Greediness VS humanity...please read our nighmare story...who can advise?

The majority of members on this forum either have IP's or would one day like to own one (or more).
In sailor's situation however it sounds more like a case of a very low income family that perhaps may never even get the opportunity to own their own home let alone the dream of further IP's. Who would have thought that not everyone had the opportunity to acquire millions of dollars of assets over a lifetime..:confused:
I think a number have responded from a Landlords perspective without giving concession to the possibly that Sailor was on such a poor income that they could not afford anything better.
Being on a low income is difficult enough without having to worry about the the arrival of a new child into what really sounds like a bit of a slum!

Not everyone is savvy with tenancy laws and the "golden rules" of renting so
why are we criticising Sailor for wanting to have a go at improving the environment for his/her family.

I think the best option is you seek professional advice from legal aid who will most certainly be able to offer assistance if you're circumstances are as you say.

Good luck and I wish you all the very best with your new family

cheers
B.D

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The sad/real thing is that we are not low income people intended as (no offence) scammy people we see in south-west suburbs with no jobs living out of welfare etc. we are just a joung couple of professionals at standard salaris one of which into maternity leave
 
You may be right B.D.
Don't forget it may be a bit of slum, but it was tenants who previously vacated it...leaving it that way.

When the OP viewed this property I will also assume they said something similar to: Oh, it is very dirty., but we can clean it. If you provide the materials we will install the kitchen and make it better...free of charge.Yes, we know what we are doing, we have done it before.Yes, we will paint and do a great job....you will keep the rent cheap too, right?

From experience, what one person considers a good job painting etc, is nothing more than a mess.
We have some properties where tenants are not permitted to paint, and others where we don't care. The "we don't care" properties are very very basic. They are old, ugly and structurally sound. We do not renovate, only maintain..and they are very CF+

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our real estate agent after all this mess happened actually said: we are so sorry this happened to you guys, not many tenants are as good and responsible as you were...you actually improved the quality of this place....even 50$ more a week

Kathrin I am sorry for your experience in picking bad tenants, you would have loved us as tenants since we are decent, CLEAN, responsible people and we NEVER HAD ISSUES of this kind...we improved the damn house and we spent FROM OUR OWN POCKETS paint, grouting etc .....because we cared about higiene and having a little baby not living in a nice but filthy house!
 
I think we worry about our own position as landlords and read too much into stuff

The landlord was just as stupid to agree to letting soemoene renovate this property as everyone keeps pointing out to sailor that she was.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The landlord has been quite smart actually since that kitchen was 40 years old and I guess he always had tenants who didn't care much about hygiene. At this round he found a young and serious little family who did the job for them…..replacing the filthy kitchen….for 1000 bucks!! We made a miracle with that money and we actually improved it….but we got kicked out for safety reasons before being able to finish it (only the stove and 2 cabinets are missing) how can it cost 10000$ in damages??? The true is that he’s being a greedy, low and immoral cockroach who had the house improved and still ask for the 10000$ (probably the loss of rent since we HAD TO LEAVE) plus having a brand new kitchen from the real victims of this situation who remained homeless with a little baby…….all of you landlords…..think like human beings with values and moral ethics instead of looking to murder for a dollar, AMEN
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Don't go there.... Don't worry about him and his motives, don't wsate your time double guessing due to how obvious it is, it won't help you :)

I think skater & wylie's sugestions about photos 4etc are good ones. I f I found myself in your position, depsite being a landlord and all that stuff that makes me feel self important, I would be ain a panic like you are too.. I dont have a spare $10k to even pay the bill with let alone $10k to just throw at it to make it go away.

best of luck
 
re the property, can you tell us were all the occupants told to leave because of the apparent safety issue?

what a nightmare all around. if the building is totally condemned is this covered by insurance?? building? strata etc. not to mention losses related to rental income etc?

brings an awareness of issues around strata type properties.

not easy for anyone in this situation.
sorry to read about your financial losses but feel certain you have learnt something from this experience.
 
re the property, can you tell us were all the occupants told to leave because of the apparent safety issue?

what a nightmare all around. if the building is totally condemned is this covered by insurance?? building? strata etc. not to mention losses related to rental income etc?

brings an awareness of issues around strata type properties.

not easy for anyone in this situation.
sorry to read about your financial losses but feel certain you have learnt something from this experience.

Is that "Don't enter intoa valid and fair agreement cause someone might want to sure you in order to be over compensted for some other issue which just happened by chance ?"
 
sorry you post was a bit cryptic?? please explain.

yeah sorry, I meant to type "sue you" but typed "sure you" which even with my sheety english skills :D I know does not make sense !


What I meant was what is the lesson you are sure she learnt ? This one (which is the only lesson I can see):

"Don't enter into a valid and fair agreement cause someone cause they might sue you in order if something else goes wrong which is not your fault so that they can be overcompensated more than they deserve to be"
 
I think a number have responded from a Landlords perspective without giving concession to the possibly that Sailor was on such a poor income that they could not afford anything better.

I agree that sailor made a lot of mistakes and can feel for her in many ways, and yes, there are dubious landlords out there ... but BD, a Brighton Le Sands "on the beach" dump (as advised by sailor) would cost around the same rent as a decent place in a cheaper suburb (not necessarily out west) - or even same suburb but not on the beach.

Granted, things have gone horribly awry, but I think some personal responsbility for decisions made also has to be taken into consideration - including saying that they had to find something only two weeks before the birth of their child. A landlord is required in NSW to give 60 days notice ... not exactly having to find something (anything) instantly.

All I can suggest is that you continue with the avenue you are on with legal aid and learn from this priceless experience.
 
I agree that sailor made a lot of mistakes and can feel for her in many ways, and yes, there are dubious landlords out there ... but BD, a Brighton Le Sands "on the beach" dump (as advised by sailor) would cost around the same rent as a decent place in a cheaper suburb (not necessarily out west) - or even same suburb but not on the beach.

Granted, things have gone horribly awry, but I think some personal responsbility for decisions made also has to be taken into consideration - including saying that they had to find something only two weeks before the birth of their child. A landlord is required in NSW to give 60 days notice ... not exactly having to find something (anything) instantly.

All I can suggest is that you continue with the avenue you are on with legal aid and learn from this priceless experience.

Fair call Lizzie..
 
Deal all....who remember our story?

Just go on the first post to read what happened, I believe our story will help lots of tenants and landlords not to repeat the same mistakes we did....

Anyway I just thought to let you know how it went at the end...

We made a claim of compensation by taking the landlord (and real estate agent to CTTT (Consumer, Trade and Tenancy Tribunal) in Hurtsville.

The first audience we just sat down in front of each other to explain our reasons and try to negotiate a fair deal. That didn't happen, the landlord wasn't there, only the real estate agent was on his behalf. They counterclaimed us of 20k (our claim was 6k) for having damaged the property. Go back few posts to read the details, however to make it short, we tenants thought to have an agreement to renovate the kitchen, but got kicked out in the middle of the job by the structure being unsafe due to cancer in the cement.

Anyway the first audience was a failure so another audience got set up few months later.

The second time, we sat again at the negotiation table before going to the judge.

This time the Landlord was there (first time we met and spoke to) and another real estate agent was with him....

in this couple of months between the audiences, the previuos real estate agency (John Spence-Hurtsville) has been bought off by another RE agency and the Re Agent who was dealing with us during the troubles got fired....

So in the second audience we finally met with the landlord and the new agency who took over the case. They were very cooperative and willing to make a deal this time, I think they realised, the best thing to do was to negotiate a deal rather than having the judge deciding for us.

By simply facing each other in the same room, and being able to talk and explaining our reasons we discovered so many things we didn't know...

Basically the previous real estate agent has played and fool everyone...

He was referring untrue things to both of us, he told us the landlord approved us to renovate the kitchen when that wasn't true, he told the landlord we were fine, where we actually got evacuated from the house and become homeless with a little 2 months old baby.....he was pretending to speak to him on the phone in front of us when in fact he never did...etc etc.....

You wondered why this RE agent got fired (not sure if the forum policy allows me) but the public should know the names of these dishonest unprofessionals , his name his Sam Milou and as mentioned by the new RE agency , they fired him as he did all sort of dodgy stuff before...the community should be aware of this dishonest people and beware carefully!!

Anyway after few hours of negotiation both parties decided to walk away and withdraw our claims. We basically both won and both lost, since we both had losses but their claims was higher than ours...

At the end of everything, if we would have spoken directly with the landlord all this mess couldn't have happened, this third party dishonest and unreliable RE agent put us and the landlord against each other for months.

We went though a very tough time...can you imagine with a brand new baby, becoming homeless for weeks, having spent our money on emergency accommodations that never got reimbursed despite this infamous RE agent put us in the beginning and promised to ...

Anyway, I thought you may have find our story interesting on how things can get terribly wrong....now we know...communication is the key! without it or "filtered" by third parties, terrible situations can arise

Amen and thanks for reading my long post :)
 
I'm glad you have finally been able to put this behind you. I'm sure its been a rough road to travel.

For me, as a landlord, the big lesson would be not to get/ let tenants do renovations on your property (unless you have some very clear written contracts etc... but even then, I probably wouldnt do it).

I think its always best to keep a professional distance.
 
Thank you for returning and providing closure on a thread. It rarely happens on here that you find out the final story and conclusion.


if we would have spoken directly with the landlord all this mess couldn't have happened, this third party dishonest and unreliable RE agent put us and the landlord against each other for months....now we know...communication is the key! without it or "filtered" by third parties, terrible situations can arise


Fully agreed. My Tenants appreciate speaking to the decision maker directly. Molehills remain molehills.


We went though a very tough time...can you imagine with a brand new baby, becoming homeless for weeks, having spent our money on emergency accommodations that never got reimbursed despite this infamous RE agent put us in the beginning and promised to

....but it sounds like it's now over. Spare a thought for the other party in the conflict, who still has a structurally unsound property with no rental return and probably a large mortgage to fund and no doubt his insurance company have solicitors who are doing their very utmost to dodge any claims made over the concrete cancer.

It would be great to hear the troubles he is still grappling with.


Your plight, with (kitchens / mothers / babies) re-inforces my long held view that it is very unwise to write a contract and do business with that sort of combination. Your priorities are clearly elsewhere, and you will sacrifice in less than a heartbeat any commitment or business obligation you have with the Landlord to protect your higher priorities.


As for Tenants renovating properties, I allow mine to do it all the time, adding hundreds of thousands in renovations and value to the property. None are mothers, there are no babies in sight and there isn't a kitchen in cooee, so generally it works out all OK.
 
Thanks for the update. Not a wonderful conclusion but I bet it's good to have it all behind you.
Do you know what happened with the building?

I hope you and your family are settled into new accommodation.
 
Thanks for the update. Not a wonderful conclusion but I bet it's good to have it all behind you.
Do you know what happened with the building?

I hope you and your family are settled into new accommodation.


Thanks for your thought, yes it's all behind now...but the emotional turmoil is still very present in us, nothing can bring back the lost time with our first baby who became homeless a 2months old...not a very good start in life, I have to say ;)

In regards of the building, last we checked, a month ago, the people from the second storey returned to leave, while first and ground level (ours) were still vacant....
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0459-copy.jpg
    IMG_0459-copy.jpg
    58.4 KB · Views: 172
  • IMG_0533-copy.jpg
    IMG_0533-copy.jpg
    27.1 KB · Views: 167
thanks to all...

we settled (temporarily) in the inner west and we are loving it...but in september the landlord returns so we need to leave again...

But this time, we'll buy...

so you'll see me posting asking for advise on the best way to go..and I may ask you your point of view if you don't mind

infact I registered at Somersoft for buying advise, not legal issues :)
 
Sorry for your circumstances.

That's why I always advocate buying your own place when you can afford it.

People are always out there to make a quick buck if you don't own your own place.
 
The landlords insurance should have covered your temporary accommodation costs if the place was declared uninhabitable.

Please advise which policy offers the tenants cover for emergency accommodation.

I just read Allianz Landlord Insurance policy and I could only find something that covers the LANDLORD for loss of rent should the building become inhabitable. There is nothing about covering the tenant (which is maybe why it's called Landlord Insurance I guess).


11. Rental costs after an insured event
(Applicable only when you have buildings cover or the building is part of a strata title development and you have contents cover)
If the buildings are damaged by an insured event covered by your policy, to such an extent that your tenant cannot live in them, or we agree access to or use of the buildings was not possible if any of the insured events covered by this policy occur during the period of insurance and causes:
• damage to other property in the vicinity of the buildings; or
• damage within the strata title development itself, where the building is a lot; and
• this damage prevents access to or use of the building for a minimum period of 7 days,
we will pay for your loss of rent on the buildings:
• for the length of time which we agree is necessary to reinstate your buildings or for which access is denied, or
• up to a maximum period of 12 months, whichever period of time is the lesser.
The amount we will pay will be based on the weekly rent payable by your tenant as at the date of damage to the buildings.
We will not pay for your loss of rent if:
a. the buildings have not been tenanted for more than 60 consecutive days immediately before the date of the loss or damage; or
b. you did not have a contract in place for your buildings to be tenanted within the 30 days immediately following the date of the loss or damage.
 
Back
Top