Property Manager not responding to repair requests

Hi all,

I signed a 12 month lease and moved into my current residence on 01/07/2017. It's located in what could be considered one of the rougher suburbs of Western Sydney. From the beginning I noticed the property manager was disorganised and late to respond to my queries, but I decided to proceed with renting the premises.

The property was advertised as having a lock up garage, however since the day we moved in the lock mechanism on the rolling garage door was completely non-existent, it simply has no way of locking. Anyone from the street could simply open our garage and have access to our property through a flimsy wooden door with a basic lock.

I emailed the property manager about 3 months ago and got no response. About 2 months ago I emailed him again with a reminder, and requesting that the issue was attended to as we felt unsafe. He responded several weeks later saying "Thanks for refreshing my memory, we'll have someone out as soon as possible to fix it. Can you please send me a photo". I obliged and sent him a photo, and then did not hear back. About 6 weeks ago I emailed again asking if anything was being organised, and to date I have not received a response or a phone call.

Some other issues that I am concerned about:

-He advised he would return to pick up our property condition report about a week after we moved in. To this date it is still sitting on our bench and he hasn't been in touch to pick it up.

-He signed as witness on our tenancy agreement despite not being present for or witnessing either of our signatures. I asked if we should sign another copy and he said not to worry, it's fine.

Does anyone have any advice on how we should approach this? I'm not exactly sure what my rights are here. Do I have grounds to terminate my lease early? I feel I've been paying for 4 and a half months on a property where not all advertised features are present - especially a critical one such as a lock on an exterior access point.

 

Have a read through this website and then call the Office of Fair Trading for further guidance.

Factsheet 07: Locks and security

You cannot just stop paying rent or terminate the agreement as due process must be followed.

 

If you feel there are no other options, you need to breach the agent. You may be entitled to compensation relating to the features of the property that weren't present during the lease so far, but that is decided throughout a tribunal process if you'd like to proceed in that manner.

The witness signature thing is pretty common, though it's not exactly the best practice. I wouldn't be too worried about that seeing as you know you signed your own signatures.

Be careful with that condition report- are there any NSW locals who can tell me the specific requirements of condition reports down there? In QLD it's your responsibility to return it within 3 business days or your notes are excluded.

 

IIRC - returned within 7 days, telling the agent to pick it up doesn't meet the requirements.

 

In NSW the tenant copy needs to be completed with any disagreement on condition and returned within 7 days or the agents copy is the one which will be used for end of condition reporting and at tribunal.

 

First up I would get the condition report to the agent ASAP, it's your responsibility to return it. Obviously you believed the agent when they said they would collect (and why wouldn't you?) but the onus is really on the tenant to get it back within the set time frame. I would send it back, maybe even with a stat dec that says when it was completed and also a disclaimer that you hadn't returned it earlier because agent said he would collect it from you. I don't know whether they'd accept it, but it's better than not doing these steps and the agent dismissing it immediately.

I don't think you'd have cause to break your lease without penalty without first taking appropriate action to get the garage door issue resolved, I understand you've already reported it on a number of occasions and you shouldn't need to - but unless you can show that you've tried everything to get the matter resolved you may find you still need to pay lease break charges. I would again advise the agent and this time breach them, for non-urgent repairs in Victoria this gives them 14 days to action the request (I don't know whether this is the same in NSW, I'm sure someone can give you the correct advice) and then go through the motions of taking it to tribunal if you need to. If there's still no resolve then you may have a strong case to break the lease if you wish.

 

+1 best advice!

 

Whatever they said

 

This is a serious security issue - If the out of hours details on the lease have a locksmiths number call them and have them send the bill to the agent. Best to call after 5 pm Friday.

Once you've done that, the agent may more attention to their job.

 

Except if it’s not arranged by the agent the owner would have no obligation to pay that bill.

The person who arranged it is legally responsible to pay it.

 

Also it’s an important issue that needs to be dealt with but probably won’t be looked at as a serious security breach through tribunal if all external doors and windows to the house are fitted with locks

 

The IP has noted that the internal door is not secure (their opinion).

 

I saw that Scott but the word “flimsy” may not be considered if it’s lockable.

Also the fact that they inspected the property before they signed the lease and the door has not been replaced with a flimsy one with in the lease period would also be considered by tribunal

 

@Xenia - I've seen houses ransacked with every locked solid door smashed off the hinges - sometimes flimsy is better.