Property trashed "Today Tonight" style

So my lovely tenant opened the doors to his druggie mates who became squatters. A rent inspection by the PM was done 4-6 weeks prior (I was there) and the place was fine, no sign of any issues.

The tenant was clearly a regressing Iooking Ice addict but can't kick him out for that. He stopped paying rent several times but would pay just in the 'legal' nick of time until finally he didn't pay and we had a court date.

Instead of just packing his things and leaving he made up some story about the house been taken over by a bikie gang (two weeks before he told the PM) which was complete BS. There were two squatters there but not from a gang...

Anyways ... any tips for insurance claims, what I can expect to be out of pocket? Rubbish everywhere, broken doors, taps, shed lights, broken kitchen doors, broken blinds, broken wardrobe....PM will be managing all of it with Terry sheer but any tips would be appreciated.

#devistated

 

Which insurer are you with? And what state is the property in?

Ease of bond claim and insurance claim will depend on those 2 questions.

Process varies a little per state, but essentially PM can organise bailiff removal once court has approved this.

- Get reimbursed for court fee and bailiff fee - insurance covers
- Change the locks to prevent them coming back - insurance covers
- Get all the junk removed - bond covers
- Get it cleaned - bond covers
- Get things repaired - insurance may cover, go to police and report it as an incident so that it goes under malicious damage. Depending on the insurer you're with they might want to charge separate excesses for each item or one for all of it.
- Get water calculated up to move out date - bond covers
- Get outstanding rent - insurance covers
- Get ad back online to find new tenants - PM to do
- Get prorata letting fee - Bond covers (probably SA only?)
- Get rent to cover vacancy time - insurance covers
- Live happily ever after with better tenants in place - Scaphella to do

 

Terri Sheer by the looks of it.

Disrepair - absolutely trashed.

 

Ah sorry, didnt see that bit.

@Scaphella I'd be very interested in feedback after your claim. Please report back here or message me.

 

Thanks DT. A police report was promptly filed, it didn't go anywhere but atleast it's documented. The PM met the squatters, I took a photo of their car in the driveway but apparently it would be too hard to make a conviction so the cops didn't bother with forensics (even with drug paraphernalia in the shed)

Bond is $1200, it just happens to be bulk rubbish collection in two weeks so that will save hundreds in disposal costs and labour...

 

Don't need a conviction - insurer will ask for the report number is all.

$1200 doesn't really go very far - luckily you have collection coming

This is why i like how SA has 6 weeks bond instead of 4

 

Sorry to derail your thread - just curious about a couple of things

When the tenant applied for the lease -
did your PM call employer and confirm he ha a job?
did your PM do any criminal checks?
did your PM call any past landlords?

Also
how long was he a tenant there? and
how long was he living there before trouble started the first time?


Just curious for my own reference to see if this could have been prevented so I would know in future for myself.

 

Isnt any way of doing criminal checks.
Everyone does the other 2 you mentioned as the details are on the app form.

Sounds to me like you're trying to blame the PM? Even good tenants go downhill, all it takes is a loss of job or spouse and they mix with the wrong crowd and spirals outwards from there.

 

Yes confirmed tennant had a job with pay slips etc. No criminal checks only checking of dodgey tenant database. Can you actually ask a tenant for a police clearance?

Tenant paid two months no issue then got behind. The place isn't amazing (it's aged) but talking to the neighbours they have never had a bad tenant until I baught the place. Depending on how the insurance goes, perhaps it's an opportunity to update it a bit...really don't know as it's worth 50k less than I paid for it. I'm losing this property investment game badly.

 

No, blaming is unproductive. I am trying to understand if there is any precautions that could have been made to learn from, and these things are common ones that are often not done sufficiently which is why I mentioned those.

Yes sometimes tenants go downhill due unfortunate/unforeseen circumstances, but I think taking drugs, while not always, is more often going to show up in their history, which is why I suspect maybe lacking background checks could have missed this.

As I said - just curious to see if there is anything to learn from.

 

I personally don't blame the PM. The fact is less desirable people are getting rentals in Perth that wouldn't even get a look in previously. It can be a gamble, and like you say even good tenants can go down hill , there are no guarantees in this life.

 

Oh right, looks like just really bad luck then with the tenant. That sux.

Not sure what you are referring to with the 50k. Do you mean that is how much damage there is or do you mean the location has dropped in price or what?

 

I have had a good tenant go "bad". On paper he was excellent, so no issues in giving him a tenancy. I don't know when he started taking drugs but he was certainly into them partway through the tenancy. By "bad", he didn't do any damage to the property, he would just get stoned then make long and incoherent phone calls. On the scale of great to bad, he wasn't bad. My only point in posting this is that there was no way of telling at the start of the tenancy.

I have had another tenant that was in a property I purchased. Signed up to a new lease, kept the place neat and tidy for over 2 years then went feral at the end of the tenancy and damaged the property. It literally went from passing the inspection at one inspection and then damage at the next inspection.

Not trying to alarm you though. In over 10 years, 2 states, 4 properties and lost track of the number of tenants, I have made 2 bond claims. In my experience, most tenants are fine.

 

Insurers dont give you much joy with these claims. Its often not a specific event but ongoing damage so each hole = an excess. This can leave a massive shortfall in the repair costs. Ideally they destroy it in one day / night and the insurer accepts this...ie Police report, neighbour statements etc.

 

This is why i prefer EBM, they're a lot more accommodating on this. Ie don't need to send an assessor out to look and are more understanding of PM's explanation of the situation.

 

Property

They have trashed the kitchen, could the insurer not cover it because its old? Even though it was in perfect working order before with not a screw loose...

 

I'm no expert but has my super star tenant cut the wireless to the phone line? Was just gonna replace the cover then realised...

 

Realised what ?

And how can you have wireless with a wired line ?

 

I've owned my own rental for over 14 years and my parents at one stage self managed houses from the 1960's up until the 90's.

I've learnt a few things along the way. Always turn up to the first inspection yourself and as many later on as you can. The first lease I always do short and if I see things I don't like I evict them at the end of the lease and push the PM for breach notices. If it's a half hearted effort from the tenant and I'm not too sure about them, I'll give them another short lease so it's easy to evict incase it looks ugly. Get on with the neighbours of your house and leave your phone number incase the tenants behave badly. Always do drive-byes, use other peoples cars or going to a friends place, etc. I've caught out heaps of grubs this way, tenants have done a runner or the lawn is a 1m high. It's your house and it's in your best interest to make sure it's being looked after correctly.

In the years I've dealt with renters I've never seen good tenants go bad, when I've done inspections I've always seen disrespectful things done in or to the house and I get rid of them before anything else can go wrong. I'd rather lose rent money than have a house smashed to pieces. Sometimes inevitable but best not taking the risk where possible.

I had one tenant that wanted a plumber to unblock the main sink within 2 weeks of the start of their tenancy, I thought I would just pop in to see what's going on as I was in the house for a duration of 3 months prior without any issues. Well, I can't even get to the sink as there's 2 weeks worth of unwashed dishes scatted around the place and find out she's poured all cooking fat and left over cooking down the sink. These tenants end up being some of the worst I've even seen with holes in the walls and pets in the house that urinated everywhere. Long story short but the PM refused to evict them before the lease expired so I dumped that real-estate immediately.

I've caught out PMs lying on numerous amount of occasions, when you sense something is not right, send your own repair people there not the PMs and get them to take photos before and after the repair or if you can go in and have a look yourself even better. The amount of stuff they've missed on entry and exit reports has almost driven me insane.

All I can say is when you find a good PM don't let go of them and the good ones work really hard to do the right thing within the system they have. Do as much of micro managing as you can, ask heaps of questions and check the laws yourself. After all you're the one that has to foot the bill when it all goes wrong not the PM.

 

Realised it would be pointless to put a cover over the top if the wires are broken...(I meant to say wires not wireless..)