Margaret3

DON'T DO IT! Its not worth it, we put a couple of the 3m things in my daughters room and she decided to remove one of them and took the paint off (not the 3m things fault, but her fault), anyway we lost part of our bond, as the agent said it had to be replastered

On a good news rental note, we recently had an inspection in our new rental (I dreaded the ones in the old rental as there was always some issue with the agent!), anyway afterwards we received a letter from the agent, thanking us for our courteous co-operation and for keeping the property in excellent order! Yes, i am still recovering from the shock! I am sooooo glad we moved from the other rental (after renting it for 3 years, the owner would not renew the lease, we need stability of a 12 month lease so had to move), best thing that happened, i did not realise how stressed i was there due to the very frequent inspections and the criticisms that went with them, i feel much happier and more relaxed in this new rental, and the above letter helped.

Zen10

This is the real heart of the problem - when a landlord over-reacts like this to get money out of the bond. The trick is to fix it yourself and cover it up. "Wear and tear" is rarely pinned down in the law, but usually means damage caused by regular ageing or via regular use. Could you argue that what happened with your plaster situation was normal use of a wall? It's left deliberately vague so the landlord can gouge the tenant at the end of the lease.

Margaret3

I had mentally told myself that i would lose up to $500 of the bond due to this or that, so i didnt stress over it, just paid up and moved on. (gee i was glad to say goodbye to those cream carpets

Zen10

Your strategy was probably healthier than mine. Our landlord has been awkward and disrespectful, so I have committed myself to ensuring they don't get one cent of our bond money. The first phase is about to begin as we're about to put in a "to do" list of some things we want fixed and some alterations, etc. I'm basically going around the house making a note of the tiniest thing they might use to steal our money, and then having them come and fix it now, while we're still tenants. Then when we move out we'll get it professionally cleaned so there's not a mark (which is more than can be said for when we moved in) and we'll hope we don't have to go to court to get our money back.

As I say, your way is probably a lot better....

Margaret3

I put it down as 'expenses' of renting and will adopt the same strategy here. I agree with you about the professional cleaning, i have never done that, and 'extra cleaning' was also claimed , although god knows where as i was bloody knackered cleaning the damn thing. Anyway , next time i will ask the agent what cleaners they use and use them and give a copy of the receipt to the agent.

paddyo

We have never lost any Bond yet in 3 houses....maybe lucky with our agents who were all extremely complimentary about the standards of home cleanliness we adopted. Thats not a bragging right, its just that 1st impressions count and in all 3 of our houses they gave up the quarterly inspections after the 1st one and they just became annual!

Margaret3

I can assure you i kept our previous rental pristine, just like this one, didnt make a jot of a difference, as i said i am relieved to be out of it , away from that property manager and the landlord.

If they had taken any more than 500 of our bond, i was prepared to go to vcat.

Zen10

Quite so. The inspections are carried out as per the terms of the lease and in compliance with state law, irrespective of any other factors. Our agent is around 80% arsehole, but there's a streak of humanity in there somewhere. She has skipped inspections from time to time, but while we've never been told this we suspect it is because she has forgotten them, rather than deemed them pointless.

We owned when we lived in England, and we think it's about time we did the same here. We rented in England as younger people, and learnt there that tenants have no rights. It's the same model here. There is a TV programme about to go on BBC about a family who moved to Germany, from Britain, and one of the things they're talking about in the press releases is the greater respect for tenants there, so will be interesting to watch.

I presume the zero rights for tenants thing is just part of the Anglo-Saxon home-ownership culture wherein if you don't own you're scum, etc. It's an attitude that will have to change over the years now though, as people can no longer afford to own their own homes. My family owned their own property since the 1800s, and beyond in some cases, but I'm not sure about future generations.

Zen10

Not digging the implication I'm unable to maintain a hygienic property. I'm sure this isn't what you meant.

Margaret3

We owned in scotland, tbh , knowing what i know now (especially about rental and house prices), we should have stayed where we bloomin were.

In that last property we averaged an inspection every 3 months, although in vic it should be every 6 months, they got round this saying the owner wanted to inspect, and to keep them sweet we agreed.

The only comfort i can take is there are gizillion of rentals available in this suburb (however most of them i wouldnt let a dog live in), i get the impression in this suburb people are buying, mortgaging to the hilt and renting out although they cant really afford to be landlords.

Zen10

Home-ownership levels are dropping in Australia according to recent reports, which is unsurprising. We got lucky with the housing boom in Britain and without that money we wouldn't be able to buy anything decent here. Like many, my concern is that when we buy the music will stop and we'll be left in negative equity for eternity. The alternative is paying off the landlord's mortgage. It's a "caught between a rock and a hard place" situation. Ultimately, the best decision is to own, so even if that takes 30 years and you wind up with a house worth 50% less than you paid for it, it's still yours where you can live rent-free. That never happens with renting.

Margaret3

I absolutely agree, if your buying to have a 'home' (and put a goddam nail in the wall), then you cant go wrong

Zen10

Yup. We're quite aggressively looking at houses now. I hope we can buy this year. One issue that has been spoken about on this forum before is that a lot of people come to Australia and rent at first, which is common sense, and they do so in a very nice area because rent is fairly reasonable here. The problem occurs when it's time to buy because they can't afford to live in the area where they're renting. We have found this to be true for us.

Buzzy--Bee

As a landlord, I do not care if tenants want to put pictures on the walls, provided they leave the property as they found it. I want my tenants to feel at home so they stay and keep paying the rent!

BB

Margaret3

Your probably a rare breed. In this 'older' rental, one of the rooms is orange and one navy blue, we asked if we could paint them cream, the owner said no, we asked if we could paint them cream if we got a painter to do it and we would prove it was a professional, the owner still said no. Myself and the real estate manager thought this was strange (my husband was delighted as it saved us a pretty penny), but the rooms are sooooo depressing