Non payment of rent - Responsible party

Hi I have a question about one of my properties.
I had some tenants in a unit of mine 4 months ago who were model tenants up until the point they stopped paying rent.
I was a little to relaxed about them not paying and allowed them to much leeway in not keeping up to date due to their personal problems. Either way I now have a court order for 900 dollars from this couple.

However they have broken up now and the male is telling me he owns nothing all his car, phone and so forth is in his father's business name so he has nothing for the bailiffs to seize.

The female is more useful she has paid a small amount and seems to be willing to pay it back slowly.

My question is in two parts number one is what can bailiffs seize and sell to make the repayments is it limited to only things that are in someone's name, I, e phones on contract or cars. Or are they able to seize anything maybe TV, s playstations ?

Secondly if he really does have nothing do I have the rights to take the full amount from the female or is she only liable in the eyes of the court for half that debt.

Thanks in advance.

 

Yes. You cant seize other peoples property.

Yes they would be each liable for the whole debt

 

I know I can't legally seize property. Isn't that the point of a court ordered bailiff however?

 

Sorry i poorly worded that. You can only seize the property of the person to which the order relates. Property here includes anything of value other than land (which you could get with a different order). But there are some restrictions such as items needed for work and essential items. I dont know if a tv falls into this category though but playstations could probably be siezed

 

Ok thank you terry. I think using this as leverage is still my best outcome.

 

That's a terrible situation to be in. I wonder if landlord insurance would cover your loss.

 

Do you self manage OP?

Cheers

Jamie

 

Yes the bailiff can seize goods such as TVs etc, however the problem is often that if the people are not home then the bailiff will charge for each visit to attempt to seize the goods.

 

Is there something I missed here?
Bailiffs do not normally recoup debt from personal items.

Debt is recouped from bond and landlord insurance.

You have a trubunal order for a debt owed for $900?
Are they or one of them residing in the property? If so has a payment plan been arranged? It needs to be enforced or get an order for vacant possession for the unit.

If they are not there and goods are abandoned then there is a procedure you can use.

In 10 years of running a real estate agency, we have never seized personal items to recoup debt, even abandoned ones - they are always dumped or given to charity after the holding period.

Landlord insurance is what you need to rely on not couches and tvs. The value of those is ambiguous anyway.

 

Also Both tenants are jointly liable

 

I think we can assume there was no landlord insurance in place, otherwise it would be a fairly simple claim, the loss would have been recouped and it would be the Insurer's problem to seek recovery from the tenants. In saying that, you can't get blood from a stone so unfortunately these types of losses are not often recouped, even with the force of an Insurer and debt collectors.

 

Any debt can be recovered by a baillif (sherrif in nsw) seizing goods. Once a court order has been often the debt is owed and the creditor can apply to send the bailiff iver to take stuff.

 

I thought i would answer alot of the previous questions and statements in one post.

• I am self managing my properties currently.
• The tenant in question is no longer living in the premises.
• i took all their bond but this did not cover all my costs. As i said i was too lenient and did not put a breach in place straight away.
• $900 is the remaining amount after all bond was taken.
• I do have landlords insurance but i havent applied for it as i didnt believe they would payout due to me not doing everything by the book. I.E n breach straight away
• I have a court order in place, i presume i am the creditor so i would be the one to contact the bailiff and organize property to be seized.
• Am i right assuming i would be the one to pay for the bailiff ? therefor i need to decide whether it is worth it or not.
• Currently i believe my best plan of action is using the bailiff as a threat for what they own. my plan is to use the x girlfriend to find out what he owes and where he lives. Its in her best interest also so i dont hold her responsible for the whole debt. He also skipped out and left her with all this on her head so im sure she would help.

Sorry about the long post.

 

You may as well have a go with the insurance but the mongrels will try and wiggle out of anything they can. I have been in your situation before where a relationship broke down and I was owed a bit of money. In the end I just moved on. I had the agency put the dead beats on TIKA and left it at that. Sounds like too much effort for $900 especially if you have to chase everything yourself.

 

This may depend on the specific policy but is unlikely to negate a claim. Providing of course everything was in order at the time you took the policy out, the fact that you have not followed the strict procedure that the Act allows shouldn't be an issue, at least as long as you are with one of the specialist policies that is. I can't speak for all policies though, there may be some that have some clauses.

To me it would look like a pretty straightforward claim, but until we had everything in front of us we couldn't say for sure.

 

You will have to pay for the bailiff but this may be a cost you can pass on if they have enough property.

 

So just to clarify, once you get a tribunal order you don't believe that the tenants should be liable for the money that the tribunal has awarded? Instead it should be up to the landlord to rely on insurance (and hope their premiums don't go up)? Why would you bother going to the tribunal then? I assume from you're comments you tell you're landlords to take the bond and write off any other money owing?

Sorry, I guess the above was a bit wordy.... but can I be you're tenant? It sounds great to be honest.

 

What???

I did not say any of that.
But I don't waste time arguing with personal perceptions.

What else do I believe?
What else of mine would you like to be?

LOL

 

Makes sense now Q - thanks for clarifying.

 

Apologies if I misunderstood.

"Debt is recovered from bond & landlord insurance"

Can you clarify the above comment? It doesn't seem to mention anything about chasing the tenant for money?