Our tenants (a early 50s bf, gf and the gf's son) moved into my 3 bedrooms townhouse in last Dec and signed a year's contract for $470 per week. Yesterday, i got a phone call from real estate saying the tenants broke up and the male tenant is the only one living there now. He's a painter and now has zero dollar income. A screenshot summary of his 3 bank accounts showed $0, $2 and -$10. He has applied for centrelink. Now he's asking for rent to be reduced from $470 to $150! Now we don't know how to go about this. Any advice?
Edit:
Thanks for everyone's advice and comments.
The lease had only the bf's name on it. He had income of $1000 per week when applying for this property. As part of rent reduction prior to moving in, he already painted the whole place. Also, our current home that we are living in was painted 2 years ago.
Edit #2:
Correction: Just had a look at tenant application, the male tenant that is on the lease was getting $2100 gross income per week.
You should reply with a rent increase for 40%, since you've lost your income.
If they expect you to cop a loss when they're in financial strife, then you can apply the same logic back to them.