Tenant is not happy with the granny flat construction

As the others have said -Offer more off per week
-I would go $60 per week plus power.
for 4 reasons
1)you want some income while building and
2) you dont want them whinging and complaining the whole way through
3) you dont want them getting vindictive and sueing or soemthing if something arises
not to concern you -just a thought
4)It will be a major disruption to them especially with a newborn

 

Plenty of sensible dialogue with them. Ideally its good to advise the tenant very early in the planning process.

What are their hot-buttons, i.e.concern about noise, safety, amount of rent they pay, what are they plans for the future...will they be moving on, wanting to stay, up-size, downsize etc.........

Its often possible to find a win-win and retain good tenants with sensible dialogue about everyone's needs and wants. Doing this at the dining table over a cup of tea is much better than over the phone and worth the time spent.

 

OP doesn't have a leg to stand on and could easily turn this into a nightmare scenario (blocking access to site for trades, withholding rent until arbitration, etc) and they are within their rights to do so.

it sounds to me like OP's/OP's property manager has goofed incredibly badly, if the tenant has the standard lease using the standard form in QLD in place, the trades have no right to access the site nor does the owner have the right to develop the backyard.

I mean Form17a & form18a are cookie cutter. I have no idea how OP/their property manager isn't familiar with it, this stuff isn't hard.

Page 5, 19 Vacant Possession and Quiet Enjoyment:
The lessor must ensure the tenant has vacant possession of the premises (other than a part of the premises that the tenant does not have a right to occupy exclusively) on the day the tenant is entitled to occupy the premises under this agreement.
Editor’s note – Parts of the premises where the tenant does not have a right to occupy exclusively may be identified in a special term.
(2) The lessor must take reasonable steps to ensure the tenant has quiet enjoyment of the premises.
(3) The lessor or the lessor’s agent must not interfere with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of the tenant in using the premises.


Page 5, 20 Lessor’s right to enter the premises
The lessor or the lessor’s agent may enter the premises during the tenancy only if the obligations under sections 192 to 199 have been complied with


Unless OP / The property manager have provided a tonne of notice (in writing) & have written special lease provisions regarding accessing the premises & developing the backyard, they are breaching the lease agreement. If that's the case, personally I think OP deserves to get ******. Tearing up the yard on a tenant & turning the property they are paying a fair market rate of rent for into a construction zone with no notice during a period when its leased is an incredibly scummy thing to do & they are going to get wrecked if it goes to the RTA. That's the sort of behaviour that gives landlords overall a bad name & is a great way to get yourself blasted as a "dodgy developer/landlord" in the media. Its got everything ACA wants in a story about housing:

• Property development
• Upset, young pregnant couple
• Landlord breaching a lease

If they could work in something about negative gearing it would probably be the anchor story for the night.

Just FYI OP, If you/people on your behalf access the property without proper notice (which you/your property manager should know) e.g. to dig up the back yard, under the Queensland Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 you can face a fine of up to 20 penalty units per infringement, which would be $2,356 per. That's before we even touch on the flagrant disregard for the terms of the lease agreement in place.

 

I worked for the QLD Residential Tenancies Authority for 8 years in Dispute Resolution and dealing with QCAT and there are plenty of warning bells here - as a majority of people have already mentioned above. Some really good points raised above. My thoughts from experience as follows;

If nothing was in the lease then you have basically zero chance of starting construction on the Granny Flat in the back yard. The tenants would have to allow entry as mentioned above and I do not see this happening. Construction in their back yard will significantly affect their quiet enjoyment of the property, and given that she has a baby on the way its most likely that she will be home most days during the hours of construction so this will essentially affect her more than others. Also - Im not sure if she has other children already however if she does then yes safety issues would come into this as it would not be safe for children to be playing so close to a construction site.

It will be treated completely differently for example if construction had started on a house next door - the tenants wouldn't have a good chance in fighting that one however in this case it is a clear breach of section 183 (1) the lessor must take reasonable steps to ensure the tenant has quiet enjoyment of the premises and (2) The lessor or lessors agent must not interfere with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of the tenant in using the premises.

The best option if possible would be hold off on construction! If this matter is referred to the RTA or QCAT I am fairly confident from my 8 years of dealing with similar cases that if you have nothing in writing then the tenant will have every right to leave and possibly even claim compensation from you ie moving costs etc. This has happened for many cases before and I think you might be surprised how much compensation could be awarded to tenants in certain situations.

Jodi

 

Hi Dean, That is clever. I will definitely consider putting this kind of special term in a new lease.

 

Hi thatbum, when did you give the information to your tenant? Was it in the middle of lease? Did they not complain at all during the construction with the $50 reduction?

 

I had two properties affected as I was building a pair of GFs. I had a bit of tenant turnover so I think about 5 sets of tenants were potentially affected in the end - including ones I had to try and attract during the build (rough).

I gave as much information as I could as soon as I had it pretty much. It was written in the leases well before construction started, along with attached DA plans to show what land was being taken away.

Only real issues were some personality clashes between one tenant and a building supervisor, which I had to get a bit hands on with and also double the rent discount for a few weeks.

I couldn't see any reason not to give full disclosure to my tenants and potential tenants along the whole process.

EDIT: I also had an open door policy with any tenants who had any specific issues during the build, so I could smooth things over asap, and/or offer more discounting if I was happy that they were unreasonably disrupted beyond the normal construction stuff. I would strongly recommend doing this.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

Excellent post, completelt agree.

Ultimately its important to cover yourself legally so everything is clearly documented and there arent any misunderstandings, as well as to be fair and reasonable to the tenants.

We all covet good tenants but its just as important to be a good landlord imo.

 

Thank you, everyone here. I haven't got reply from the tenant yet so I am not sure they can accept the rental deduction or they want move out immediately.
Actually I am offering $30 percent deduction from the next week until the completion for 8-12 weeks + water/power $50 per months. Actually I confirmed the builder will separate the water and power with a new meter so they won't use the main one. But I offer it.

The builder sent an email to decribe the rough schedule and work with dates to my PM. She sent it to the tenant.

I need to wait and see in next Mon I guess.

 

This sort of thing should always be in the lease. With my last development (retain and build, not gf so longer time frames) I put a clause in the new fixed term lease stating I would be taking back and fencing off the yard with 2 weeks notice (as was still in the planning stages). And no adjustment to rent. They were happy, signed it and even resigned the next fixed lease even though construction was still half way.

Best tenants I have had, kept an eye on the building and caught a few tradies stealing supplies like bags of mix etc and even using my water. They took photos of the vehicles and the goods were soon recovered from other building sites close by.

Be honest with your intentions from day 1 and life will go along so much more smoothly.

 

8 weeks from when anyone steps on site to when the last person leaves? seems pretty ambitious/unrealistic to me.

also, you cannot start works until something is agreed in writing with the tenant, sounds like the builder is starting next week. you would effectively be trespassing and completely ignoring the tenants rights and your responsibilities. I would like to believe when you first started this thread that you might have been unaware of some of the intricacies or procedures.

if you go ahead and start before you and the tenant come to some sort of agreement (and the date specified in that agreement) then you would potentially be up for some pretty big fines, which you would deserve every single dollar of.

 

Hi Jodi,
Although i have not written in the current lease, i informed the tenant a few times from the beginning via PM. I found my email was sent 2 months ago to PM to inform the building contract was signed with drawing plan and the consruction would start soon so builders need to access for couple months. I confirmed the builder went onsite to meet the tenant and PM to explain the plan 2 months ago. They didn't tell any concerns until this week. If they told at that time, I would have time to discuss and consider hold off the construction.

With the above email evidence, Does the tenent still have a right to ask big compensation?

 

Notifying them doesn't really change anything legally... You really need to be locking down a separate agreement in writing or even better, a new lease.

I'm a little concerned about the fact you're just letting your PM pass the messages along here. With something so important, I would be personally handling the discussions with the tenant at the very least.

 

you have chosen to post on a property specific forum to get advice on a property related matter. you have received, to possibly varying degrees, almost unanimous feedback that what you are planning on doing is a bad idea. you continue to ask versions of the same question, maybe in the hope that someone says "go ahead, no worries" so that you can sleep better at night and then deal with the inevitable tribunal case and possible fines at a later date.

you have now, almost 20 hours @Andrew Hancock wrote a substantial response clearly advising you not to go ahead with what has now gone from possibly misinformed to downright silly plan. in that time, you could have called her, emailed her, PM'd her, whatever. you claim to be on a tight timeline but leave it til after everyone leaves on Friday to send the above similar post to previous ones which for some reason you think will be answered differently.

seriously, this is a truly great forum with very helpful members and a great wealth of knowledge.

if youre going to ignore all that advice, refuse to engage professionals here who might provide specific advice and generally just go round and round in circles then what is the point?

i mean for god sake you yourself said that you have no idea how the tenants will be affected by builders parking, exactly how much of the property they will lose access to etc. you are woefully unprepared and your PM appears to be crap too. did you really expect some kind of open ended approval from your tenant and even then to not have it in writing? what if they ended up losing all their yarfd or all their parking or whatever? what if you took 6 months instead of 2-3? what if there is damage done to them or any of their property?

yes you might have told them about your plans but you have since been totally negligent in your actions as a landlord but providing them with no details whatsoever. this is on you, not them. they are not being difficult.

you have 2 options. 1 - try to come to an agreement of any kind with them that suits them and you. 2 - act like lord of the manor and just send the builders in because you feel like it and because you and your PM dropped the ball. if you choose option 2 i genuinely hope the book gets thrown at you in terms of compensation to tenant as well as fines for your behaviour.

 

i suspect there is no intent on actually trying to really sort this out, just a case of seeing if he can get away with being entirely unreasonable

 

@sanj - what's unreasonable about the op? Gives away their right to occupy unconditionally (subject to the lease), enters into a separate contract which affects the occupant's quiet enjoyment and then expects to get it back at the drop of a hat.