Tenants not moving out

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me what happens when a tenant simply refuses to move out? We applied to get them kicked out in June, only got a court date for last week, their lease ran out in early July and they're due to be out by court order tomorrow - only they aren't out, and are looking very unlikely to be by tomorrow.

The PM is going up there with a lock smith to change locks, but if all their stuff is still in the house what's the go in regard to that?

 

Is this in WA?

PM is likely to need to apply for a property seizure and delivery order, and then once the property is secured, the leftover stuff should be treated as abandoned goods under the tenancy legislation.

That's the short version anyway. You can PM or contact me for the long one if you need.

 

Yep WA.

PM just informed me that it's possible I'll have to remove their stuff and store it for 3 months - I almost freaked. Did and still am freaking actually. Surely this cannot be the case?!

 

This is the case. I had a tenant leave a skip worth of junk in a vacated property in WA. I just got her to sign a statement that none of the abandoned goods were hers. It works if you have a cooperative tenant. I'm not sure it would stand up in court though. That said, you could always apply for an Abandoned goods certificate.

http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/consumer-protection/disposal-abandoned-goods-rental-property

 

Apparently you only have to if the goods are worth more than the cost of removal, storage and disposal, which I highly doubt is the case thankfully. It just gets ridiculous doesn't it!

If there's anything still there I'll apply for the abandoned goods certificate just to be sure.

 

Hi Jess

Unfortunately the good folks in the consumer affairs courts take the attitude of, "Everyone has a right to a roof over their head". However the landlord doesn't necessarily have a right to receive rent on time every time such that they can pay the hefty mortgage.

Situations like this highlight the importance of a slushy fund... a pile of money to ride out storms like this.

Also situations like this highlight the importance of landlord insurance which depending on your policy should cover out of pocket expenses such as rent default.

 

Thankfully I have both, but I've come to discover that in spite of that I have no great love of being taken for a ride. It irks me that it's fine for the tenant to have a roof over their head but 'they' have no concern for mine - I'm sure this kind of thing would have some landlords really scraping for funds to pay both their own loan in addition to their IP. We haven't had any funds coming in since April from this property so I can imagine the stress this could cause an investor who hasn't planned for it.