VIC Dealing With Difficult Tenants

Hi,

So I have a long term tenant in a villa unit I own. He's been in the property about five years and I've had minimal rental increases. Rent started at $350 p.w. and is now $385. Every time I mention raising the rent he floods me with maintenance requests and calls service people for "emergency" repairs. I put this in inverted commas because the last emergency repair was the pilot light on the heater had gone out. He's just not such a nice person (i.e. parking in the visitor spots) for anyone to deal with. I cancelled the prior rental increase in March 2020 due to COVID as I understood the eviction moratorium meant he could withhold rent.

With the moratorium on evictions gone I was going to increase the rent to $400 p.w. and wanted to know how to handle the inevitable situation where he floods me maintenance requests and starts to file emergency repair claims.

If it gets all too unbearable what are my options for getting him out. I understand I can give him 4 months notice without any reason but I suspect he'll make it difficult for me during this period.

The challenge is I live overseas and the property is managed by a real estate office.

Thanks

 

If rental demand is strong and it's currently very under rented, suck it up until you can get rid of him. As soon as you can not renew the lease, do that. No point trying to increase it now cos he'll likely flood you with BS fixes amounting far more than your increase.

Tolerate him until you can get rid of him asap. That's what I'd do/have done.

 

Don't have anything left to repair and you won't get repair requests

 

Yeah I don't really get the issue here, if the maintenance requests are legitimate.

@JustAMan you're allowed to increase the rent as per your contractual rights, and the tenant is also able to do the same regarding repair requests.

Even the pilot light for the heater is still a legitimate request in my books - there wouldn't have been any hot water. Who was going to talk or guide the tenant through fixing it exactly?

 

Tenants cannot just "file" maintenance requests out of thin air. They have to have merit. Pictures and evidence that there is an issue.

With emergency repairs, it's also not an automatic "I called a guy to look if the pilot is on" type of thing, the tenant has to reasonably try to contact the PM before they book someone.
He can play this game once or twice: he'll call the PM, the PM will come around and have a look. If the pilot is out, there's something wrong, if it's on - breach him once. Doing it again, breach him second time.

The PM is paid by you to do those things. This is their job. They have to have "on call" number.

Then raise the rent as high as you can, in Victoria it'll be inline with similar properties in the same area, so if it's $100 more a week cause you kept it under for so long, so be it. You can and there's nothing he can do.
Than offer a way out, let him be the one to want to leave and make him feel that you're doing him a favour.
Difficult tenants are trying to play the game, hoping the LL and PM are gullible enough and too scared of "what will he do to my property", but at the end of the day - if you have insurance, you can make it clear to him that when you play dirty games, you might win a dirty prize: blacklisted and bad recommendation won't make his life easy when he'll need to find the next place.

 

In hindsight, did you really save money not using a PM and getting walked over with "maintenance requests" and psyched out of doing periodical rent increases?

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. Regarding maintenance requests, remember that the property is managed by a PM and:
a) They have a vested interest in doing maintenance as its through their preferred vendors
b) They don't verify the request typically.

That being said the PM has been good in the past. When a pipe burst they fixed it pronto and saved me quite a bit of money due to using their preferred vendors.

Currently the tenant is on a month-to-month lease so I just have to serve a 60 day notice.

 

I should have been clearer, some of the requests are "add A/C", "relandscape the back yard" etc. not all are of the form, door broken etc.

 

Inner south eastern suburbs in Melbourne (Ormond area if you know it).

 

I dont !
There is usually detailed instructions on the side of the unit

This reminds me of the tenants who complain that the dishwasher and washing machine aren't cleaning properly now, "well have you been cleaning the filters" ? (As per detailed in the supplied user manuals) Huh
They will Google how to lodge a complaint instead of Googling why or how !!!
Yep, ww will happily send call out a plumber, but if it's not an equipment failure and just a lazy tenant they can pay for the attendance


For the OP, this is just how tenants react to feel like the increase is justified (if they can't re light a pilot light it's not a tenant I want ).

If you feel the current rent is well short of the market rate then just have the PM serve notice to vacate without reason
When the tenant asks the PM why have them tell the truth, that it's rent increase time and they/you don't want to have to deal with the sudden inflow of BS calls
The tenant may just ask to stay and happily pay an increased rent

 

It's very easy to know whether tenants are taking the **** or are acting as reasonable tenants. If you believe its the former, just follow the allowable guidelines and not renew. Especially if you believe it's under rented.

I've had to do this a few times for tenants which I believed were taking the ****. Acting like they're renting a new house when it's 40 years old. When I got new tenants, it was perfect and reasonable again.

 

That's not a maintenance request. That's a request to add further amenity to the home. Just say no. Property is rented 'as is'. If they want an air conditioner, then the rent needs to go up even more.

 

THIS! If there's something that has been caused by the tenant, the tenant pays. They soon learn, when it affects them.

 

Feature requests are different to repair requests. Just say no. Or some might be worthwhile to help attract better tenants in the future.

Seems to me like you don't have the strength to self manage?

 

Make sure the PM knows that if they act their own self interest, you'll fire them.
The PM works for you, not the other way around.

PM cannot do anything without your approval.

Not really.
You're in VIC. New rules. You cannot get rid of them anymore.
They have to decide to leave. You need to find a way to "help" them decide to leave.

It seems you might have some leverage by increasing the rent to market rates. Might be too steep for them and they'll leave.
Or - they'll pay market rate, you'll have $100 more every week and PM can deal with BS requests.

All that IF the property don't need those fixes. If it does - just do it. It's your responsibility and your part in the agreement.

 

Tenants regularly bring up maintenance issues when you increase rent- best way to deal with that objection is to rectify.

If the issues aren't issues, then set their expectations.

 

the issue is timing, that these only happen when there is a rent increase,
it appears to be vindictive, and some (according to op) are nonsense, and he if he does one of these nonsense maintenace, then the rent increase amount be used up