Rent Cheats

Hi Steve,
Great to get a reply from you. I was letting rooms in my house and then I saw the problem comeing but I couldn’t get them out till I found someone to take another room as I wasn’t living there. The bond just covered the damage and mess. I have learnt a lot and will surtainly call it expirience. I will report them to the credit people so others don’t get caught by them. I’ll look in the yellow pages for there email. Thanks Bye

Hi mango,
I’d also like to do credit checks and maybe even police checks on potential tenants.

Can anyone post who they do checks with.

Plain old phone references have got me into trouble so far.[cry]

lifexperience

Hi LifeX,

Don’t forget that little piece of legislation called the Privacy Act will make you job very difficult.

For me a good property manager is a sound expenditure of your money – while the tenant may fall behind in their rent they do have access to the tenant’s database and know the legalities involved in retrieving lost rent money.

Derek
[email protected]

Property Investment Support Available. Ongoing and never stopping. PM welcome.

Hi Mangoeater,

they say “your best loss is you first one”, so given that’s it’s only $440 I’d just let it go and take on board the comments of other posts for next time.[glum2]

Spot on hotshot…but be careful because this way is how controversy and bickering starts. “I said this not that but you said this and I did not say what you say I said etc[biggrin]

As for landlord insurance, let’s expand a bit.
As far as I know there are three possible ways to insure your income from rent.
One is with one of the big insurance companies that do a home and content plus landlord insurance. One of this is CGU, (NRMA or GIO do not offer this).

Second option is to have home and content with NRMA (usually the cheapest), do not forget to insure something for content, like carpet curtains and other stuff that is not a fixture (yes carpets even if nailed and glued to the floor are not a fixture), and have land lord insurance with the many insurance companies that offer this policy. You can ask your RE agent, they usually act as agents for this insurance companies.

Third option is the cheapest. For around $25 per annum you subscribe to a debt collectors company that operates in Australasia that promise to chase the money for the next 20 years.

I did some numbers and the end result was that CGU Landlord and Home and content all in one, was cheaper that NRMA + Independent Landlord insurance
but the difference was not dramatic and perhaps each case is different.

As for the last option, it is better then nothing and the fact that they operate trans Tasman is important since in my humble experience, the times we had a runner they ended up running to NZ with 1200 dollars debt from one of my daughters properties. She only had the cheap option and the debt collector was waiting for them there and my RE agent black listed them on a list that is also international.

On the subject of black lists, make sure you consult them and list a culprit that owes you money for the benefit of others. Despite all the [baaa] and arms going up in the air about black lists, people that are listed are so for a very good reason, they did not pay their rent or damaged the property, and being a landlord does not automatically list me on the list of benefactors for society at large or welfare agents.

May God prosper you always.[biggrin]
Marc

The debt collector agency is Barclays MIS Landlord protection or somthing like that.
See some comments about Barclays and TICA on this link.http://www.rentalhotline.com.au/web/propown/members/downloads/llupdates/llupdate_2000Nov.pdf

Beware that Barclays is not insurance, and they have landed in hot water for claiming to insure landlords against rent default.This is a debt collectors agency charging some $80 ( I thought it was $20…better check yourself) per year.

A typical Landlord insurance is MGA for example charging $207 per year. One of the advantages of MGA is that they pay not only the defaulting tenants obligations but keep on paying untill the premises are re-let, and you don’t need a court order to make a rent claim with MGA. For full details, ask your RE agent, most of them work with MGA or Barclays.

Personaly I find CGU better though, one policy for all, less complications and according to my calculations slightly cheaper than two separate policy.
Please blacklist systematically every tenant that has done a runner or that has damaged your property for an ammount higher than the bond.
Use TICA for that purpose or check this one http://www.thelandlord.com.au/

May God prosper you always.[biggrin]
Marc

Thanks Marc[thumbsupanim]

Cheers
Mel