Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorReplies
-
From what I understand, yea, the agent would get a $250 signing fee and continue getting commission, hence the incentive to churn.
The issue is that its not a “no grounds” eviction, its an eviction for “breach of agreement”. The agreement (which is the standard format residential tenancy agreement) includes a clause for noise, and she’s using that to evict me because I dropped something late at night and a tenant filed a noise complaint.
I could try to fight it at the tribunal but that takes time/money which I dont have right now…better to just move out really. It’s also my word vs hers and she has the noise complaint to back her up. I’ve actually gone to the tribunal a few years ago when I was renting from someone else, and the judge at the time refused to even hear my side of the story and kept shouting at me to sign a document without reading it, so I dont have any confidence in the tribunal’s ability to help me.
I just talked to my acquaintance who’s an agent. He said the industry standard for commission is about 2% of rent, and the standard for signing a new tenant gets you 1 week’s worth of rent.
Assuming weekly rent is $250 per week, that means that having a long term tenant nets you $20 per month in commission while the signing bonus nets you $250…about a year’s worth of commission.
An agent that does the best thing for the owner by signing long term tenants gets much less money than a dodgy one who forces tenants to move out regularly. Not hard to guess what this results in…
One might think that the owner would get suspicious if he notices a high turnover rate for tenants, but most owners probably leave everything to the agent (that’s the whole point of getting the agent in the first place after all) and wouldn’t have the slightest clue who is on their property in the first place.
Yea, thats definately not the real reason. She is making all the tenants move out from what I heard. Either she wants to rent the whole apartment to someone, or she gets a fee for getting a new tenant in. I remember an acquaintance who works as an agent telling me that there’s some kind of fee involved to get new tenants in and some agents practice churning to keep charging the fee instead of having long term tenants.
Since the owner is an overseas investor who just leaves everything to the agent, they wouldn’t ask the obvious question of why there’s such a high turnover rate for tenants.
Yea, I read about that. From what I can tell, the landlord can give you a termination notice and if you refuse to vacate by that date, they can then apply for a termination order. A breach of agreement notice only requires 14 days and i could in theory fight that at the tribunal, but it would cost time/money and it would be my word vs hers, and my experience at the tribunal a few years back has been pretty awful (the judge only wanted to get the case resolved ASAP and refused to listen to my side of the story).
The notice seems to be valid as far as i can tell. Only 14 days of notice needs to be given. Supposedly I breached the agreement for causing noise. Unless thats allowed as a reason for breach of agreement.
To make things even better, I called the previous tenant (the one that the agent claims moved out because of me) and he said that he moved out to stay with his friends elsewhere and had no problems with me at all. But I doubt the agent is required to prove that I actually breached the agreement.
I doubt you could sue a review site, otherwise all the big companies would be sueing every big review site which will inevitably have bad reviews of their products.
I suspect that it would be up to the company to prove the reviews are false and then request the review site to take them down, and only if the review site refuses, they would be liable for a suit. Or if the reviews were used to defame a person specifically (e.g. by claiming a manager was a rapist or whatever).
Im totally all for some property review site, I have been renting for the past few years and dealing with dodgy properties/agents/landlords have been extremely frustrating.
The strata manager just got the locksmith to replace the lock…was surprisingly fast. I have a feeling the agent either didn’t contact him previously, or he missed her email. There’s a slight snag in that the locksmith only gave us two keys when there are five people in the apartment, but that should be much easier to resolve.
@Lady Penelope said:
Being that you have had your credit card stolen as a result of the faulty lock on your common property letter box and you have notified your Agent but have not received any response then you might consider having the letter box lock repaired at your expense and then forwarding the Bill to the Owner via the Agent.The Owner has let the property with a letter box therefore the letter box should be secure and functional. The owner is obliged to pay you within 14 days.
The Owner can then take this matter to the Strata Manager and the Owner’s Corporation to claim their money back. It could possibly be a small amount of money to have a locksmith fix the lock.
The fact that the security of your property has been put at risk may categorise the issue as an Urgent Repair.
Take photos before and after and ensure that you have kept all of the correspondence, records of phone calls etc.
The following is an extract from https://tenants.org.au/factsheet-06-repairs-and-maintenance
“Urgent repairs
Urgent repairs means any work needed to repair any of the following:
-
- a failure or breakdown of the gas, electricity or water supply
-
- a failure or breakdown of any essential service for hot water, cooking, heating, cooling or laundering
-
- any fault or damage that makes the premises unsafe or insecure
-
- serious damage from a natural disaster.
Getting urgent repairs done
Tell the landlord/agent – in writing if possible – about what needs fixing. Follow up any conversations with a letter. Keep a copy of the letter and a record of any conversations as evidence that you told the landlord/agent.
If there is no electricity or water it may be up to the service provider to fix the problem (if it is outside the boundary of the premises). See also Factsheet 23: Utilities.
If the landlord/agent cannot be contacted or is unwilling to do the urgent repairs, you can arrange for them to be done.
If the landlord/agent cannot be contacted or is unwilling to do any urgent repairs, or if they are taking too long to do them, you can arrange for the repairs to be done. Do not pay any more than $1,000 or you may not get your money back – the landlord is only required to pay you for any reasonable costs up to $1,000. They are obliged to pay within 14 days of your notice.
You must be able to show that:
-
- the problem was not your fault
-
- you made a ‘reasonable’ attempt to contact the landlord/agent
-
- you gave the landlord/agent a ‘reasonable’ chance to do the repairs
-
- the repairs were carried out by a repair person named in your tenancy agreement (if possible) or by a licensed or qualified tradesperson.
You must give the landlord/agent written notice about the repairs, costs and copies of receipts. The landlord must pay you for any reasonable costs up to $1,000 within 14 days of your notice.
If the landlord does not pay, apply to the Tribunal within 3 months from the end of that 14 days for an order that they do so.
If you cannot afford to pay for urgent repairs, apply to the Tribunal for an urgent hearing for the repairs to be done. You can also apply for a rent reduction until the repairs are done. See ‘Applying to the Tribunal’ below.”
A sample form letter is here:
The problem with this plan is that I have no idea who the owner is (and the agent obviously will not tell me) and the agent can simply refuse to forward the bill to the owner because she already notified strata, and if i decide to get it repaired at my own expense, that’s my problem.
Applying to the tribunal would cost more money, time, and my previous experience with the tribunal was very negative…the judge at the time refused to hear my side of the case and kept pressuring me to sign some documents without reading them, while my landlord was sitting there trying not to laugh because he didn’t even need to defend himself.
The issue is that the mailbox has a lock that is jammed open, the agent said on august 11 that she would contact strata regarding the repair, but then kept refusing to contact them a second time because “it’s entirely up to strata, I cannot push them”. She only agreed to contact them again after I told her that my debit card was stolen out of the mail box and hundreds of dollars of fradulent transactions was charged to my card.
She shows no sign of telling me who the strata manager is or who the company is…I had to check the notice board, and the strata manager isn’t listed there, only the company is. The strata manager’s contact details or identity are not listed anywhere in the building that I can find.
The receptionist at the strata company did tell me who the manager is, but immediately said she wasn’t supposed to and that I cannot contact him directly. I have written to the strata company’s email address regarding the mailbox, but have not received a reply. I could try contacting the strata manager directly, but I suspect he will tell me the same thing, that I cannot contact him directly. I am fairly certain the agent will not agree to CC me in emails either.
I have requested that the agent call directly if she cannot get a response via email, but she has not replied yet. So my question is whether renters can contact the strata company/manager directly, and if yes, is there something official that i can show to prove it?
-
-
AuthorReplies