Nightmare landlord/property manager

Discussion in 'Legal Issues' started by legallyblonde, 26th Sep, 2015.

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  1. legallyblonde

    legallyblonde Well-Known Member

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    Once upon a time some peers and I rented a house for one year.

    A few months into the lease there was a pretty major roof leak... Which resulted in two rooms having serious water damage. My housemate had some of his belongings damaged. The agency had someone come to fix it... Only to have it happen again a week later when it rained again. Needless to say they didn't bother sending anyone out despite the fact that these two rooms were now growing some serious mould despite our efforts to air out the house, which was difficult because one of the rooms did not have a window!

    During this bad weather the poorly maintained retaining wall out the back collapsed onto a collection of bikes owned by my housemates. This sandstone wall was approx 1.5 metres high and the blocks were huge. After no response from the landlord about fixing the retaining walls so we could retrieve our property my housemates managed to move the huge stones by themselves.

    We should have kicked up a stink... but nobody could be bothered as the rent was just under $400 a week and there was four of us.... I guess everyone hoped someone else could be bothered. Needless to say we did not resign! The week before we moved out their were repair men EVERYWHERE fixing the roof, re-plastering and rebuilding the retaining wall. Needless to say I wrote a strongly worded email to the managing agent (who by the way just constantly blamed the landlord not approving repairs ect).

    I do regret not speaking to the tenants union as this was disgraceful! I could not imagine ever letting my tenants live in such terrible conditions for well over 6 months!

    Oh and when we left we had to provide recieipts proving we professionally cleaned the carpet and chimney (which was not used). Grr... What a learning experience!
     
    Perthguy likes this.
  2. legallyblonde

    legallyblonde Well-Known Member

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    Oh and this is posted under legal issues because I am sure there is more than one breach of their obligations here!
     
  3. thatbum

    thatbum Well-Known Member

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    Yeah it sounds like you had a pretty rough time. Is this something that's all done and dusted now, or were you seeking some advice...?
     
  4. legallyblonde

    legallyblonde Well-Known Member

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    Oh. All done and dusted... I was just thinking about it when I was reading on another thread about clauses which aren't enforceable. It was two or three years ago.
     
  5. thatbum

    thatbum Well-Known Member

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    Plenty of the stuff that happened was enforceable btw. Landlord could have been liable to make good a lot of the breaches and also compensation too.
     
    legallyblonde likes this.
  6. MGF

    MGF Well-Known Member

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    We lived in a place where the hot water broke down multiple times. We'd email and call and after two days of cold showers go down to the agent to complain. Out would come their stupid handyman who'd wack something and get it running for another week.

    Meanwhile, a tree in the yard had been growing and cracks were appearing in the house because of the roots. Reported it. No action.

    Meanwhile, there was a leak in the bathroom into the wall. Wood and plaster getting wet. Reported it.

    We kept asking for it to be repaired and nothing. Suddenly got a rent increase out of nowhere. We started paying more for our bad place.

    Eventually sick of it so we moved and just before we did spoke to a neighbour one day who knew the owners. Got in contact.

    They were a lovely older couple, both nearly blind and this place was their retirement fund. The agents had never contacted them about broken hot water, the tree nor the water damage. The rent increase had never been authorised... and the agent wasn't passing it on!

    The agent lost the property (should have been sued into the ground in my opinion) and we moved on.

    A terrible property manager is a curse on both landlords and tenants!
     
    KayTea likes this.
  7. KayTea

    KayTea Well-Known Member

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    That's a horrible story, @MGF - there are some really dodgy people out there - and to know that it wasn't the landlord at all, and was entirely the fault of the PM (without the owners knowing anything about what had been happening) is just scary.
     

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