Please help! I am stuck with this irresponsible agent and not sure what to do....

easoweno on 13/04/2017 - 09:43

I hope someone can shed some lights to me, I am pulling my hair off. We are in Sydney and have rental property managed by an agent. I recently discovered quite a few ridiculous issues that's been happening. Background is the old tenants moved out in early Feb and took their bond back and new tenants moved in already.
1. we have not received rent since last november for 3 months. When we called up they didn't even know it happened but anyhow that got solved pretty quickly. They blamed the previous tenants having the wrong bank account and money bounced back. (but we never changed our account number and they been paying rent since 2015. And the agent never chased them for payment)
2. Strata bill not paid since last July. We only discovered this because the new tenants said there's a bag of letters in the house and we collected it, and found the strata sent all the bills to the house instead of the agent. However I signed a form in June and requested Strata bills to go to them and they agreed by email. The strata sent numerous mails and about to send us to court for payments. I contact the agent and they said they will send a cheque to the strata and it appeared in last month's statement. HOwever I called the strata company and they said they never received anything since July last year!!
3. Council bill – also not paid since July and they said it's because council changed our billing address to the house for some reason and they had to call to change it back while no one contacted the council to do so! Anyways the total due amount was $1050 and they took it last month to pay it off. However this month i received another bill from the council and this time it's still overdue plus interest. They also took out $680 to pay the council – When I chased why this happened they just said they sent the cheque last month but the post office made a mistake and scanned the code to someone elses bill.
4. They have not charged tenants water usage since second quarter last year and now they have moved out!! Ugggh when I called up they said the previous tenant mentioned that one water bill was sent to the house and they paid for the whole bill. The agent said that should even it out but they can never provide any receipt because the tennants lost it.

I just had a newborn late last year so I didn't stay on top of things which was my fault. Obviously I am extremely upset and I took it up to their big boss and now the head of property manager is looking after this for me. However it's been another one week past and nothing really happened. I am wondering what is my best move? If I take them to tribunal would I win? Also am I fair to ask them to reimbursed me all the interests that's inccured with strata and Council? Also I would like to ask them to pay me back the 5% management fee since July last year and not charging it until all these sorted, because I feel they never done their job. If I take this to tribunal too (refund management fee), what is the chance of me winning? Thanks.

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Comments

  • tomclancy on 13/04/2017 - 10:13
    +3

    I am wondering what is my best move?

    Change agents. Today. While some could argue the letters not being delivered to them is not the agents fault, a good agent would have picked this up earlier and sorted it out before it became an issue.

    am I fair to ask them to reimbursed me all the interests that's inccured with strata and Council?

    Yes. I would hope that they do reimburse you because I think that is fair. If they don't reimburse then just move on with your life, it's a few hundred dollars and not worth the agony and time spent chasing. Take it as a life lesson that you need to keep on top of your investments, whether you are managing them or not.

    Also I would like to ask them to pay me back the 5% management fee since July last year and not charging it until all these sorted, because I feel they never done their job. If I take this to tribunal too (refund management fee), what is the chance of me winning?

    0%. They did the majority of their job (find tennants, collect rent, pay some bills, liase with tenants, maybe inspections) - they failed on a portion of their job. You have no chance of getting any of the management fee back and it will take a large amount of your time to chase this up.

    • easoweno on 13/04/2017 - 10:20

      Thank you. I know I should change agents, but as I mentioned they charged me council and strata for over $2500 now but none of these two received a cent, I am just worried that if I change them, all these money gone to smoke too.

      • tomclancy on 13/04/2017 - 10:39
        +2

        Well that's a different story. Unpaid rates & strata is something you could take them to the tribunal over for sure.

        They have the liability of paying up whether they are your agent or not. However I would call everyday and become a nuisance until it is sorted (hopefully in < 1 week) and then change agents immediately thereafter.

  • Hiroko on 13/04/2017 - 10:19
    +1

    sounds like theyre calling your bluff.
    seek another local agent to take over the leasing agreement. once the ball gets rolling, the new agent gives notice to arrange collection of keys and docs from your current agent.
    at this point usually the current agent will shit their pants and start taking things seriously and start offering you discounted management and letting fees to keep your business.
    if they dont (id be very suprised) then they didnt want your business to begin with.
    good luck with it all. but once you find that good leasing agent its all smooth sailing.

    • easoweno on 13/04/2017 - 10:22

      I will try to call around today and see what I can do.

  • Wampus on 13/04/2017 - 10:30
    +1

    Almost this exact thing happened to me. I think it happens to a lot of people, there is little to no QC at property managers in general. I went to Canada for a year and rented my place out and it was a nightmare trying to figure out why I wasn't getting rent payments.

    Change property managers immediately, don't give them a cent more of your money. You won't be recompensed for management fees unless you trawl through admin tribunals. If you can prove that you've been charged fees for non-payment you might get that back but I doubt it.

    I got a big bunch of flowers and a sorry card, that was it. I changed companies and told others of my experience and they lost business because of it.

    In my experience as a renter and a landlord, you will NEVER deal with a good property management firm, the best you can hope for is a barely competent one. If you get that, stick with it.

  • moonphase on 13/04/2017 - 11:02
    -2

    This is the exemplary case that you need to hire the lawyer to get all the loss generated for malpractice of your agent.

    At least go to Fair Trading and discuss the current matter.

  • geek001 on 13/04/2017 - 12:57
    +1

    This is a problem in the property management industry. There are good quality agents out there, just that not many people are willing to pay their management fee. Everyone thinks all they do is just answer calls and show people through the property. They also need to know what to do/say when things go wrong by knowing what the landlord needs to do or not according to the tenancy laws. They should know the tenancy laws front to back and back to front. They also need to be able to advise landlords on whether repairs that can be put off or repairs that should be done asap in order to avoid lawsuits should the tenant have an accident. However, property management agencies are too cheap to pay property managers a decent wage for what they have to know and have the right professionalism, so most just seem to hire people who have just got their license or some may not even have their real estate license yet. This is such a shame because the landlords are trusting them with one of their most valuable assets and they get monkeys managing their properties.

  • GROE278 on 13/04/2017 - 14:14
    +1

    Always get your rates, water and strata mailed to you and pay yourself from anywhere in the world.
    Get a new agent.. only deal with the business agent in setting up your arrangement.

  • Pumpkin_rrr on 14/04/2017 - 10:59
    +1

    Congratulations on the new Baby. Have fun:-)

    Sorry to hear about your dilemma, hope you have got it resolved now.

    First off, I cannot quite follow your story especially with the timelines. Anyhow, property management is not that hard: just the income side and the expense side.
    I hope they send you monthly statement? Do check the inflow and outflow. For inflow, see if rents are paid on time, and for outflows, ensure they also sent you the bills.
    About payments of bills, as Groe said, pay the bills yourself (and get the reward points yourselves hehe). It's very easy with Direct Debit these days. I do not think they charge you fees for this service but more of a goodwill gesture?

    As for changing Agent, I think you need to first know how to manage your property and the Agent, before you start with new ones, otherwise history will repeat itself. BTW, there is no BEST Agent, there's only the Best Fit Agent :-))

    Best of Luck from me !

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