Tenants- They'll be the death of me

[HD_ACE]

I thought I would share my little experience from over the last couple of months which shows how quickly something can turn to S$$T :


So I had a couple renting one of my ips for probably over a year, always paid rent, house always well kept so running quite smoothly up untill start of dec.Then que a rent default. PM chases this up as it was very unusual. After a week or so of avoidence my pm finally gets thestory. The male has been locked up for stealing from his work place, sentenced to over a year, therfore she cant afford the rent.

She continues to pay in dribbs an drabs with a part time job untill it stops and can not contact her. breach notices are sent and a court hearing applied, being xmas time its a long process.

After a month of no contact, trying to find if shes still living there or abondend the place, she turns up at my pms office. My pm Suprised and expecting her to pay her rent or give us the house back to relet, was astounded to hear her request, as was I...........

If we could change her last name in the lease as she just married her bf in the prison.
WTF?.. really. Your a month behind in rent and still believe you have a lease?
cue another two weeks of no contact and still waiting for a court date to gain control of property.
After some help from the neighbours my Pm finally catches her drinking at the house late one saturday night and gets her to sign a vacate notice with a date to be out by.

I flew to the property for a pre arranged inspection, since it was the first legal time we could gain access. First mistake wearing shorts an sandals. Within seconds of entering, our legs up to our knees were black, covered in fleas, dishes stacked high, *****everywhere etc etc quite upsetting really.

So we then get access and spend 4k on pest treatment, rubbish removal, cleaning and lawns, new oven and some repairs etc. Go to court armed with photos and receipts etc Tenant doesnt show, juge awards costs for cleaning and some of the lawns as she thought this figure was fair, despite the invoices for actual amount. Then schedules a new hearing for rest of the costs to give tenant time to appeal them.

suprise suprise the tenant shows up to the next hearing, and doesnt challenge anything. I was awarded all costs, to be paid weekly by them at wait.......
$10 per week for an amount of over 3k. Yea thanks judge of got nothing better to do then wait around for the next 6 years to get paid.

On a positive note, it leased very quickly at a higher rent.

Put it down to an experience in this business and move on, not worth stressing over.

Cue dazz... commercial this commercial that...

thanks for reading cheers

 

[nhg]

That's terrible.

I wonder if it is that sentiment why statistically 1 in 10 houses in Aus are vacant

Would be so much easier without the tenant me thinks.

 

[kathryn d]

If she defaults on the $10, can you get awarded full payment (not that you probably will)

...we have one tenant paying us $10 a month, and another $67 a month.

 

[HotRod]

Shouldn't the PM have been doing their job and advising you of the various issues?

I find it hard to believe that a PM should not have been notifying you of the fleas, garden etc etc with photos. That's the very least we get. We can see what our places look like from inspection to inspection. An IP should be in the same condition as they day they moved in.

If that is the case, you might want to look for a better PM.

 

[Anon_]

Sorry to hear all that... just wondering though does landlord insurance not cover any of this?

 

[Ausprop]

insurers know this stuff happens all the time - fiddly deliquencies that are material enought to be a problem but not material enough to litigate, even if the tenant had some money. so excesses, exclsuions etc soak up most of it and a mountain of paperwork to get at it.

 

[HD_ACE]

If she defaults on the $10, can you get awarded full payment (not that you probably will)

...we have one tenant paying us $10 a month, and another $67 a month.

yeap, in this case full amount would be payable immediatly. But obviously she wont be able to so will require a debt collector etc etc

 

[HD_ACE]

Shouldn't the PM have been doing their job and advising you of the various issues?

I find it hard to believe that a PM should not have been notifying you of the fleas, garden etc etc with photos. That's the very least we get. We can see what our places look like from inspection to inspection. An IP should be in the same condition as they day they moved in.

If that is the case, you might want to look for a better PM.

The inspection 3 months before was good, house clean no fleas. just lawns overgrown. After this she got a cat and kittens and didn know how to look after them by the looks and fleas will breed within a couple of weeks. I had spca collect these animals.

Thats where It went down hill real fast. 3 months since last inspection, plus 2 to get control of property and thats a long time for it to get to the stage.

cheers

 

[HD_ACE]

Sorry to hear all that... just wondering though does landlord insurance not cover any of this?

Nope just rent arrears and malicious damage which requires an excess per part damaged. hardly worth it. The majority of cost came from the rubbish/ belongings removal.

cheers

 

[esh]

I hope you got the full bond. It's really hard these day as the law is biased toward tenants and what a long process! Hope this is the worst ul ever experience

 

[Dazz]

the law is biased toward tenants

....and as HD ACE just found out, when everything is going fine, the Landlord doesn't need the law. Tenant keeps property looking OK and paying rent, no need to consult the law.

When it all goes to custard and you need to rely on the wording of the Lease and the law, there is absolutely nothing there to support you as the Landlord.

You were relatively lucky. You obtained a judgement against them, but you still had all of the stress, the work and the upfront payments.

What lessons have been learnt ??

I'll start you off ;

• The Bond isn't not nearly enough
• The Bond is difficult to get at
• The whole process takes waaaay too long
• The exposure to further vindictiveness and spiteful damage is always there
• To do anything you need to put your hand in your pocket, despite no rent coming in
• The stress is never accounted for - you gotta cop all of that on the chip for free

........

 

[HD_ACE]

I hope you got the full bond. It's really hard these day as the law is biased toward tenants and what a long process! Hope this is the worst ul ever experience

yes i obtained full bond at first hearing

 

[HD_ACE]

You were relatively lucky. You obtained a judgement against them, but you still had all of the stress, the work and the upfront payments.

What lessons have been learnt ??

I'll start you off ;

• The Bond isn't not nearly enough
• The Bond is difficult to get at
• The whole process takes waaaay too long
• The exposure to further vindictiveness and spiteful damage is always there
• To do anything you need to put your hand in your pocket, despite no rent coming in
• The stress is never accounted for - you gotta cop all of that on the chip for free

........

exactly. The process is far to drawn out and just a joke.

If you have good tenants look after them well............

 

[Deltaberry]

It's a good outcome.

It's only $4k. You got them out in 2 months or so. You took their bond.

Commercial is not the be all and end all. We had tenant, operated his Korean karaoke business (one of the very first ones in Melbourne) for over 8 years in the CBD. When we bought the set of buildings there, this particular tenant was very good - always paid rent on time etc. We had our family offices near him.

Any way after 2 years, he suddenly stopped paying rent. Rent kept getting delayed. Agent didn't care as our portfolio was too small to get the likes of CBRE/Knight Frank/Colliers doing serious work for you. After around 9-10 months he fled the country back to South Korea. He called the agent and apologised and said he couldn't help it, and he'll never come back to Melbourne because he owed so many creditors (food suppliers, electricity suppliers, us) so much money. We were around $ 70k out of pocket and of course we had a 6 month bond so took that and ended up being $10k out of pocket.

And then came the clean up expense. The whole karaoke place hadn't been renovated for god knows what - 10 years? We spent a fair bit of money renovating it with kitchen fit out etc, and that's only because we are market leaders in the industry at the time and could probably fit a restaurant out for 1/5 the price what most people can do it at as we had all the equipment etc. So yes in commercial you face the same problem. And to make it worst, people always need somewhere to live so at some point people will rent your residential for the right price. If your commercial is in a bad location, you don't have much street smarts (ie relied on the big agents), you might not get a tenant for a long time.

I got a kid in there in the past few years. He pays his rent on time and never opens. One of our forumites who lives around the corner always laughs every time he sees him open his shop.