Howdy......

I'm having an interesting time with my realestate company at the moment.

The first I knew about something being a-miss was recieving a breach notice for non-payment of rent.......I have NEVER missed or been late on rent in 4 years!!

Background:
I have had multiple leases (12 months at a time) at the same property since 2007.

I pay rent fortnightly (on going standing transfer).....Always paid the day before being due.

The agency has decided that someone at their end has NOT been sending me water consumption bills, but has been taking rental monies paid by me & allocating them to water bills (unbeknown to me).

They are now attempting to get me to pay for unsent/un-posted/ un-notified water consumption bills back dated to the 30 th of MARCH 2008 i.e 3 leases ago .

They state that my rent is in arrears due to someone (internally-at their office) paying for water consumption from the rent I have paid, this was also occuring on PREVIOUS (now expired) LEASES! WTF!!

Today I have been sent 5 water bills dated as follows:

26/09/2008 $ 39.85
25/03/2009 $258.90
09/10/2009 $ 59.80
16/04/2010 $303.05
05/10/2010 $ 68.95

I signed my Current 12 month lease in Feb 2011.

I paid $380 on May 19th 2011 for the latest water bill I had received.

Am I liable for the agents inability to manage their own bussiness?
How can they back date the amount owed to previous, expired leases?
Should I contact REIWA?


Thoughts/opinions please from those that may have an insight into to this utter bullshit.

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You will have rights, but just be careful about pissing them off lest you get thrown out.

Speak to Reiwa definitely.

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Owners/agents can be in breach of the tennancy act too:

*knowingly making a false entry in the records showing the rent received (s.34(2)). $1000

*Entering into an agreement or arrangement that is inconsistent with a provision of the Act or with intent to directly or indirectly defeat, evade or prevent the operation of the Act (s.82(2)).

*Must act fairly and honestly (section 5(1));

*Must not knowingly mislead or deceive any person in negotiations or transactions (s. 5(2)).

Must not engage in “harsh or unconscionable conduct” (s. 5(3)), meaning property managers/agents must behave reasonably and not unfairly in their dealings with tenants.

*Must exercise skill, care and diligence (s. 7).

I am in the process of putting a letter together outling their breeches...Including not Supplying me a statement of bond monies held after a 'bond top up' was paid in May

Misplacing my newly signed lease for 2 months, after I handed it to their receptionist directly (21 day limit under the act to provide me a validated copy).

Regarding being thrown out......I have not breeched the tennancy act in any form.....I have another 7 months on the current lease (and will be happy to see them in court).

I will be contacting the property owner directly also in regard to his agents failings.

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even though you are in the right either way you still used that water so are liable to pay for thatt

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What would have happened if I had moved out in Feb then?
What would they be doing about their accounting fail in that case?

If I had been behind/in breech for 3 consecutive leases why was I only notified of a so called breech 3 years after the fact?

They must be held to account for their failings, none of which are any fault of my own.

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It has been years since I rented, but I thought that water consumption was the onus of the owner. Otherwise you are paying to water their gardens etc??

Contact DOCEP if you haven't already.
Let the agent know you are in contact with REBA (yes, REBA, not REIWA) about the situation.
Most likely DOCEP will advise you to write a letter to the agent, requesting a written response within 7 days. If you get no reply DOCEP will investigate.
Sometimes a call from DOCEP to the agent is enough to get things resolved.

I've been down a similar path in the past.

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It's irrelevant if you have expired leases on the property...as long as you are still the tenant you are responsible for paying the bill. It's a real dog act throwing all these on you at once & they should be alot more understanding not just throwing breaches around.

One thing you should be checking with REIWA or DOCEP is whether an Agent can take a regular amount (say 2 weeks rent each fortnight transferred) & apply it to anything other than rent. Pretty sure they can't but our Trust Accountant handled that so I'm not 100% sure.

If your bond was released to you then too bad for them, tenancy over & they have no grounds at all to go back to you. If the bills were on the system prior to the bond being released (and you just didn't know about them) then it would have to be paid or come out of the bond. However I suspect the following.....

More likely the agent or owner has just noticed they haven't been paid for (or entered) those bills, whether the agent failed to send the notice or the owner didn't provide a copy to the agent. Harse as it is, you are still responsible for it.

I'd suggest asking for the original letters regarding the bills to see.

So, they have found an error and instead of being reasonable in explaining their actions, they are passing the buck.

I was/am still a licensed property manager and this was something that did come up from time to time.

- You are still liable for the bills obviously, regardless when they issue them to you. You can't fight this point, you are still liable to pay as defined in your lease.
- In this particular case the breach is void. As you have paid those bills which you have been issued, have no statements for which to pay the water accounts from. Therefore it would be unreasonable to issue a breach knowing that you have forwarded funds that were to be allocated specifically to rent (ie. you knowingly paid all accounts as they were issued/due)
- Threats/REBA/REIWA involvement is likely to make the rest of your tenancy a massive pain in the ass. IMHO it achieves 2/10ths of fark all. Be reasonable, see the people in person and sort it out. Their system would have no doubt allocated incoming funds to the 'most overdue' account as most due (apg39 above mentioned this, they can allocate it wherever they like). Try not to be personal with it, this gets you no where.

I would request that a 'payment plan' be enforced, this must be put forward to the owner as it would unreasonable to do so. You owe ~$700 in water consumption perhaps an additional $50 per week or something along those lines.

Be sure to put EVERYTHING in writing (email is fine), I would avoid going to the owner at this stage. The agent has as much authority in dealing with this as them.

Should they be retarded/unreasonable in dealing with it, perhaps notify the owner of the situation and request a plan be put forward. No point being a dick and yelling 'they're farked' when it's a fairly straight forward error/fix.

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