Tenants cutting fixed lease short due to mould?

Hi all,

My tenants notified REA that they had vacated my property prematurely due to a mould infestation and provided a letter from a doctor stating that it was unhealthy for them to live there further due to mould. There is 3 months remaining on the lease, and they've been living there for 2 years, renewed once. They are refusing to pay further rent.

They had the house cleaned before vacate and provided no photos of the mould. REA and I immediately inspected the house post-vacate/post- clean and didn't see any signs of mould. Periodic inspection reports even go as far as to say rooms are "free from mould". And this is the first time I or REA ever heard the tenants mention mould. Had they mentioned it prior it would have been addressed.

Right now my suspicion is that they just didn't want to pay the remaining 3 months of the lease. REA knows they've already purchased a house elsewhere in the past few months, so it's looking like they moved out and want to save on rent.

This accusation of a mould infestation is a bit worrying, I don't see much grounds for it, but they do have a letter from their GP doctor. No professional report however from an inspector. Anyone know the way forward from here? Thanks

 

As they have made no previous mention or complaint your PM should be treating this as a break lease.
Ensure you tell the PM not to release the bond asap

 

If they've gone to the trouble of getting a doctor to state that , without having seen cases like this go to a tribunal , I'd be surprised if you got an favourable outcome .

Over the years , we've had three of cases where tenants provided medical certificates to break leases and we've been happy to let them go . First one was mental health ( yep , no problems , worse case scenario the tenant commits suicide ... ) . Can't remember details of the second outside that it happened , last one just happened . Tenant diagnosed with MS , deteriorating and now has a SDA / NDIS property available , no problems letting them go . If they've got MS and need NDIS house , they've got more problems than we've got )

I'm a GP and can recall giving a couple of certificates for patients with mold issues which were aggravating their asthma . In both cases , they were long term patients of mine who's asthma had been worse recently ... so that is the possible scenario you could be facing . There's always a possibility ( ? probability ) that the Doctor is just accepting the patients word without much evidence to back that up , but the tribunal is very unlikely to ask the Doctor to back up their report . As a GP , in 35 years I've never had or heard of that happening .

So there's a possibility that the person has a genuine health issues , and a possibility they don't .

My thoughts are the tribunal will accept the Doctors Certificate at face value . Personally I'd move on .

In all the areas we have properties , rents are moving up . In the one we just let the tenant go , I think the new rental was 40-60 $ more a week ...

Cliff

 

Would a report from a qualified mould inspector confirming the absence of mould in the property trump the GP's letter before a tribunal, considering the GP did not inspect the property?

 

Seriously ?? …

I have no idea , but you’ve got to pay for that and then the tenant turns around and says they cleaned it up professionally before they left so they didn’t have money deducted from their bond ….

did the “ mould inspector “ examine the tenant and confirm at the time the doctor wrote the report that they didn’t have a medical condition triggered by the mould that was present at a time they didn’t inspect the property ….

personally I would just move on and get a new tenant.

cliff

 

I would ask them to produce some evidence eg photos of the mould as surely they would have taken some. Otherwise without it I would be pushing for a break lease.

 

have you had situations where you have successfully challenged a doctors report supporting a lease break ?

cliff

 

1. break lease procedure
2. claim/dispute bond + costs exceeding the bond, and in parallel;
3. once re-let, landlord insurance claim for any loss of rent/re-let fees, etc
4. on principal, they have not followed the law re: notice to remedy breach giving you grounds to remedy the supposed problem, before they move to terminate etc, from the information provided, I doubt they would be successful at tribunal defending your compensation claim as generally you need to be provided with an opportunity to remedy the breach
5. if they provide no evidence of mould such as photos at the very least, and you get a copy of this 'doctors' report, I'd look into the possibility of making a complaint with AHPRA against the Doctor if the GP has blatantly lied.....

 

A doctor's report is nearly worthless for proving whether there was mould there. It's just self serving hearsay evidence.

 

This sounds so bizarre to me.
So you and PM has never heard about this "mould" issue ever?
Under normal circumstance, I would expect the Tenants to advise you about the mould issue, where it comes from (cant be the whole house unless it's a Studio?). And you should be given an opportunity to remedy it and only when you fail to act they can give you a breach or something. They cant just do a runner quietly like this.
The mould issue might very well be true, and the Doctor might have acted in good faith.
But they have not notified you beforehand although we know mould takes time to develop, and this is wrong I believe.

 

As per what others have said

As there's been no mention of where the mould was or attempt to raise the issue (to have it remedied) it could have been mould on bathroom ceiling caused by tenant failing to use the fan/open window

There is nothing to say that this "mould" is/was caused by the property or lack of maintenance by the owner

Clearly a ploy to get out of paying rent to be o purchase of their own place

Did they give any notice to vacate at all ?
Take min 2 week's from bond, add a week for break lease

and any little items from condition report (your PM should be able to negotiate a fair and reasonable compromise with the tenant) and move on

 

First of all , has anyone come across a situation where a doctors note has been ignored in a tribunal ?.

It’s fine to cast aspersions over the person who wrote the report without knowing the full situation , but without a precedent it’s risky . My assumption ( maybe wrong ) is that the tribunal will take the doctors report at face value and assume that they have acted in a professional basis and accept it .

In 35 years as a GP , I’ve never had a situation where someone has questioned the legality or information of a certificate I’ve written and I’ve never been asked to provide information to back up that evidence .

The one such case that someone did ask me to provide a report for , the patient was a long time patient and they did provide pictures for me to see .


Cliff

 

It’s fine to say that , but when someone is requesting advice relating to a legal matter , do you have any experience or information relating to what happens in a tribunal ?

My one experience with a tribunal ( matter against a builder - not in a tenancy ) was that it waste of time , so maybe that makes me biased against them …

cliff

 

So as a GP you would write a report for a tenant that stated they had developed specific medical problems entirely as a result of mould without anything more than some photos of the mould and the patient's opinion?

Seems a bit shaky to me, I know my own GP is extremely hesitant to write any reports along those lines, at best he will write a report saying such conditions can contribute to certain health problems. We had a similar issue with a faulty mattress causing severe neck and back pain, whilst doctors would agree a mattress with poor support could cause those issues they would never be able to say without doubt there were no other factors......

And don't get me wrong, I am not saying that mould isn't bad or likely to cause health issues, however in the OP's case if this went to tribunal surely they would have to consider what ability the landlord was given to rectify the problem first.

 

No , I haven't said that at any stage , and reality is that we don't know what the medical report has said .

I'm always careful about how I write reports and I'm also very care about what I write on the forum given that I've been here for 20 years , many members know me personally and know what I do ( and hopefully ) respect my opinion ....

Yes , maybe the Dr in this situation didn't do the right thing , but on the information based in this thread , WE DON'T KNOW THAT .

My starting point in this situation is that , regardless of what people think , is that , based on my experince from the last 35 years , is that in a legal proceeding , the judge / magistrate / moderator will start from a position of accepting the report of an expert . No one has been able to provide any evidence to the contrary . If someone with a legal background or a PM with extensive experience in similar matters is able to provide evidence to the contrary I think that's a reasonable starting point . Anything else , WE DON"T KNOW .

So having had many patients involved with multiple legal proceedings over the last 35 years , I've only every had 1 come out happy with that experience ( and that was due to the other side making a basic mistake by offering a 200 k , rather than a 20 K settlement , yep seriously ... ) . Everyone else regretted their decision to go ahead with legal proceedings .

I'm with Wylie on this , there down side is just not worth it . Move on .

Cliff

 

I have had situations where a tribunal won't support a claim without evidence. Perhaps the tenant was affected by mould at their workplace or their car has a mould infestation. At a minimum a photo showing mould at the property would be a reasonable request.

 

It’s perfectly reasonable to provide supporting evidence

But have you had a situation where a tribunal has rejected any expert report ?

Cliff