got 48 hours to get out' phone call on Thursday). We don't want to hold the keys but we'd prefer to sort this out with them rather than have to take things further.
Well yeah if your friend hands in the keys now, she risks the PM turning around and alleging a break lease situation.
The PM is probably having to back peddle because there is no notice to vacate...
I would also add to what joanmc says that if she gets her pre-paid rent and bond back, she will hand in the keys and will not report the PM for breaching the law.
Hey guys an update. Did the final move out and clean today.
As we had no response from the REA, we went down to their office in person to talk with them. Nobody in the office could help however the receptionist did (eventually) get the PM on the phone.
After three days of calling and emailing I finally got to speak with the PM. She was extremely rude and aggressive to me and (as expected) now claims that she did not say to move out in 48 hours as that's illegal and we have 14 days. She refused to give us a copy of the NTV letter saying it has already been posted out registered mail (with 14 days on it).
I told her we've moved out as per her instructions and she claims that if we want to move out today that's up to us. I explained we moved out today at her request and confirmed with her that TODAY is the date to be used as the final move out day for the purposes of rent refund. The PM agreed however I feel this is something she might backtrack on again - obviously my friend doesn't want to pay for an empty property for another two weeks. The PM was also quite threatening bringing up the tribunal and so on.
I didn't read this thread until now and we have already handed back the keys.
Note - the building also had a keycard access which had been disabled which made the move out more difficult. It's unfortunate how the PM has reacted in this way.
I was thinking of following up with a final email along the lines of 'as agreed today, we have handed back the keys and will use today as the final move out day for the purposes of calculating rent refund'. Not sure to mention about how the 48 hour move out was illegal or not. Thoughts?
As we had no response from the REA, we went down to their office in person to talk with them. Nobody in the office could help however the receptionist did (eventually) get the PM on the phone.
After three days of calling and emailing I finally got to speak with the PM. She was extremely rude and aggressive to me and (as expected) now claims that she did not say to move out in 48 hours as that's illegal and we have 14 days. She refused to give us a copy of the NTV letter saying it has already been posted out registered mail (with 14 days on it).
I told her we've moved out as per her instructions and she claims that if we want to move out today that's up to us. I explained we moved out today at her request and confirmed with her that TODAY is the date to be used as the final move out day for the purposes of rent refund. The PM agreed however I feel this is something she might backtrack on again - obviously my friend doesn't want to pay for an empty property for another two weeks. The PM was also quite threatening bringing up the tribunal and so on.
I didn't read this thread until now and we have already handed back the keys.
Note - the building also had a keycard access which had been disabled which made the move out more difficult. It's unfortunate how the PM has reacted in this way.
I was thinking of following up with a final email along the lines of 'as agreed today, we have handed back the keys and will use today as the final move out day for the purposes of calculating rent refund'. Not sure to mention about how the 48 hour move out was illegal or not. Thoughts?
So how many days has it been since the "48 hour notice"?
