ouch! what a mess
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Advice please. Joint tenants with one causing trouble.
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In defence of your agent- I would never accept a text as notice to terminate a tenancy either. SMS via mobile phones generally cannot be saved, printed and/or authenticated as being from a known sender for record keeping and posterity. i.e. – lost phone – lost Sim- phone upgrade – message lost and therefore no record kept. (Proper business practice and RTA requires good record keeping by LL’s) Besides being unreliable and not as per section RTA 51 (3) I also think it’s lazy and disrespectful to send such a formal notice in this way. I’m perhaps a bit pedantic but I still ask that written notice sent by e-mail is also signed by tenants’ to authenticate that it was sent by them- especially in the circumstances you describe where there is conflict between tenant parties. I have never had a tenant object or not comply if i ask them to resend thier e-maill with thier signature at the bottom
I don’t understand “inspection 1 week late”? Routine inspections can be done at any time during a tenancy, but not within a month of the last one. A final inspection for bond refund wouldn’t be done before the property is vacated. Considering notice has- supposedly- just been given by the tenant (only one party need give notice) that would now be some 21 days away. Bond would be held until tenancy end date.
Liability? All tenants are jointly and severally liable for all aspects of the tenancy (rent & condition of premises) until the tenancy termination date. Or it could be considered beyond that for tenant liabilty such as rent arrears and /or damages outstanding at the end of the tenancy as ordered by the Tribunal (A LL can apply for the debt to be enforced through the courts against either party- jointly or severally)
The Bond processing centre will be looking for both parties to sign the bond refund form as per the original bond lodgement, or will affect the refund as per Tribunal orders. Assuming a full refund to the tenants, once the landlord has signed the refund form they should not have to concern themselves with the refund allocation between tenants. If only one tenant party signs the form, the bond processing centre will attempt to make contact with the other party for their instructions.
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Perhaps you should start at the beginning and rtead from my first post.
Tenancy has ruled that Texts are valid.
Bond centre gave the advice posted.
The agent agreed at a meeting 2 weeks ago to do an inspection so that we knew where we stood with the property in terms of its condition at that point. She duly gave notice as required but failed by about a week to get there. Slack performance and also outside of the RTA. She has now done the inspection and has indicated to us in an email that she is happy apart from one bedroom needing a carpet clean.
I missed saying that the rent is now 15 days in arrears and has been for 2 weeks to my knowledge and I asked the agent what had been done, had a 14 day notice been sent. No answer. So the answer is clealy no.. Had it been sent then we could get a mediation or a hearing. Bloody slack by the agent actually.
The Agent cannot transfer the bond until the tenancy is ended so we await the end of the 21 days. As far as I can see in the RTA there is no provision for a bond transfer in any other way.
How do you resolve an issue like this when one of two is pushed out and the other refuses to cooperate in anyway.
At what point should the agreived party stop being liable?
If you can answer that with a viable solution then I'm interested.
Been a LL long enough to know a few of the answers but this one has been a challange to solve. Fortunately its not my house nor my LL/agent but a person who needs some assistance.
The problem with this is that despite the person who I am assisting doing nothing wrong she will be the loser. The male refuses to recognise her rights and there is nothing that she can do except give the 21 days notice at which time she will inevitably lose some or all of her bond and possibly be held responsible for a share or all of any other liabilty that may be created in the meantime.
Now I know us landlords are heartless bastards but fairness has always played a part in my dealings on stuff like this. I reckon that's what we should expect.Last edited by Viking; 03-02-2012, 09:06 PM.
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the problem sounds closest to a relationship breakdown
where both have ownership of a house and responsibility for mortgage payments
but due to the breakdown 1 of them stops paying their share of the payments
as far as i know there isn't a cost effective way out of that mess
which is why partnerships of any kind involving money or property are so thorny when they go badhave you defeated them?
your demons
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so if she ends up losing her bond because of damage he does, how about this:
She sends him a bill for the money, on grounds that she's just been forced to pay for his damage so he owes her.
He probably disputes it.
She takes him to the disputes tribunal.
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Originally posted by Viking View PostTenancy has ruled that Texts are valid.
A) You formally accept electronic transmission via text.
B) Your actions show that you accept electronic transmission via text.
As I have said previously. A potential minefield and here is where the minefield rests.
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I do like these twists and turns of ideas.
Just came back on PT after another nice holiday in the mountains of Chile.
It never ceases to amaze me how many property managers want to be the nice guy.
At times they have to be hated by some if not all of the tenants if we are talking about saving the property for the benefit of the owner.
I have got rid of bad jointly and severally liable partners / fellow tenants several times by getting a good tenant to give 21 day notice to me then pushing them all out and restarting a new tenancy with the good party. The court has upheld the process too.
Again it never ceases to amaze me how technologically ignorant both many property managers and also the tenancy adjudicators are.
Property managers need good technology like an I phone or similar that can down load messages to a computer. How many of us have seen landagents and property managers using cheap kids toys as mobiles. If you see one of those card board imitation agents out there who are not up to speed you need to get rid of them and find someone to work for you who is right up there with their technology. I have found in court you do not need to have the very top of technology just be ahead of the other parties and look as if you understand what you are doing. So yes there is no problem about notices by text provided you save the message.
Again I actually put on all my tenancy agreements these days I prefer notice by text. Far better than phone message and way better than a paper note. Several times I have had a dispute over paper based notices. It is common for the tenants to put a false date on them in order to reduce the 21 day notice period. Even when they do not do that it is common to lose almost a week and the 4 day serving time is almost never taken into account.
Coming back to the core of the problem. The RTA has a special clause in it concerning assignment of tenancies. It specifies that LL's can put into the agreement that no assignments can take place. Every tenancy agreement I do has that clause in it. By having that simple clause there my butt has been saved many times. In court I have pointed out the meaning clause and it has never been challenged. Of course I can always choose to break my own rules if it seems to be the right thing to do.
Many times I get asked by tenants to take Mr tenant off the agreement because WINZ have told Mrs tenant they will not pay the increased benefit or what ever. I never agree to such requests. You never know when Mr tenant will return and then you will have a bad egg in a property with no agreement to cover his bad actions.
To wind this up. Just remember Mr Property managers. You have to be hated from time to time.
You have to protect the interests of the owner.
You have to take sides even if it is not fair.
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Thank you for filling in the gaps. Eri makes fair comment - partnerships can be very messy when things go wrong. You are asking advice on a Property Investment forum on Tenancy matters and Residential Tenancy law . Outside of Residential Tenancy law, as a viable solution, the lass could suceed in a claim against the other party at the Disputes Tribunal (small claims tribunal) to recover her losses and perhaps some relationship counselling may help too
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Last friday the agent talked the young lady into signing over her bond. But big joke she had her sign the wrong form. Seems the agent doesn't want to recognise the end of the tenancy, so I am now suggesting that she does nothing at all until the day the tenancy expires and then we will send an email asking for the end of tenancy details. That will be fun I suspect.
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