Advice please - Auctions during tenancy

ThadtheChad on 19/06/2014 - 00:27
Last edited 19/06/2014 - 00:34

Hi guys,

My girlfriend and a couple of friends started renting an apartment a couple of months ago. Please note that this is through a real estate agent.

At the beginning of this week, a rep of the real estate agent informed them that the landlord is looking to sell the property and is therefore organising inspections of the property. Now they are 2 months into a 12 month contract, so the landlord has to respect the fixed term contract. However, it is the inspections/auctions that are going to be very intrusive and annoying.

Apparently, the agent wants to organise auctions 2 or 3 times a week (for an unspecified period of time). Moreover, she wants to visit the property this weekend to take pics and stuff; but no one is going to be home (and they are uncomfortable with strangers going through the house while they're not at home).

When I first heard this, I went "WTF?". This doesn't really sound very legal to me. I thought there is a limit to the number of times an agent can actually conduct an inspection/viewing. I want to contact the agent and politely "negotiate" the frequency of the inspections. However, I'd appreciate some guidance/advice on how I should deal with this as well as any specifics in legislation that limits this sort of BS.

Thanks.

Edit: I found this: http://www.tenants.org.au/factsheet-08-access-and-privacy

However, still a bit messed up. Say for the next 8-9 weeks, they plan 2 showings a week AND they give only 48 hrs notice, this is beyond intrusive. Especially since they;re all yuppies and won't be at home during the week.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • abhishesh on 19/06/2014 - 01:56
    +1

    You must not unreasonably refuse to agree to days and times for showing the premises – however, you need not agree to more than 2 showings in any period of a week.

    The landlord/agent may apply to NCAT for an order to specify the days and times that you must let the premises be shown.

    I think here is your answers.
    Also, The landlord or the agent arranging the sale must try to come to an agreement with you about days and times. When you make an agreement, put it in writing.

    but if you have made up your mind to move out from that property as it finishes, give them a hard time but act smart.

  • [Deactivated] on 19/06/2014 - 08:58
    +3

    As far as I know the word "auction" and "inspection" have different meanings, they can't be interchanged. You may wish to amend the title and post.

  • NancyCat on 19/06/2014 - 09:17
    +1

    My neighbours had a similar situation – selling during tenancy.

    The tenants obviously didn’t like the selling & inspection arrangement. So they deliberately left the townhouse in a complete mess. I was there to have a stickybeak look at the open inspection in the first week … there was a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, empty beer bottles, left over pizzas on the coffee table, beds unmade, clothes (including some dubious looking jocks) scattered over bedroom floor…imagine the look on the prospective buyers’ faces.

    The property was pull out of the market after a week or so. The owner had to get rid of the tenants (i.e. pay them to move out), so they could put some rental display furniture in and have open inspection properly.

    I don’t know much about the legal rights of tenants & landlords in this situation. But I’m sure leaving dirty dishes, not making the bed, leaving dirty laundry on the floor is well within the right of a tenant.

  • timmypete on 19/06/2014 - 09:52
    +2

    We eventually moved out of a house we'd happily been in for three years based on how the real estate agents handled routine inspections in a similar scenario.

    I'd check out whatever the standard terms in NSW say about this situation but in the ACT there tenants have to allow inspections subject to certain requirements.

    81 The tenant must permit reasonable access to the premises, on the lessor giving 24 hours notice, to allow inspection of the premises by prospective purchasers of the premises provided:
    (a) the lessor intends to sell the premises; and
    (b) the lessor has previously notified the tenant in writing of the lessor’s intention to sell.

    It can be a horror time. Over five months dealing with LJ Hooker Gungahlin ACT (Naish Stormon in particular) here were some of the highlights:

    • Repeatedly advertising inspections a week in advance in print and online, but only telling us exactly (or less than) 24 hours beforehand.
    • Pressuring us to acquiesce to inspections less than 24h beforehand that clashed with existing commitments.
    • Texting at 6AM for a 10:30AM inspection on the same day and then having the gall to complain that the house wasn't super tidy (see 24hr rule above)
    • Trespassing onto our property on one morning and conducting sales pitches on our porch while loudly complaining in full view of our neighbours and prospective buyers that we wouldn't let him into the house. He'd only told us the night before and we specifically asked him not to come on that day because we were all returning from interstate trips that morning.
    • Ignoring the requests from the the landlords to follow the minimum notice requirements.
    • Inviting 23 real estate agents to come appraise the house en-masse during the day (not permitted by above clause) and not returning a key we'd left out for him to use when we specifically said he couldn't keep it.

    My only advice is to read up what they are permitted to do and document absolutely everything. When they inevitably complain to your landlord/landlady about neatness or something else, you can come back with actual figures of how often they've done things. Its especially important to record absolutely every technical breach they make, because it gives you a lot leverage if things get nasty, they keep bond, or give you a bad rental reference afterwards.

    If you've got any ability to avoid them getting a key, make sure they don't, and finally, don't feel afraid to play bad cop on them if they try pull a move that is not explicitly permitted by law or your contract. This is still your home for the period of the lease.

  • ThadtheChad on 19/06/2014 - 23:41

    Hi everyone.

    Thank you very much for posting. We're going to use the advice given here and see how things go (except for the "leaving stuff dirty" :P; that's just trolling the agents)

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