WA awful tenants - loss of money exceeding way over bond

Really? What the occupancy limit has to do with anything?
If the agreement is with 2 tenants and they move in with another 5 mates - they are in breach for subletting with concent.

So what's the agent responsibility?
I've been told few times I have to get an agent, cause they will know all the rules and could achieve better result than I can, but I see here many who are asking the OP "did you tell them to" or "how would they know what to do"

I've used agents before and found that the OP experience is not unique. Many PMs are great when everything going well, they do the payment invoices and send nice reports with pictures, but when things get little bit complicated - they turn completely useless.

Not saying for a moment all agents are like this. I'm sure there are many who are top guns.
Unlucky for me, I didn't find any and seems the OP had 4 that weren't (maybe it explains the high turnover. Good agents do not move. They don't need to jump ship every second week).

 

But isn't that why PMs are paid? There is 'manage' in their job title!

Landlords pay property managers to 'manage' the property - if the landlord has concerns and it is clear that the tenants are an issue, then the landlord has every right to expect the PM to attempt to manage/remedy the situation (not just ignore it until the problem goes away).

Otherwise, what's the point of paying for a PM? Landlords can just ignore bad tenants themselves, and save the monthly PM fees.

 

Elcee1388

You have been royally screwed over and the comments by so many on this site are pathetic!

You engaged a PM to look after your asset and they failed miserably.

You are also significantly out of pocket.

Get the property sorted and ready for re leasing, put in a LL claim for damage (if you have cover). Sack your PM, read the RTA act and documentation. Either engage a recommended PM or plan to do it yourself with your newfound knowledge.

I self manage but don't recommend this for others unless they are prepared to harden up and deal with **** tenants.

BTW, I had a very nice tenant vacate recently, but despite the niceties, they did not receive one cent from their bond when they left as the property was left in a poor condition.

My approach with tenants is be friendly but firm and don't put up with any crap.

 

If you have an agreement with two, that's how many are liable on the agreement - it's not how many people are allowed to live there.

Sub-letting is having a subordinate leasing agreement - eg the original tenant moving out and sub-leasing the property to a third party under a second concurrent lease. This generally requires landlord's consent.

Having additional roommates does not require landlord consent and cannot give rise to a breach unless occupancy limits are exceeded.

 

I'm a lawyer in Queensland, and highly confident this is false.

The limit should be the occupancy limit. The purpose of this clause is to protect the landlord from liability if tenants exceed this and, say, die in a fire due to overcrowding.

If you put In a "desire" of the landlord rather than the actual capacity - eg fewer than 2 per bedroom - you nullify any protection afforded you by this clause, because your number is unreasonable.

I am not your lawyer, so pay somebody to tell you that. Or see if the other lawyers on the forum agree with my answer and weigh that.

 

If you look at the RTA Qld website under breaches, you will see it lists four issues that pertain to a 'serious breach'. One of them is, 'the number of occupants allowed to live at the property'. This number is stated on the Residential Tenancy Agreement.

 

The variety of different opinions we have here also has a lot to do with a lack of information. I know OP probably doesn't have all day to tell us the entire story, but without a proper timeline and genuine context there's really very little we can accurately say about whether the Property Manager(s) did the right thing or not.

It sounds like weren't a particularly excellent agency and OP is justifiably upset that they weren't more proactive, but it's hard to solidly lay blame on the eventual result without more information.

Also- this is so important for everyone, to a degree you should be managing the managers! If there's an inspection that doesn't look good and you "leave it to the property manager" without having any sort of discussion about what's being done, knowing that you have some concerns about the quality of service, you're just asking for problems. Even those of you who feel that they have excellent Property Managers who you trust to take care of things, you're going to discuss these sorts of issues to put together a plan of attack.

 

Your annual review with the PM is not solely about rent, it is a review of all things relating to your investment. Of course, rent is a high priority for many LL but the review should cover past/future maintenance, tenant's performance of their obligations, inspection reports, the market, compliance/changes to leglislation and the PM's performance.

Owners who don't get involved in these things make for lazy PMs.

 

Right, but that is based on a presumption that the landlord inserts a number that is actually reflective of "the number of occupants allowed to live at the property", rather than a wish/desire of the landlord. "Allowed" doesn't mean by the landlord, it means by the occupancy limit / fire safety regulations.

 

From my personal experience, engaging property managers in WA is waste of money and in most cases they make you spend more money in repairs, clean up etc. In your case, property manager has failed miserably by selecting the wrong tenant to start with and failing to address the issues after the property inspection. I beleive you have legal grounds to proceed against the property manager. Recently heard some horrible stories about some of the property managers in Perth and as such I am not surprised with this case. And there are some property managers who do a good job but will decline to mangage the properties if the rent is less than $400 per week. End of the day it is the risk of this business that we have to put up with.

 

That sounds strange to me.
1. Who set the occupancy limit? I didn't see anything in the act about it.

2. roommates are permanent residence of the property, and as such they have to be on the lease.
Otherwise what stops someone to lease a place and them bring 3 families in.

I would love to see where in the act the renter can bring as many permanent occupants into a property without consent of the landlord. I've learnt in the last few weeks that people (including PMs and landlord) has certain understanding, but nothing in the act back it up, nor past decisions of the tribunal.

 

That's because you're assuming the extent of the law is limited to what you can read and understand in the Act. It's not.

Although ironically, it doesn't say anywhere in any RTA around the country that all permanent residents of a property have to be on a lease, so you haven't even applied your own legal interpretation reasoning consistently there.

There's no such law of course - tenants are free to have as many people live or stay with them as they want, short of breaching other laws or actual valid terms of a tenancy agreement.

Perp is correct.

 

No, the agent may recommend an application, the owner does the selection. The agent then manages the tenancy.

 

It’s not always easy choosing a tenant when a PM has done reference checks though. When I rented out my house I left it immaculate. The tenants I chose were, “Extremely neat and tidy”. First inspection they had done no cleaning whatsoever over the three months, even dishes were piled high. They were breached a few times and reinspected until they cleaned. When they left 9 months later they had no issues getting another property. It is difficult dealing with companies that have high staff turnover. You ask for something to be done, then when you follow up you find out they left without doing anything. So you ask the next person, same cycle.

It’s a good idea to do your own research on the tenants that have applied. I forgot one time as I was on holidays and only researched after and found the tenant was advertising to meet like-minded synthetic cannabis users. That took three property management agencies and years to get the tribe out. None of the occupants I spoke to could remember the other occupants names or how many people lived there but the neighbours said around Ten, and had difficulty getting past all the cars parked outside.

I find it easier to manage local properties myself. I hope you find a better property manager.

 

By gosh I need to apologise for things I'm sure I said - including on this forum and Somersoft - before I became a lawyer. The law is much more complicated than the vast majority of people appreciate. And it's hard to even explain why they're wrong when the legal conclusion is drawn from principles spread over multiple pieces of legislation (subject to principles of statutory interpretation - and that's a whole subject in itself), hundreds of cases, subordinate legislation, common law principles, and even equitable principles.

I guess there comes a point where you have to trust that the lawyers on the forum aren't giving you an answer that you don't like because they're trying to ruin your day. Nor are they saying that they agree with the law (unless that's explicitly stated). There is no incentive to misrepresent what we understand the law to be on a particular issue; we're solely trying to help, and none of us (that I'm aware of) are seeking legal work via the forum.

Also keep in mind that tenancy authority staff, property managers, and real estate agents are (usually) not lawyers, and not a reliable source of legal information. They have their own areas of expertise, which I appreciate, but the law isn't one of them. Do people who deal with particular laws every day still misunderstand them? All the time.

 

I totally accept @thatbum posted, which is why I didn't reply.

It still sounds strange to me (the fact there's no specific part in the act that deals with it).

 

I agree that the legislation could be written more clearly (or even just have an explanatory note), and/or the real estate institutes could educate PMs as to how to correctly complete this part of the tenancy agreement.

As it is, I imagine the first PM that tries to tell an owner that they can't just write "2" in the blank for a 3 BR house gets a lot of pushback from the owner, and PMs don't get paid enough to deal with that ****, so they just relent. It's the owner who loses the protection of the clause, anyway, so why would the PM jeopardise a client relationship because the owner is trying to shoot themselves in the foot?

 

I suspect it's a QLD thing?
I don't remember ever seeing anything to do with number of occupants in any of my VIC agreements. Not the once there were made by PMs nor the one I hold now that was done by my lawyer.

 

A quick check shows that at least QLD, NSW, and WA have such a provision.

 

So what's up with VIC?
Anyone knows?