VIC Tenants being extremely fussy

Hi Guys,

I am in need of some advise. We had tenants in our property in May last year and they seem to be extremely fussy about every little thing.
One major issue they had was that since moving in their gas bill was quite high and as per them it was due to heating unit not working properly.
Our PM sent a professional to look at the heating unit and as per him the unit is not faulty/broken. But he suggested to decrease the gas bill either the whole unit can be replaced with higher wattage unit or the vents can be made wider costing us either $5k or $2k depending which path we take.
Tenant jumped up and down for a month when we declined to do either immediately as the unit is not faulty/broken and is in the recommended power range for the size of house.
And we said we can consider the 2 options down the line.
At this the tenant said she will take us to Vcat as the property was falsely advertised with central heating when the unit is not working as she wants it to work. Since then we haven't heard anything further.
How would you guys deal with such a tenant or not deal with them at all and ask them to evict once the lease expires which is in May.


Any thoughts would be helpful.
TIA.

 

Step 1. Figure out if you have any legal obligations to do the thing requested.

Step 2. If "no", figure out if you are willing to do the thing requested anyway because of keeping tenant happy/incidental benefit to you overall/goodness of your heart/whatever.

Step 3. If still "no", politely, clearly and firmly inform the tenant that you are not doing the requested thing, and also your reasoning.

Step 4. Not to stress out while carrying out the above steps, since its just the basic thought process that a landlord has to run through each time.

 

the term " I will pursue/take legal action" seems to be used every 5 seconds by just about everyone these days,
I/my workplace get threatened by legal action once a day at least, and not once has anything happened

I would only start to worry until you get actual notice of Vcat

so is the unit actually a central heating unit?? I would like my coffee machine to work as a personal trainer, but I wont get too far at Vcat if I took it further!

 

How do I find out what is my legal obligation in this case?
And we are happy to take necessary steps - but do not like being threatened this way without any reason.
We were considering sending another professional to have a thorough look and make recommendations but I have a feeling if we let this tenant stay, and the answer to their request is NO (after considering everything) they will be unhappy and might create issues in future.
That why was considering to just let hem go and find new tenants.

 

Think its a good idea to let them go before it comes to that?
And yes it is a central heating unit.

 

What's the way she wants it to work?

How high of a gas bill are we talking? Do you know an average for that unit?

VCats probably going to laugh this off, they're a bit ridiculous, @TMNT is correct that *Cat is used every 5 seconds to technically try and "get your way"... It's becoming a joke.

 

Tenant is saying that when they close the door -it does not heat up the room. And this is for master , study and another room. Whereas this was not the case when we lived in the house. And the tradesman who went to check could not identify a issue and said there is no fault/issue but the performance can be improved by doing a bunch of things. Thats why I was thinking to send the guy who installed a new motor when we were in the house to go and have another look, service the unit and let us know if there is an issue.
So its a 4 bedroom house and living area is quite spacious with big glass windows. Their bill last winters was $700.

 

The guy who inspected it was a bit vague in report but I will have another look. But when we asked him over the phone : Is there a fault/issue with unit, he said No.


If we do decide not to renew the lease, and ask them to move out, they cant really create a issue about that? It seems this tenant has a lot of time on her hands to find issues and write long emails.

 

So I re-read the report and the guy has said one thing in report and another thing on the phone.

 

And compared to when you lived there? 700 a quarter seems quite large to me...

 

When we were there $450 approx. But its just 2 of us so we managed vents where we didn't need them.
But tenant has full house and someone might even be home during the day whereas both of us were out until 6:30pm each weekday.

 

I re-read the report and it says :
1. "The unit is under sized for this property",
2. "Duct work was installed poorly and is undersized in some areas"

When we spoke to the guy on phone he sais there is nothing as such wrong with unit but it can be improved.
When I checked online its says the unit should be of 18-23KW for this covered area and ours is 18kw.

 

What you are saying makes absolute sense. I think we will get another repairman to check the unit and vents and do another report. Plus may be service the unit , clean the vents, anything that would help.
We are all about doing the right thing by tenants and listening to their issues/concerns. But my biggest issue with this tenant has been the threat to go to VCAT without giving the matter enough thought/time and being reasonable.And that's why I feel like asking them to leave.
But then I think may be we should give them another chance and see how things go.

 

High powered heating units can cost a lot

But if your current one is almost adequate

You could install a 5kw split system which should be able to do 2 to 3 rms without a problem, for well under $2k

But sounds like youll be getting complaints about the damn power bill so its a catch 22

 

I actually sat in on a VCAT hearing end of last year, many issues in the tenancy but one was due to a “high” gas bill.

Member rightly said that they cannot compare one gas bill to another in a different property. Each property is different - so provided the unit is operating as it should and you have this in writing in theory that’s all you need.

From what you said it could mean the unit is on the lower end of what’s required for the home, but it’s in working condition. It’s also now summer and I wouldn’t imagine the tenant would be using it as regularly right now either.

If you are wanting to move them on and if the lease expires in May I would be issuing a 90 day end of lease notice ASAP as it needs to be expire on the exact day the lease expires.