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[ausfrosty]

Hi All,

Our (ex) landlord has made it deliberately difficult to have an exit inspection on vacating our property. Two weeks prior to vacating we emailed and stated that on the final day of the lease the property would be cleaned by 2pm and we could potentially conduct an exit inspection between 2-5pm.

No response was received by two days prior to the lease expiring and I emailed and stated that she had a legal obligation to allow us to have a check out inspection. Her response is below:
‘Unfortunately, I am not available on Thursday afternoon to do inspection.  As I have just returned from annual leave, there are a lot of important matters have already been scheduled for the week.
Our obligations are to do the final inspection within 14 days after a lease ends, prepare a report and send tenant a copy of it.

Final (exit) inspection is done after tenants have vacated the property. We schedule our final inspections once we have received all the keys to the property as an indication that they have vacated the property.  We endeavour to let tenant knows when we shall conduct inspections and they are welcome to join in.
We do advise our tenants to check their cleaning and the condition of the property thoroughly before they return the keys, and refer to the entry condition report, regardless they are using professional end of lease cleaning services or not.  You do remember how clean and nice the unit was when it was handed to you a year ago. I do recall you said you would return it just the same when you vacate, and we look forward to it.’
I understand what she has stated above is incorrect in that nowhere in legistlation states that the landlord has two weeks to conduct an exit inspection. I believe it states something along the lines of an exit inspection should be conducted as soon as in practically possible and I imagine 2 weeks does not fit that criteria?
Aside we handed over the keys today at her businesses registered address (a residential address) at about 4pm. We then had a call from one of our old neighbours at 9pm stating that she was in our old apartment. She has now just emailed at 11:40pm and stated that the exit inspection will be done at 12:30pm tomorrow i.e. in about 12 hours time after she has notified us.

My questions are:

1) Does the fact that she has been in the premise invalidate any claim she has to our bond in that she literally could have damaged the property herself?

2) Surely giving 12 hours notice for a check out inspection is not reasonable? I cannot make it by then as I am literally 150km away at the moment.

 

 

 

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