Tenant breaks lease before moving in

Bazza

Bazza

Hi Guys,

We have signed up two tenants for one of our IP's and they were to start the lease and move in on Friday. They gave us a small deposit to seal the contract. They were going to give us the bond tomorrow but today one of them rang and said that they have had a falling out and they don't want to move in now.

Although we have a signed lease we don't have a bond so we are not sure what to do? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Bazza
 
How big is the "small deposit". We have rented a place, with them moving in this weekend. We are holding one week's rent, and by Saturday, before they move in, we have asked for another week's rent (so they will be two weeks in advance) plus the bond transfer forms signed so that we are holding a bond.

Whatever you are holding, keep it. I am not sure how RTA would look at the deposit you are holding, but I would be calling them to make sure you can keep it. (If you are not entitled to keep it, let the would be tenants take you to the tribunal to get their money back :))

I would be getting it on Gumtree and rentfind.com.au to see if you can mitigate the lost time. I think you have until 6pm tonight to remove an advert for Saturday's paper, but I think the deadline for getting an advert in was last night? Not sure what paper you would use on the coast? Depending on their lead times, you could get an advert in for Saturday. If not, possibly, Friday's paper?

(I am assuming you are self-managing.)

Other than that, I don't think you will have much luck getting any money out of them. If this happened to me, I would move on and find the next tenant as soon as possible. Legally you have a lease, but without holding much money, you are flogging a dead horse in my opinion.
 
Thanks Wylie. Yes I was thinking that we should just move on. We still have time to place an Ad in the weekend Bulletin.

The small deposit was just $10 - my misses used to work for a QC and she says that a contract isn't binding unless some money has changed hands so we insisted on them giving us something just to seal the contract.

Cheers,

Bazza
 
I've had this happen to me. Tenant signed the lease but kept stalling with the bond.

He told me after signing he would give it to me once he had his other bond returned.

As this was not acceptable to me and he contunued to make various excuses till days before the lease was to commence, I simply told him I was readvertising and he could not have the place because he did not fullfil the conditions of the lease.

Checked with the Residential Tenencies who said it was within my rights (*don't know if it's necessary but had put in the addendum on the lease that I required 4 weeks bond and 2 weeks rent prior to commencement of tenancy).

What did annoy me though, was that I had to return the 2 weeks rent I recieved as security :mad:.
 
Thanks Weg - it is annoying having to go through the whole process of finding another tenant and missing out on rent in the meanwhile.

We called the RTA and they said that we can cancel the agreement.

Cheers,

Bazza
 
See thats where you went wrong, I would have gotten a weeks rent, or the rull bong and 2 weeks rent when the lease was signed.
 
letiha said:
See thats where you went wrong, I would have gotten a weeks rent, or the rull bong and 2 weeks rent when the lease was signed.
Click to expand...

We normally do asked for the bond and two weeks rent up front but one said she would get the money pay day and the other would get her bond from the previous landlord. We spoke to the landlord and he said she would be getting the bond back no problems.

We did intend to get it all before we handed over the keys.

Cheers,

Bazza
 
funny but similar happened to me
tenants lived there for over a year, new lease comes with rent increase, they say yeah cool, no problem, today i get the message that they don't want to live there anymore

I must thank them for perfect timing as i'm about to get the property ravalued and i was thinking to use that money for a reno and maybe conversion to commercial property, now they just made that decision for me :D
 
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