This is a complicated situation, and I'm lost. A mate of mine Greg is having major problems where he lives and has to get out ASAP. He has the money for the bond and rent at the new place, but not now, and I was asked to assist. It was decided that as I was paying the lease on the new place was to be in my name; he has a rubbish credit history but can pay. He found a place, affordable, and the agents agreed orally to the lease being in my name and Greg living there, not me. I filled out the application form, and explained again - this time in writing - what was happening. Greg was on the application as a named other applicant. This was Saturday 3 December. As a sweetener I offered to pay two month's rent. REA agreed and I paid this and the bond, on Monday 4 December. On Wednesday the PM sent me a lease with mistakes: * I was named as a tenant. * Greg was not named. * My name was spelled incorrectly. * The start date was wrong. * The PCM rent was rounded up instead of the exact figure. I returned the lease that day with amendments, signed. I was advised that there were more hoops, and I queried these. The PM did not reply for 23 hours - I left four increasingly urgent messages - and then late on Friday 9 December said that the deal was off, no lease exists. Greg needs to supply his details, 100 points, etc. I'm not familiar enough with contract law to comment, but advice given me is that minor amendments such as cited can be made and the lease is still valid. Can someone conversant with this area of law please advise if a contract exists? Greg is meant to move in on Monday 1 December. His current lease ends, and if he does not get in then it will be very unfortunate. TIA
Ugh - one of those messy situations. The answer is "maybe", but legal technicalities aren't that important right now, its more what practical steps you can and want to do before now and what I presume to be the intended move in date of Monday 12 December?
We are working on getting Greg in, and then I'm looking at remedies. The PM was prepared to walk away from the lease for what to me are petty reasons. I took my Veda scorecard (top 20%) and cash account (six figures) to show I could pay the rent. Not interested. It looks like Greg will sign the lease, and we shall see. There was no condition report either, and I have some pics of sundry damage.
No condition report is a huge red flag. The REA may also be in breach of the law, depending on which state the property is in.
Sorry, should have said, Victoria. Unless the rules have changed, the PM has to provide two copies of the condition report before moving in. I've told Greg to wait until I can peruse this before signing - I took a number of pictures on 3 December. Greg has not been there for 10 days.
I don't get why you would keeping dealing with this agency - it sounds easier just to find a different place to rent. Any reason why that isn't an option?
Greg's old lease ends today, has to leave. Finding a place at short notice is hard. In any case, this is just a short-term let, six months. once Greg gets on his feet again and knows the area due to living there he can find another place. Once he move out I may take action against the unreal estate agent. It's a pretty grotty place, and would not attract people like me with a fair to good knowledge of the rental process. So the REA may have seen me as a threat. I still may be. I hate shoddy managers and LLs. I look after all my tenants, as do my managers. I need to take my medication and calm down a bit.
Why not just ask the Greg's current landlord for a bit more time? Or even if they refuse, just get Greg to overstay. We all know that there are considerable delays in evicting a tenant if they decide to overstay the lease - I imagine Greg could easily get somewhere between 3 weeks and 3 months extra overstay if he wanted to.
