Looking for some urgent advice

Agent calls the husband who says he is in Queensland now. Had broke up with the wife as she got into drugs. Agent advised that he was on rental agreement and would blacklist both the names. Husband pays one rent immediately and sends receipt. He says wife is his 'partner' got into bad company so he left him.

Husband calls the partner on conference and abuses her and asks her to hand over the keys straight away.

Wife (aka Partner), reaches real estate agent's office in the evening with a set of keys. One key missing and garage key fob missing.

Her Story - having a bad time. Have three kids with three partners (????!!!!). I didnt even lived in the house even though i hardly lived there due to so many issues. I will pay hand over the rest of the keys tomorrow and also fix the smashed windows. Agent gives the handyman number.
Agent asks for her phone number and her forwarding number. She writes it down. She said i will also write down my rego number. Agent quietly gets the assistant to call the mobile number and it does to someone named 'Michelle!' a different person. Asks to clarify why she gave incorrect number, she says, "oh i thought you wanted an emergency number so i gave a friends number.'

Tenant leaves promising she will come back today to deposit the rest of the keys.

Phew!! thats where i am at. My first experience as a landlord. Good Lord!

I am insured with EBM and also have Home insurance with Alliance.

Before i contacted EBM i wanted to get some advice from you guys in relation to the above case.

The real estate agent says, lets wait till today and see if she pays the remainder of the 1 month fee and fixes the damages but i have some serious doubts. Agent says if the tenants fixes it you may not have to go to the insurance as this might just spike you premium and you may need to pay excess but if the tenant doesnt arrive insurance is the way to go.

Please note - the burglary was not reported to the agent.

The agent thinks, the burglary report was just to cover her up. She might be in drugs and couldnt have paid for it so the gangs came to attack. Hence the fight and the smashed window. Also she would have called the ambulance for this reason.

Any advice guys?

 

Huh? What burglary?

 

Hi @Yash, its a bit difficult to read and assess your situation.
Has the police been contacted about the burglary. Does your agent have rental bond to use to charge the cost of the missing keys and fobs (if tenants dont return it).

 

Yeah, I got confused when reading the OP.

First, I thought the OP was the wife. Then I thought they were the lover, ...

I just gave up as it was totally unclear.

 

I would not worry about the excess on your insurance,just ring up who ever you have landlord insurance with and get a claim number ,still trying to understand what it would be like on fathers day with 3 kids and three different partners.

And welcome to world of property investing..Wait till you go through a flood then the insurance company informs you your not covered then you end up in 7 year class action.

 

I read it a few times and I think I understand what's happening, but you should re-write it properly if you want people to go to the effort to give good advice. You’ve just got a lot of mixed up tense, time span, perspective and gender, plus plenty of missing details.
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The first thing I find unclear in this situation is whether the tenant has vacated the property. They have returned keys, but not all of them, and organised the handyman themselves. That suggests they still have access to the property.

If the tenant does come in the following day with the keys etc, that’s definitely then considered vacated. The agent will attend the property to conduct an exit inspection and likely prepare an insurance claim. Your agent should also urgently discuss with EBM whether they’ll cover a change of locks in this situation, because they potentially should be changed in a situation like this.

If the tenant does NOT come back and you can’t get in touch (sounds like a possibility), you have a problem. Your agent may decide that they consider the property vacated and attend to conduct the exit inspection as above, but this is a bit of a grey area seeing as it’s not clear whether it’s actually been vacated or not. The other route which is more compliant but will take longer is for the agent to start an abandonment process.

From the information we have here, I would hazard a guess that there is a 99.999999% chance you will be making an insurance claim. A good agent will administrate the claim for you, but keep an eye on it because it's an involved process and busy Property Managers have a habit of stuffing up claims.

As far as the “burglary” is concerned, If the tenant has NOT provided you with a police report number, you can consider them liable for the damages. If the number is provided, there’s little you can do to pin the damages back on them. Count yourself lucky they didn’t report it.
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Don't panic- your insurance should make sure you're not left out of pocket, this shouldn't be a big drama.

 

Ok that comment really made me laugh. So thank you.

 

Sorry guys i am so stressed about this all situation that i had no idea what i wrote above. i will edit and make it readable.I can see the top part is deleted, hence the confusion...not sure what i did there.

 

Ok here's the top bit which i wrote and i think got accidentally got deleted -

This group help me a lot while looking for the first investment property and i need some help with an 'amazing tenant experience'.

Bought the IP approx 5 months back got a tenant via a real estate agency. Intial reference was great and the couple has a good record of renting for 6 years in Point Cook.

Here's how the tenants paid my rent - Rent is due 10th of every month.

1st rent - Paid on time
2nd rent - 10 days after the due date (Reason given by wife - "my husband is away working and I didn't have the bank details to transfer the funds).
[My property manager called multiple times and sent three text messages. Thats when she returned the call]

3rd rent - Not paid (reason given by wife - "my husband is interstate working. He gave me the money. I kept in in the pram and someone stole it."
[Again the were multiple calls and text message sent to the tenants]

Notice to vacate issued. The date to vacate was the 21st of Nov, yesterday.

4th rent - not paid. (multiple calls made, no answer).

21st of Nov -

Property manager goes and door knocks. Windows have been smashed and paint splattered on outside walls. There are foot marks on the main door (as in some one kicked it repeatedly).

No one opens the door. There was no car.

Manager checks with the neighbor. They say the lady who lived here has left as they haven't seen her for few days. They also say there was Police here few weeks back as there were few guys fighting outside the house. An ambulance was called too. The neighbor also said the lady was fully into drugs and was high all the time!

Manager calls Werribee Police who advises that a report was lodged but cannot give any info to Manager. Requested landlord to call.

My manager called and explained me what all happened. I called the police and was advised "there was an attempted burglary on this property. nothing was stolen." I was given the report number and advised the case is with the Criminal Investigations unit.

I call back my Property Manager and give the info and the report number. The burglary was not reported to us by the tenants.

Property manager starts calling the tenants including the emergency contact details as both the wife and husband were not picking up the calls.

Finally the Agent get through to the husband who is in Queensland now..........he says is has borken up with his partner as she has got into drugs.

(and the rest of the story is in the first post)....

hope this connects the dots....

 

Added new info. Sorry about the confusion

 

The tenant has not handed the garage key fob and one key. She said she is happy to pay for the window damages and fix them. The property manager asked her to take a quote from the handyman and fix immediately. The number for handyman was provided by the property manager.

Me and the property manager was discussing this.

I feel the same. I doubt she will come back. She has left a lot of junk outside the house - her furniture etc.

Thank you. Insurance is the way to go. I will contact them today.

 

Your post was totally confusing.

But

These things have to be done in order:

PM gets as much directly from the tenant as they can.
If money owing, you claim it from the bond.
If burglary (?) damage to property, claim it from your building insurance.
If still out of pocket, lodge claim with landlord insurance.

You will need detailed paperwork from your PM to support any bond or insurance claim.
Marg

 

Thank you Marg. This was good info, especially about building insurance.

 

Update -

Just got a call from my PM:

Tenant (Husband) has paid the 3rd rent in full.
Tenant (Wife) has paid half of the 4th rent. She is not picking up any calls today.


PM organising a locksmith to replace all locks.

 

Ok so without the entire story of wives and husbands and agents and drugs and fake numbers .... all irrelevant.

Is there a tenant residing at the property or do you have vacant possession?

How much are they in arrears?

What is the total cost of the damage to property that has been caused by tenants.

I can advice you from there.

 

Btw irrespective of who paid their bit and who didn’t and who had the hardest life, all tenants on the lease are equally and jointly liable for all arrears and all damages.

 

Insurance won’t usually cover change of locks

 

Firstly, thank you for your reply.

I am not sure. Yesterday after the wife drop the keys in the evening i got a call from the neighbour who advised that is someone in the house who is taking the furniture from the house and placing on the driveway.

Approx $800 for unpaid rent.

PM is sending a handyman so that we can get the total quote. Expecting the quote later today.

Why wont the insurer cover it

I am assuming the attempted burglary justifies the change in locks and also this dodgy tenant may have duplicate keys.

 

Do you change all the locks after every tenant leaves?

Any tenant can copy keys.
Marg

 

I don't normally but I would change all locks if I found out the tenant was a drug addict.