PM making typo on lease contract

Has anyone come across a situation where your property manager has made a typo in the lease renewal and put "2015" instead of "2016" making the lease 1 month instead of the agreed 13 months...

The tenant has taken this opportunity to vacate the property leaving the place vacant for last 2 weeks.

The property is in Logan QLD with Pure Rental as PM and they've agreed to waive re-letting fee because of their mistake but does anyone know if I can pursue compensation for the loss of rent I'm experiencing right now?
 
Has anyone come across a situation where your property manager has made a typo in the lease renewal and put "2015" instead of "2016" making the lease 1 month instead of the agreed 13 months...

The tenant has taken this opportunity to vacate the property leaving the place vacant for last 2 weeks.

The property is in Logan QLD with Pure Rental as PM and they've agreed to waive re-letting fee because of their mistake but does anyone know if I can pursue compensation for the loss of rent I'm experiencing right now?

If the agent is at fault and you are out of pocket then you are entitled to seek compensation from them in full.

Detail your request to the licencee in writing with a 14 day payment requirement.

Also ensure that the premises are being marketed for a relet.
 
Mistakes happen.

I think the way it's handled is more important than the error itself. If they don't care or try to pass blame elsewhere that's a bad sign. If they take responsibility and fix it and ensure the time/monetary expense to you is none or minimal then I'd say that was a decent result?
 
Thanks guys.

What's been your experience with firing/changing PMs in terms of costs and waiting periods?

I have a 90 day notice period according to the contract with the PM. After this period does that mean I lose the tenant or does the new PM take over but charge letting fee?
 
Is that something worth ditching them over? They attempted to make good on their mistake, didn't they?

Tenant stays if you do swap PM's though, the incoming PM collects their file and continues with them.
 
Focus on getting a new tenant in ASAP, once in, then I'd send a letter to the agency asking for the shortfall on the property being vacant. So if it takes 1 month for them to find a new tenant, you should ask them for that 1 month rent compensation - something a long those lines is fair in my opinion. They have certainly screwed up and it has cost you.
 
Is that something worth ditching them over? They attempted to make good on their mistake, didn't they?

Tenant stays if you do swap PM's though, the incoming PM collects their file and continues with them.

Agreed. This sort of mistake is just a human error, not necessarily related to the quality of the property manager.

If they make good on their mistake and try to resolve the issue as quick as possible, I'd be happy. At least you'd know they'd work darn hard to make it up to you from then on.
 
I would not normally post such a response in a public forum however, when an agency is named, I feel it is only fair that they have the chance to tell their side of the story.

As soon as the issue was identified, the owner was notified. It was an honest mistake and action was taken immediately to get the property advertised. We agreed to waive the let fee in this instance as we felt it was acceptable compensation being that the property should not have had to have been re-rented until 2016. This is certainly not a common practice with our agency however, given the error, we felt it was appropriate.

With regards to further compensation for loss rent, this is something that every owner is faced with when owning an investment property. Our job as an agency is to minimise this risk by accurately marketing the property, holding inspections, following up potential tenants, securing applications and once approved, following processes to ensure the tenancy can begin.

? Property has been online for 29 days (2 weeks before the tenant?s vacated and advertised the same day we knew they were vacating). The average number of days advertised for a House in Kingston between $300-$399 is 47 according to statistics from RP Data
? There have been 5 inspections with 21 people attend
? An additional inspection is booked for Thursday with 9 people registered to attend
? All prospective tenants are contacted within a few days of attending the inspection to see if they are interested in submitting an application
? 10 Applications submitted ? all of which have been declined by the owner (for various reasons)
? Property is 1 of 26 similar properties listed in Kingston ranging from $270 - $435 per week (Currently listed at $335)

We have done everything in our power to tenant this property Unfortunately, Property Managers are in fact human and sometimes mistakes are made. We have been honest, put actions in place to rectify the situation changed our processes to double check leases going out, offered compensation and are keeping in constant communication.

Property management is a service bases business and at the end of the day owners are not happy with the service we provide we have a 7 days service guarantee to allow them to change agencies without having to wait the 90 days
 
I accept your comments but took exception to

With regards to further compensation for loss rent, this is something that every owner is faced with when owning an investment property.

In this instance seeing that the tenant was able to leave due to an error on your agencies part (notwithstanding human error does happen), why do you believe that it is not your agencies responsibility for the loss of rent and that the landlord your client needs to wear your agencies mistake?

You are insured for such events and as an act of good faith, this should have been offered along with the other items mentioned.

If that had occurred, then your agency would have a defendable case.

My personal opinion only.
 
? Property has been online for 29 days (2 weeks before the tenant?s vacated and advertised the same day we knew they were vacating). The average number of days advertised for a House in Kingston between $300-$399 is 47 according to statistics from RP Data
? There have been 5 inspections with 21 people attend
? An additional inspection is booked for Thursday with 9 people registered to attend
? All prospective tenants are contacted within a few days of attending the inspection to see if they are interested in submitting an application
? 10 Applications submitted ? all of which have been declined by the owner (for various reasons)
? Property is 1 of 26 similar properties listed in Kingston ranging from $270 - $435 per week (Currently listed at $335)

Excellent work - it sounds like any vacancy might be minimised. That is great news for your agency, it means if you were to compensate the client it would be very minimal.

sometimes mistakes are made.

Then why is it your organisation isn't going to own up to its mistakes. Theres a big difference between saying "oh yeah, sometimes we screw up" and "yeah sometimes we screw up, however we ensure that our mistake doesn't affect the client".

Property management is a service bases business and at the end of the day owners are not happy with the service we provide we have a 7 days service guarantee to allow them to change agencies without having to wait the 90 days

If the landlord changed agency, would you offer them a monetary compensation (ie letting fees for the new property manager)? It's all very well to say they can change agencies, but you can't then go 'oh, but we take back our compensation'.
 
The property is the link above (DaveM amazing how you found it) and it has been freshly painted and re-carpeted and new photos are on their way.

@ Russell I appreciate your side but if the mistake had not happened I would have still had a tenant paying even if they broke their lease until we found another tenant.

I have emailed the 3 (not 10) applications your team has sent me: 2 of which were partial and unemployed and one which was promising and I had approved but when contacted had found an alternate property.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback, much appreciated.
 
The property is the link above (DaveM amazing how you found it) and it has been freshly painted and re-carpeted and new photos are on their way.

Wow, so its freshly painted and carpeted but old photos used and no mention of freshly painted and carpeted on the ad? Sounds a bit of a poor effort from the PM on that front.
 
It's great that the PM has acted swiftly in the attempt to find a new tenant, looks like they are working hard to get the place tenanted.

However, I completely agree with others that the PM should provide monetary compensation for the loss of rent during this period given it was their error.
 
The other point is, if the tenant just broke lease, the landlord may have some compensation from insurance, bond, tribunal. In this situation, tenant has no come back apart from seeking compensation from the agency for their mistake.

and yeh as per Dave why aren't those new photo's used in the advert!?

If I was the agency, I would be bending over backwards to get this fixed. Just seems some sloppy work being done here. I've seen this happen before if the agency just can't be bothered with your business anymore. I sure hope this isn't the case above...
 
Last edited:
Is is possible to pursue the tenants who broke the lease? The lease would have had a start of lease date and the period of tenancy [The term of the lease shall be ??? ]which would plainly have indicated the year date was wrong - it would be apparent to the tenancy tribunal/court the tenants have taken advantage of the mistake.

Its been a long while since I dealt with residential tenants so am assuming the current leases state length of lease i.e. so many months ...
 
Last edited:
Hi

With an in-correct end date on the lease and old photos used in the property advertisement I would be concentrating on securing a new tenant as a matter of priority and then seeking full compensation from the PM.

I can understand the dates been in-correct as a simple admin error that can occur, but to use old photos is just plain stupidity and proves that somebody, somewhere is been very slack.

I would not change PM until the new tenant has shifted in and compensation has been paid in full giving the company who made the errors an opportunity to fix all the problems and cover the costs incurred.

If the PM can upload some photos showing the updated interior maybe they will get some better applications? I know when I have done maintenance and upgrades such as a re-paint and carpet I have received applications from better tenants.

Regards,

alicudi
 
On my leases the date is written in but it also says the term in figures and words.
"Twelve (12) months"
Still bewilders me how both a tenant and pm could not have seen the error when reading the leases and during their sign up appointment?
 
These are not nice tenants. The admin error is obvious - the lease documents would have been standard residential lease not a fixed short term lease.

The lease term is also stated on other documents - application forms, bond forms etc....

I would treat it as a lease break situation - I would be taking this to tribunal and fighting it out!

You may or may not win but I would certainly be giving this a go through the legal channels.

I would not be releasing their bond until there is a tribunal order to do so!
List this one on tica also - and mark it down as a file note on the pm software so it pops up whenever there are future reference calls for these tenants.
 
Back
Top