Private landlord cops heavy fine Shows ignorance of legislation does you no favours. These are fairly obvious and dumb errors, but even among property managers I see incorrect amount of notice, wrong durations for things, etc. A snippet is included below “Under the Residential Tenancies Act all security bonds on rental properties must be lodged with the Bond Administrator at the Department of Commerce, but Mrs Sakowski took bond money in cash and kept it in her safe or had it deposited directly into her bank account,” he said. The court heart that Mrs Sakowski used a 2005 REIWA tenancy agreement form and created her own lease agreement, which included conditions that were unacceptable, such as prohibiting children from visiting the property.
Lodging a bond is a pretty basic thing to get wrong. If you can't do that you shouldn't be self managing. Sometimes there is obviously wrong information put forward as fact on PC as well.
" No children to visit the property" - that's pretty standard isn't it? I'll be putting in a 'tenant must double flush toilets after No. 2s' clause.
I haven’t experienced this one but I do know of some hoteliers who have had bikes rebuilt in their rooms before competition. Same oily mess.
Depends who is paying water usage. I don't think the fine was sufficient. The landlord took advantage of a number of tenants.
I see landlords all the time getting things absolutely stuffed up wrong. We are gob smacked in the office every time we get a new file from a private landlord as there is nothing legal in there. Original condition report photos - a bunch of flowers from the landlords mother to congratulate her for purchasing the property. We could kind of see the state of the kitchen in the background but that's all we had With had tenants that were six months and about $10,000 in arrears and the landlord had no idea how far the tenant was behind we had to decipher that information by getting all of her bank accounts from the beginning of that tenancy With had a private landlord solicit a tenant for sex to pay off arrears. Told the tenant that she needs to report this to the police. absolutely disgraceful and unacceptable. We are refusing to deal with this particular landlord at the moment but do manage multiple properties for his ex-wife We've had breach notices being just a bunch of emotionally charged letters written to the tenant telling them how bad they were for not paying rent and how bad of a position that put the landlord in. I've seen tiles held together by sticky tape, bathroom tap leaks dealt with by the landlord jamming a piece of wood into the tap so that it can't be used, security blinds held up by a piece of wood because if they shut you're not be able to get them over there again. We've had properties come to us with absolutely no lease and the landlord not even knowing what the names of the tenants were that were in the property he was just collecting cash every two weeks Here is my disclaimer however: We are a real estate agency so would only get the private landlords that have absolutely stuffed things up beyond repair. I'm certain there are private landlords out there that are doing things right and possibly some that are doing things even better than some agents. however I would not get to see those cases as they do not need to contact us because everything is going well for them. Landlords would only ever contacted the agent to fix things up if they have gotten things horrendously wrong and is now beyond their control
"and failure to provide a property condition report at the beginning and end of a tenancy." Whilst I understand the requirement from a PM, I find this an odd one to legally consider/enforce if a SM chooses/fails not to do this, in the end it's their own fault if something goes wrong. 2 units I purchased (duplex) were 6+yr tenancies, when sale finalised I took over from PM, requested all relevant docs etc, after getting mucked for a couple of weeks all I finally received was keys and ledgers, when I requested PCR & Pics they told me there wasn't any, that they never received any at change over from previous PM, "3yrs earlier". I requested copies of previous inspections, was told they couldn't give me them as they were the property of the previous owners, who paid for them. Gave-em a hard time and ended up with copies of the most recent inspection, but no pics, no entering PCR to go off when they vacate. Not the 1st time I've had to deal with incompetence as a LL or tenant. PM's like this would make it very frustrating/difficult for the good ones (eg: not all 2nd hand car dealers are shonky).
Yes its an annoying requirement but unfortunately strictly legislated in WA since 2013. It stemmed from mostly private landlords not creating PCRs and then filing at court at the end of tenancies claiming on the bond for all sorts of crap. And then the court trying to deal with it without any sort of reliable contemporaneous evidence.
I've observed sale agreements on properties in those retirement village places that have clauses like this. (A friend was rightfully alarmed his mother wanted to buy into it and asked me to review the contract.) I seem to recall something about not being allowed more than two visitors at once without prior permission from the powers that be. So let's say the elderly person wanted their son/daughter + spouse and their children to visit, technically they'd be breaking the rules. I'm surprised anyone is allowed to create rules like this. I presume for someone in their older years, one of the key joys in life is having family over to visit. Oh hang on, not allowed, got to ask first. Ridiculous.
I realise you are probably joking, but please don't go there. Having to put my mother who had advanced Alzheimer's into a nursing home as she was beyond our ability to care for her was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Marg
PS someone not too far from us, who somehow strayed to our nice neighborhood (and has managed to argue with half the street) could have anywhere from 5-15 children over at a time, the fathers all come at different times and days, at least 4 of them with 4+ a piece
