Real estate withdrawing lease once signed

This is just a completely speculative guess, but I think perhaps they thought she wouldn't be entitled to be represented by a lawyer and they could talk her out of it when she was by herself, yes. They brought the property manager AND a director from the REA.

Anyway, I'm no stranger to those courts and I sought leave to appear and was granted it very early on.

 

Geez us investors are a funny mob - even coming to the support of a tenant mistreated by a shifty agent.

Well done @thatbum a great outcome.

 

No, I think we all support fairness and equality. And if there was more of it then there'd be less dodgy people around, on both sides of the ledger.

Issue mainly resolves around legislation being a little tenant sided, and tribunals being unpredictable and random and best.

 

Well done. Great outcome

 

This.

 

I wonder who will shell out the money in this case as well.

 

Depends on whose stuff up/change of instructions - may be professional indemnity claim If the agent stuffed up or owner wears it if they changed their mind on accepting pets.

 

Yep, I'd say owner if they changed their mind or agency if they didn't follow instructions

 

You've restored my faith in lawyers. I know lawyers need to make a living, and therefore need to charge, but it's good to see the odd freebie for those in need.

What would be the cost if you were charging for your service? How much of that charge would be recoverable as you won? Would Alysha have been able to get a similar result without representation?

The claim of $4k seems huge for general damages. Is that a tactic of over quoting the claim to get the lesser amount?

Did the other side have lawyers? If so, how much do you think they spent?

 

I'm assuming the opposite. The LL had to pay and may seek compensation/damages from the agent.

Maybe That Bum can now represent the LL in action against the agent. lol.

 

@wylie - yes unfortunately the LL is the one that has to pay the figure to the tenant. Its possible that the LL and the REA have some sort of arrangement to pitch in for that figure, but I can't tell from my point of view.

Unfortunately I don't think it was a matter where anyone could have done it without legal assistance, and probably specialist tenancy law legal assistance at that. Even the Magistrate commented that it was quite a complex case.

I would have estimated the private legal costs to be around $3k if someone was charging - most of a day in court; application preparation; and time to review documents and instructions.

I suspected all that, which is most of the reason I agreed to get on board pro bono.

Nah it wasn't a tactic - genuinely my estimate of what the general damages were worth, which is a representation of the non-financial losses - time, stress, inconvenience. There were some old cases that were around $2k, but they involved comparably less hassles than Alysha had suffered.

General damages do have a certain element of uncertainty compared to direct financial loss I suppose, but I was fairly confident of getting not far off $4k if not $4k itself.

 

the world needs more people like you!

 

Genuinely curious if this is the landlord being ignornat or the agent being useless or vindictive