blackcab

Just thought as a family we would share this tale. Been here four years renting, rented fully furnished places, never had a problem, full bond always returned, great references. But we have just moved into our new house, yes fully furnished again because we are leaving in twelve months, so it made sense.
On entry we always do an entry report, document everything which could be deemed as an issue on exit. My son is very good at this, so we hand this job to him. We rent off an owner, so no agent involved. But this time, well I feel it would have been better if an agent had been involved as they are totally un-impersonally attached to the place, whereas an owner who sees his property as his investment or his pride and joy, can take documented defects very personal, and get upset, like ours has.
On entering the property we mentioned we would carry out a full inspection, and document any issues. The owner, by phone went off on one, threw a complete wobbly, "you don't need to do that, we would never rent a property to anyone that has any issues etc etc" Yet the RTA clearly state what we intend to do is completely normal and well with our rights. So the next day the owner visits the property, and the violins come out, all his problems in life, health etc, trying to play the feel sorry for him card. So I guess, he thinks, they we will not bother with an entry report now?
The entry report was carried out and emailed to him, the next day, only sixteen issues, nothing too bad, we let a lot go, even though he has stated the property requires professional cleaning on exit, well it was definitely not professionally cleaned on entry, he even told us that, but it was clean, just quite a few bits missed though, dirt on blinds etc.
We got an email back the next day, I just laughed. Basically he stated he knew about all the points we had made, but felt they were down to normal wear and tear by the previous tenants. So why did he not put them on the entry report? Why did we have to raise the issues? Negligence on his part? So then if we leave the same issues when we leave, albeit new problem's but similar; then this will not effect out bond return, as he has already stated that they are normal wear and tear issues caused by everyday living if we leave new but the same issues on exit? He then goes on to saying thankyou sarcastically for taking these included pictures of these wear and tear issues and entering these pictures within the entry report. He goes onto saying that he has also taken pictures of the brand new bathroom he has recently installed. The brand new lounge and dining room suite he has recently purchased. Albeit.
Yet you go online and search, and there is an advert for this the same property in late 2012, and these "NEW" items are there in all their glory in the advertising pictures, shown within the apartment, so they are very new are they not. We took a few screen dumps of these adverts and pictures; just for future reference should we have any problems when we vacate. It just proves what lies landlords tell, just to try and squeeze tenants for money on exit. As you can imagine our relationship with the landlord is very strained, but what's worse is we have done nothing wrong. Yet he has lied, and tried to tick all boxes his end to make sure we could have been as vulnerable as hell on exit. BTW the bond is $3000.00. so a lot of money involved.
I just wanted to share my tale, get it off my chest with any newbies coming into the renting game anywhere in this world. This is not about Australia at all as this happens all over the globe, this is about landlords, and their manipulating tricks to do what I feel is incompetence and one rule for one and another rule for tenants?
Thanks for reading. Mrs BC

SoCalDon

Good on you for going all of the trouble of taking pictures, etc. as it sounds like it will be a nightmare when you try to get your deposit back. We rented for a year and a half and we were treated dreadfully by the real estate company that owned and were leasing us the property.

I called the RTA and they could not have been more helpful. The one piece of advice they gave us that proved crucial in getting our deposit back was that the real estate company delayed posting our bond money to the RTA for a good six months which pissed off the RTA terribly as they are actually funded by the interest received on all the bonds lodged with them.

We used this information to leverage our negotiations and we managed to get our entire bond back. We had photographs and documentation and we were able to refute all their spurious allegations.

Just keep documenting all of your landlords failures and infringements and the RTA will be your friend in the end.

Beoz

You are entering into a business agreement and have every right to treat it like one. Good for you ....... no idea why he would behave like that.

In all my years of renting I've had a few dodgy landlords out there to skin a buck or 2 and at the end of the day its always a buck or 2. No idea why they bother.

On the flip side our last landlord was amazing. She told us not to bother with cleaning as they were doing renovations and gave us a $100 gift voucher for being "good tenants".

I guess it works both ways.

themajor

it is the same the whole world over. We also rent and have a great landlord. keeps spending money on our apartment if we say something needs to be done. Took photo's when we moved in and do same after any up grades.

paulry

We've had 3 landlords since we settled in Aus. All have been pretty good. Saying that we have always produced exhaustive check in lists and hundreds of photographs. Always there have been discrepancies between the estate agents lists and ours but I think they were more about the estate agents lack of attention to detail than anything else.

To the OP: Looks like you're done all the right things. The only thing remaining is to make sure that your new landlord lodges your deposit with the RTA.