Hey everyone. It might be of use to you that I work for a tenant/landlord advice service in Victoria. I am more than happy to help you with any queries… I often use the Residential Tenancies Act 1997. Cheers! Rich
Oh and im a busy man so don’t expect an immediate reply.rich
Hi Richard,
Sounds like a great service. Hope you don’t mind me indulging.
What’s the best method you know of, for quickly and efficiently evicting a street wise cunning tenant who refuses to pay rent and is smashing your IP to smitherines…and as an added bonus…cannot read or write, or refuses to acknowledge written communication ??
To add to the heady mix, someone who has been a few laps around the tribunals and knows every trick in the book to delay proceedings…thanks to valuable service providers such as yourself.
My experience is they either ignore letters, cannot read them or simply burn them or throw them in the bin.
What quick and efficient method is available that doesn’t involve any paper and/or writing words on a page ?? I’d be most interested to hear your cost efficient solutions.
Cheers,
Dazzling
“No point having a cake if you can’t eat it.”
Rich,
Welcome aboard. You sound like exactly the sort of professional we need to answer some of these tricky tenant questions such as Dazzling proposed.
I will love to see you contribute to our community!
Cheers,
Simon Macks
Residential and Commercial Finance Broker[email protected]
0425 228 985Comments may not be relevant to individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult a professional adviser.
A good tenant is so hard to get by, getting rid of a bad tenant is even harder at times, surely Rich can tell us the best method to go about it. Most probably through tribunal ect..
Roy H.
L.R.E.A., Dip FS (FP)
Guardian Property Specialists (GPS)
http://www.gpsnetwork.com.auHi Rich,
Thanks for the opportunity.
What would you suggest for this one:
I have a 3 br townhouse in Maribyrnong Vic. It is 3 levels. Ground floor is a tandem garage and the upper levels are beds, lounge etc.
My creative tennant has made up a 4 th. bedroom using a piece of carpet on the concrete floor, and some furniture as partisions around the bed.
It this legal and whats your advice please !
hrm
Welcome, Rich, thanks for offering your services here!
Dazzling, that’s messy! It looks like your property manager didn’t check out these tenants- I assume that this is not the first house where they act like this and they must have a bad record, I’d have thought. How did they get through the checks?
Hehe Hmackay, maybe build 4 walls around the carpet?
Celivia
Heya Richard,
Having just read crashy’s “Evicted” post, it reminded me of your generous offer last week to contribute to the forum.
Do you have any suggestions to the forum about his predicament – or indeed any of the queries posted above ??
Cheers,
Dazzling
“No point having a cake if you can’t eat it.”
Dazzling… The most effective way that doesn’t involve any paper and/or writing words on a page is simple.
Hire a bunch of thugs to make him magically disappear off the face of the earth. : )
That is definitely a tough question to answer. His a clever tenant….
So lets try and put this into perspective. Your tenant falls 14 days or more behind in rent. Therefore you serve him a notice to vacate of 14days by registered post. VCAT will take on the eviction notice whether the tenant picks it up from the post office or not.
The guy says he can’t read. If he refused to respond to your eviction notice then i assume you took him to VCAT. This is where the outcome is solely on the type of member you have at VCAT. Under normal circumstances, the member should have organised an order to the tenant to pay up to date or he/she will permit the landlord to organise an eviction/warrant of possession. The order would usually give him a dead line. How long is up to the information given at VCAT. You really have to try and ask the member questions and try convince him that this guy is costing you big time. Ask the member to ask the tenant for information that confirms he can’t read.
I’m sure you have done all the above. If you feel that the member is incompetent then you can challenge the order and re-schedule another hearing. The more you take this guy to VCAT the more it should convince the tribunal that he is a unless tenant.
Unfortunately your situation will involve regular trips to VCAT and constant eviction notices. I’m sorry if the information above has been useless to you…. Good luck!!
Hi Rich,
Know your a busy person, but u did offer your services and I would really appreciate your responce to my creative tennant please!
Any response appreciated.
hrm
Ok… HRM.. Sorry mate. I had to go and look at some property
Unfortunately it looks like you will be making a trip to VCAT.
The legislation says that the tenant CAN’T sublet without the LL consent….This is a breach of section 81 of the RT act. Funny though cause this is where the act kind of contradicts itself!! Cause it also says that the L.L can’t UNREASONABLY withhold consent. If taken to the tribunal, the member can also determine whether or not consent is required….kind of funny since it’s your investment property hey??
You would think that turning a garage into a 4th bedroom would require consent and the fact that it’s a garage not a room. So you would need to prove that this is a three bedroom house not a 4 bedroom. That shouldn’t be too difficult.
So the big question.. what can you do?? Well under section 253 of the RT act, you can give the tenant/tenants 14 days notice to vacate for subletting without consent. If he refuses to vacate then take him to VCAT. The vacate notice would probably be turned down on the basis that the tenant removes the other tenant in the garage. Hopefully an order will be made to confirm the decision. If it happens again then you can use the order as proof against the tenants.
Then again the member of VCAT might be appalled by what the tenant has done and order the vacate notice. If that happens, make sure you request for a warrant as well and pay for it there when you are at VCAT. Saves you making 2 trips if the tenant continues stay there.
Try and warn the tenant that if he doesn’t remove the co tenant then this is what you will be doing. Always put the warning in writing and send it by registered post. You can then use this as proof at VCAT with the vacate notice if he still has the tenant there.
my fingers are sore so that’s it for the mo…. Good luck. Hope the info helps.
Oh Dazzling… I forgot one more info which you may have used already.
You can give 24hrs notice to enter the property under section 86, sub section (e) or (f).
Sub e, is to enter due to the belief that the tenant has failed to comply with their duties (eg. to keep the property in good condition would be one).
Sub (f) would be general inspection of 6 months.
If he is using his excuse of being illiterate, you can still serve a breach of duty notice for not allowing entry to the premis. Basically treat it as you would with any other tenant. If he has still refused entry within 14 days of the notice then take him to VCAT to get an order to enter. If he doesn’t appear then the hearing will continue as usual. Just make sure you send all notices by registered post. Hopefully VCAT will also consider that a tenant should not hold is ability not to read as an excuse and until proven otherwise would continue in the usual manner. If anything an illiterate would use someone else to read it for him.
If he doesn’t respond to an order from the tribunal to allow you entry, then you can serve a 14 days notice to vacate, sec 248, for not responding to a tribunal order. This is when we get tenants crying about a warrant of possession…..’the police have come to my door and told me to get out in 3 days”. My response would be”did you bother to go to the post office and retrieve the letters?” Most of the time the answer is no!
I hope this helps.
Take it easy.
RichHi Rich,
Many thanks for your detailed answer……appreciated.
hrm
hrm
Let me know how it goes buddy.
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