Hi, ive been renting out my house privately and the tenants have damaged the front gutters, they claim that they didnt do it and got extremely aggressive over the situation, i have photos of the gutter before they moved in but they still deny it. I did make a mistake of not getting a condition report before they moved in, there lease runs out in two months, some people are telling me to just return the bond to avoid conflict, the house was brand new, whats your view on this situation? Thanks.
Tenants Damaged Property
A lack of condition report is really going to make it tough to justify withholding bond. I suspect you won't make the same mistake next time.
What kind of damage are we talking about? And is it insured? There are a whole bunch of ways that guttering could be damaged and many of them are not human inflicted. A number of these you can insure for. Although if it genuinely has been caused by tenants (and you have cover that includes malicious damage), you're insurer might reasonably deny on the basis of a lack of condition report as well.
What kind of damage are we talking about? And is it insured? There are a whole bunch of ways that guttering could be damaged and many of them are not human inflicted. A number of these you can insure for. Although if it genuinely has been caused by tenants (and you have cover that includes malicious damage), you're insurer might reasonably deny on the basis of a lack of condition report as well.
That was my thought. If you get out of this without much more damage than you're already aware of, think yourself lucky and write it off as a lesson learned.Yikes - no condition report?
Things could get scarier yet....
Get in there and do a condition report NOW, so you're at least prevented from having to bear the cost of any further damage.
I would not alert them to the fact that there should have been a Condition Report.
Simply remind them you have photos of the original condition and see what response you get.
BTW, you had better make up your mind if you are going to evict them with their lease ending in two months.
Just another reason why it's worth paying a Property Manager.
Regards JO
Simply remind them you have photos of the original condition and see what response you get.
BTW, you had better make up your mind if you are going to evict them with their lease ending in two months.
Just another reason why it's worth paying a Property Manager.
Regards JO
The best PM I had took a whole bunch of photos as a condition report, burnt two copies onto CD and we kept one each (I was the tenant). Being burnt onto CD should satisfy the requirement to 'date stamp' them.
A second question - did you formally lodge the bond to the bond authority? Did you also give them a copy of the 'Tenants, know your rights' guidebook thingo when they first moved in? If you didn't do either of these then you can get done for $500 each in Victoria anyway.
A second question - did you formally lodge the bond to the bond authority? Did you also give them a copy of the 'Tenants, know your rights' guidebook thingo when they first moved in? If you didn't do either of these then you can get done for $500 each in Victoria anyway.
