Tenants to be evicted

[zap brannigan]

my rental property is in adelaide and my tennant has been in for 1.5 years... lease expired over christmas.
towards the end of the lease tennant was getting consistently late with rent about 1 week late which didn't really bother me.

however last payment was 2 weeks late and am not sure whether to extend lease another 6 months.

in souh australia you can only begin tribunal procedures if rent is 2 weeks late... them you send them a notice to remedy breach and give them another week to pay rent before you can then make application to tribunal to evict tennant.
depending on case load it could take another month to get a hearing.

i have landlord insurance which is supposed to cover for any rent refault for up to 13 weeks rent.

 

[wylie]

Check your insurance. Some (most?) policies insist on having a lease in place with a fixed date (ie. not a month to month lease). Issue breach notice and get the eviction process started. They will either catch up or not. If they catch up you can decide how to move forward.

 

[skater]

As Wylie said.

 

[alplant]

Good advice. Our insurance company is one of those and we are now operating on a periodic lease. Also they won't pay the first four weeks because that should be covered by the bond. There's another stuff up in our situation, the bond hasn't been updated as regularly as the rent so now it doesn't quite cover four weeks. That shouldn't have mattered because up until yesterday all we could lose was a couple of days rent because they have been sticking so well to the payment plan but now there is a new development.

They are asking for another extension. My gut feeling was to say no, because they have had ample time to find somewhere else but our PM is assuring us they have found somewhere but can't move in for another two weeks. My partner agreed to let them stay on on the proviso that they allow him in to do the few things we had planned, like install air conditioning etc. Our feeling is that the place would have been empty for a couple of weeks while we did that anyway and this way we get it done with the possibility of actually getting some rent as well. If they default on the last couple of weeks, well we wouldn't have got that anyway so will just have to suck it up. But ... now I am wondering what will happen in two weeks, this is the second extension.

We think the RE has actually found them another place. We don't know that for sure but that's what was hinted at. That makes us wonder about them, if we're right, it means they are happy to stick some other landlord with tenants who are consistently late payers. But on the other hand, if they have found them somewhere cheaper and now think they can manage the rent at that place at least they know where to find them if they do default on the last couple of weeks rent. Hopefully it will be a win win situation.

We might as well let them stay on for another two weeks because we might have trouble getting new tenants unless we drop the rent. There was a bit of a stuff up with the advertising it was advertised as being available back in December when the lease ran out and that was never updated so now the ad looks stale, and also there were a couple of other errors in the description. I fell down there, should have been checking that sooner. They have updated it now, but I've had a look at RE.dot.com and there are an awful lot of houses like ours available in the general area. There have been developers moving into Ipswich and they have flooded the area with brand new four bedroom houses all renting in the low 300's. We are asking $300 and are the cheapest house of it's kind in the actual suburb, but there are cheaper ones in the general area.

So I guess once again it is watch this space.-

 

[alplant]

Here we go again. No rent received since the payment plan (that they signed off on) finished, now 7 days in arrears again with the usual excuses. Centrelink stuffed up their payments. These people are so unlucky, Centrelink seems to do that to them a lot. It's a wonder the two months of the payment plan went off so well, obviously Centrelink got it together just for those two months and then stuffed up again. Bad Centrelink.

One week to go and counting down.

 

[lizzie]

i know how you feel - i have a property that is on vendor finance and the "purchaser" was great for the first 12 months - then for the following 5 years she only payed in small drips until i issue a default notice.

now she doesn't even pay on the default notice but waits for the last day of the termination notice to pay the "termination" amount ... problem is, by that stage she is already another 2 months behind and i have to start the process again immediately.

i really really wish she'd just pay the damn thing on time or default fully so i'd get the property back and can then either redevelop (duplex site) or sell and use the freed up cash as the deposit for a better located development site.

 

[Fudge]

At time of eviction tenant had no where to go but as she had made no attempt in the last few months to pay any money - have no sympathy. She also played the system - once the Court issued the Warrant she took to Housing Commission for them to get her some where to live. They are still looking for a house for her.

I think she would be waiting quite a while if on the public housing que. Isn't it something like a 7 year waiting list in SEQld??

 

[skater]

i know how you feel - i have a property that is on vendor finance and the "purchaser" was great for the first 12 months - then for the following 5 years she only payed in small drips until i issue a default notice.

now she doesn't even pay on the default notice but waits for the last day of the termination notice to pay the "termination" amount ... problem is, by that stage she is already another 2 months behind and i have to start the process again immediately.

i really really wish she'd just pay the damn thing on time or default fully so i'd get the property back and can then either redevelop (duplex site) or sell and use the freed up cash as the deposit for a better located development site.

I've never done vendor finance, so I don't fully know how it all works, but I would think that if they have been doing that, you have grounds for terminating them, don't you? I mean, if you tried that with the bank, you would be well and truely up the creek.

Can you charge them extra fees for this, like the default interest rates that banks charge? How long do you have to keep them on vendor finance, it seems they have had a long run already?

 

[JoshyBoi]

I hope you signed an agreement?
Look over it yourself or have a lawyer sort it out for you

 

[alplant]

Hi Lizzie, that's exactly what has been happening with these tenants, dragging rent payment out until the last possible moment then the PM has to start the whole process again. It's just been a catch up situation for probably a year or so now.

Anyway they have finally vacated, but, they were given a two page list of things they have to address, (they are not happy Jan) mostly minor stuff but they are back trying to get it done themselves with the help of 'personal friends' who happen to be professional carpet shampooers, carpet fumigators, and carpenters. The carpenters are needed for the holes in the doors. All this has been done already (and they have the receipts to prove it, ) but not to the PM's satisfaction, and the fumigator at least has to come back, because the moment I walked into the place I was bitten by fleas. We were shown the list when we were up there attending to a few maintenance issues and the complaint was that it was unfair because most of it was just fair wear and tear. We pointed out that is isn't our list, it is the PM's, so talk to her about it, not us.

So the place still isn't available, not that we have been inundated with applications. Well we've had three, but the PM in her wisdom has rejected all three. One had just been evicted from her previous rental and refused to go until ordered by the courts, one had bad references and the other offered to pay six months up front but are yet more personal friends of these ex-tenants and their story changed with every telling so the PM thought it best to err on the side of caution.

Also there are quite a few maintenance issues that need attention. I read somewhere on here that tenants that don't bother you with requests for maintenance aren't really good tenants because you find so many things wrong when they finally leave. That's what's happened here. Most of the things are pretty minor and could have been fixed easily. The most annoying is a fault in a kitchen bench top that if they had told us in time would have still been under warranty but now isn't.

They didn't pay the last week's rent either, but that will be covered by the bond, as will anything on that list that isn't done to the PM's satisfaction, within a reasonable time, I would hope.

So evicting them ended up being rather painless, for us at least, don't know about them, now we will see how we go at getting new tenants. So far it isn't looking hopeful but it's early days.

 

[the.j]

Very interesting this topic.. I have experienced the same over the time period.

In a nutshell - in WA:
Issued 2 notices for non-payment in November
Non payment persisted, and then court appearances (with me represented by PM) in December
Tenant vacated by 20 December
Locksmith around to change locks
Empty house up until now
In the meantime, cleaned cr@p for people that want life skills in general.. re-painted and did serious cleaning and maintenance work.

Lessons learned:
Crap time for situation - ie December - as mentioned in earlier post - court/sheriff availability/christmas/PM availability/my availability/ who signs a rental contract on christmas day ?! etc....

Begin processes sooner than later.

Do not expect 'your' standards of ethics,hygiene etc are someone else's!

Ultimately not negative - re property investing, but have earnt & learnt valuable lessons - I think I have a star on my lapel now

 

[alplant]

Yeah, I know what you mean. This lease ran out in late December and we agreed to the extra couple of weeks to get us out of the December slack time but now they have dragged the process out even further so we missed the busy period in January as well. Quality applications are proving to be a bit thin on the ground and the applications we are getting are more than likely the people who were refused in the mid January rush.

 

[MikeJosef]

That sucks aliphant, hope you get some quality applications soon.

I had a very similar experience where our tenants were $2k behind on their rent - i sent them reminders ect and they would catch up to very close to all paid, only to fall straight back into debt over the next month.

I finally got them out just this month but they still owe $2k. The bond covers most of it, but there is still a few hundred dollars to be paid - now they have left, can anyone recommend on how i get them to pay it, apart from asking nicely? Should i threaten them with putting them on the rental black list or something?

In anycase, if you are thinking about an dodgy application Aliphant, check there rental history carefully as we picked these tenant up due panicking on getting no applications and it was definitely not worth it.

 

[alplant]

Actually I think Mr Plant is thinking about one of the applications, or at least not dismissing it out of hand as I am inclined to do. It is the one that is a personal friend of the ex-tenant. She has offered to pay six months in advance and at face value that would appear as though we can't really lose. She is selling her house in Tasmania and that's where the six months will come from but the PM (when checking references) was told something about her being a bit untidy but getting everything shipshape for the scheduled inspections. That's the reason for the conflicting stories, inspections? What inspections? Is she renting or selling her own house? Of course she could well be renting at the moment and still selling her own house. Anyway Mr Plant thinks that as long as the PM doesn't hand over keys until the six months rent is in the bank then it should be ok.

Sounds too good to be true? Well she is keen. Mr Plant has already taken a call today from the ex-tenant on her behalf and chose not to answer one from the lady herself. Apparently she is having trouble getting through to the PM so rang him direct. He asked me to put this up there to see what you all would say. I told him that I had a pretty good idea, but fire away, please.

Oh almost forgot, she has two great danes and the property is about 600sm.