Rental agent refusing to help renew lease!

Hi all,

First time poster. We're renting an apartment in Sydney and our lease is up in 1 week. I have tried for months to renew the lease, we are living in SUCH uncertain times and I just want to know that we're here for the next year.

My rental agent doesn't answer my calls, plainly ignores my emails and on the offchance I do catch him, he tells me the landlord hasn't gotten back to him.

I find it really hard to believe and I'm looking for some help.
We've passed inspection (we look after the property well) and haven't been annoying tenants at all.
Please please help! It's really impacting my mental health.

 

It will just roll the to a periodic lease won't it?

 

Yes, but that doesn't protect us in terms of what we pay with rent. Periodic lease I'm pretty sure they can increase the rent as much as they want and as often as they want?

 

Not really no.

And that's a different issue anyway. What else do you want?

 

@JJ3N16 - NSW leases have the contact details of the owner, email them a courtesy note asking their intentions.

Inaction by the agent will cause the lease to rollover to periodical as others have advised however until the lease expires they can still provide the 30 days notice.

 

This is the reality of renting, sorry.
If you want security you need to be more pro active.
Having a lease doesn't mean the rent can't be increased !

Have you considered that the PM is stuck in the middle ?

Your PM has a LOT of properties to keep track of, they have probably reached out to the landlord several times and are awaiting direction from the owner.

Pestering and berating the PM won't help you, in fact the PM will likely see you as an annoying "needy" tenant chewing up their valuable time (And may prefer to see you go than stay) !

 

I assume this is your first time renting as this is all standard. He probably did fire off an email to owners at somepoint and left it at that without any follow up.

Honestly, dont worry about it.

As someone else mentioned, the rent can only be increased once every twelve months so regardless of whether you now go periodic or renew for twelve months it makes no difference.

You will get 90 days notice to vacate if needed. Sure its only 30 days if the place is sold, but it will be obvious even before that the place is to be sold.

I prefer renting on a periodic tenancy although I've noticed that PMs/landlords seem to prefer a fixed term.

In all likeness I would say you are just dealing with a useless and non responsive PM which is pretty normal.
There is nothing to stop you signing a new 12 month lease once they eventually do pull finger anyway.

 

As others have said, once a fixed lease expires, it just rolls over to a periodic one. Rents can still only be increased every 12 months. Nothing really changes at your end, so don't sweat it. FWIW, about half of mine are on periodic, and they're long term tenants.

 

One other aspect to consider is that if a new lease is prepared then you can be guaranteed there will be a rental increase as part of the new lease.

If you remain on periodic then it will likely continue at same rate and in worst case you will have 60 days notice from PM and ball entirely in your court as to whether accept, negotiate or leave.

 

In addition to the above, the owner may be happy to roll onto periodic as otherwise they may have to pay their property manager a fee to renew the lease (which is a silly fee). On periodic they have to provide 90 days termination so it still gives you some level of certainty that you won't have to move on short notice.

 

I generally used to prefer periodic lease. A lot of flexibility without the need to be locked into a particular time frame. I used to just be happy when a fixed term lease rolls into periodic. Means that whenever I want to leave, give sufficient notice and off I go!