Over crowded house - is using an agent legal protection? (QLD, Sunnybank, BCC)

I have a property near a university and I used to self manage. The area is notorious for students sub-leasing to their friends etc and cramming the house full of people, beyond the legal limit. This worried me from an insurance perspective.

So I handed it over to the local LJ Hooker and gave them strict instructions there were to be no more than the legal limit of occupants, but driving past the other day I could see it happening again. The property was packed with people, I could just tell. The place has 7 bedrooms, every light was on. There was a group of students outside having a BBQ.

Say there was a fire or some incident, am I protected from both a legal and insurance perspective? Can the insurer turn around and say "hey you had an illegal number of occupants, you're not covered". Or does the agent take on the responsibility? I don't know what else I can do other than what I've already done (hiring an agent, providing strict instructions, telling them that I think they've broken the lease agreement / the law etc).

 

I'm not a lawyer but I suspect you as LL and the agent would be jointly responsible if there was a claim.

 

Dammit. Almost makes me wonder whether I should go back to self managing (via my dad) then if I'm still to blame. I live interstate, and only get a chance to do a drive by every few months. Bloody hell!

 

There is a few in Rocklea like that,caravans in the backyard,problem is once you ring up the insurance company and the phone data they have then if there ever was a problem the outcome would be predetermined as far as the insurance would be..

 

As long as the tenant is not subleasing the rooms to others (having separate agreements) and you have a legitimate lease (with a correct number of renters) on it. can't really do much if the renters wants to sleepover.

 

I disagree with this. I assume like in WA you have to stay under a set number of unrelated people allowed to be living there (it's 5 here) otherwise it's a no longer compliant residential lease. If the Council suspects that more than the allowed number on a residential lease are staying there, they will investigate and you can be fined.

They might not be subleasing with a contract but they may well be allowing people to live there that are not on the lease.
Report it to your PM. Ensure they go out an investigate and reiterate with the people on the lease that no more than XX people are allowed to live there otherwise they are in breach of their lease and will be evicted.

 

sleeping over and living in there are 2 different things. but yes if it was living in, report to the PM to take action.