agreed

There is but ONE good real estate agent I know. She is evil though.

oh yeah...forgot about her...i retract.

Good job Crak.

fuck... speaking of which, anon i forgot. again. tomorrow.

no probs, nother day won't mean much.

paging coz....

i despise landlords far more than RE agents.

i love our veryvery own rea even though i don't see enough of her

real estate agents and landlords

such a tough call.

destroy both.

argh.

we got a phone call from our real estate agents demanding a week's rent extra for bond. we have been in this house for a year, almost. on the tenancy agreement it says that we were to pay 4 weeks rent. we assumed they wanted 3 weeks rent for the bond and 1 week rent in advance. on the bond lodgement form it has 3 weeks rent on it.

now they want extra moneys. can they act inthis low and dastardly way and get away with it? i kind of figure that if they wanted more money, when we signed the tenancy agreement was the time to tell us.

any hints or tips about this?

I've never heard of a bond that wasn't equivalent to four weeks rent. Sorry dude.

yeah, ditto

generally you pay 1 months bond, and 1 months rent, not 3 weeks bond 1 weeks rent

in any case, it was a year ago, and i can't remember what the deal was. in any case, the agreement was signed after money was handed over (so whatever money was paid then was obviously fine as far as they were concerned then), i don't recall thinking there was any funny business at the time, and i'm sure they're trying to shaft us.

have you got a signed lease? Your copy of the bond lodgement form?

yeah, the signed lease says that 4 weeks rent was to be paid before the signing of the agreement, and the bond lodgement form has 3 weeks rent on it.

does your lease agreement have anything about bond on there? If it does and it states that the equicalent to four weeks rent to be paid as bond, and it's signed then they really stuffed up by only accepting the equivalent of three weeks' rent, but I don't know if they're legally able to claim that extra week.

by the way, it sounds like someone in the RE agents office wasn't paying attention.

but won't the money just be going to the bond agency anyway ?
and won't it just be 1 weeks rent ?

why not just pay it ?

And buying a place will cost you far more than $230 a week in interest alone - even if you bought a tiny one bedroom place.

yep, but at least then i own it.... sick of paying money to the man

I have re-developed a healthy and deep dislike for Real Estate agents!

My real estate agent (who is the father of my landlord) popped over last night to give me the bad news that his son (the landlord) is moving back to Melbourne and needs somewhere to live and as a result I'll have to leave. I've been in this flat for 7 years so I'm pretty upset about the prospect of leaving a place that has really become my home.

The strange thing is that he's suggested that, to give me more time, his son move in and share with me. This would give me till the end of April to move out (instead of mid feb) and he'd only be staying with me for Feb and March because he's going overseas in April. I'm meeting him on Saturday morning. This is odd. I don't know what to do.

I'm contemplating offering more rent and trying to convince the landlord that he'd be better off using my rent to rent his own place and then he'd still get to negative gear the costs on this flat. If he moves in he can no longer claim the running costs of the flat on his tax.

Is he hot?

hehehe - that could be the decisive factor. I am concerned his father might be trying to set us up.

Just looked up negative gearing and it only works if he makes a loss on difference between my rent and the costs of the property (eg interest, rates etc). I think he's had it for a while so he's probably almost paid it off and won't be paying much interest. Damn!

Met the landlord this morning. He's offering me the option of having my rent reduced by more than half and him moving in for an, as yet, undetermined amount of time. Sounds like he needs somewhere to live fairly urgently but he doesn't have any furniture and things and he's at a bit of a crossroads in life.

I told him I'd make a decision by Monday.

so is he hott?

hehehe, nah not really my type. Seems like an ok guy though.

what do you think you're going to do?

living with a stranger again after so long on your own in that place could be really weird, but it could also be really awesome. a whole heap of my friends i know because of flatmate ads and sharehouses and meeting everyone's existing friends, if he seems like an ok guy, he may have some cool friends and you'll meet some new people.

I'm not sure he'll have cool friends - he's been living in the country for the last 10 years and needs somewhere to live because of a marriage breakdown.

I'm not sure what to do really. If I move it'll be a pain in the arse, hard to find somewhere big enough for all my crap, and I'll undoubtedly end up paying at least an extra $40 a week in rent (maybe more).

If he moves in, I won't' have to go through the hassle of moving and will probably end up about $200 a week better off than I am now. It might also only be for a few months (maybe 6) while he sorts himself out. I'll also get the place to myself every second weekend when he goes back to visit his daughter. But I will basically lose alot of privacy/freedom. I suppose I need to ask myself if that privacy/freedom is worth the hassle of moving and $240 a week to me.

It's not like I'm struggling financially at the moment to cover the bills, but having the extra money to put towards a deposit wouldn't be bad.

clarebear, this does not sound good.

he is gonna be in one fucked up place and IN your place.

think it is pretty rude that the landlord expects you to accomodate his son - wtf?

is he the only person who has a marriage breakdown and has to get new digs?

(l think you may have claim here)

His son is actually the owner of the place. Yeah it does sound odd but I suppose the options are that or that they give me 60 days notice to vacate (which they are totally legally entitled to do).

you wanna check on that tenant/landlord sharing same house thing!

sounds too weird and like he is taking advantage of his position / your furniture.

what's he gonna be doing? boozing all night?

working?

watching you sleep?

clarebear - not good. don't care how much money you save.

think about it and do not rush into it. gotta go as missus calling from qld.

Yeah, I'll be checking on the legalities of it with consumer affairs on Monday in case there's some thing where if he moves in it forfeits the requirement that they give me 60 days notice.

I don't really think he's taking advantage as such. He could easily have just asked me to move out. He was upfront in saying that if I agreed I'd be doing him a big favour. In return I get to stay here and he would cover more than half of the rent (because it's my furniture).

I asked him what would happen if it didn't work out and if I'd then have to leave and his response was that it wouldn't be a given that I'd have to move out and that he might move out himself instead.

I suppose I could say no and just see what happens. He might decide to find another share house instead. I could also just say yes but tell him that I will start looking for another place in the meantime.

Arrgghh - I'm really struggling to make a decision on this! I love living by myself but it's hard to turn down the prospect of having an extra $750-$1000 a month to put into my savings.

Just told my landlord that I don't want to share with him. I feel kind of bad but it would've been weird. I'm not sure what happens now. There's a guy upstairs looking for a flat mate so I'm hoping I can sort it out so he can move in up there.

cheap ass mofos.

how's it going on the non-share front clarebear?

that was a hard decision to make.

I think it's all going to be ok. At the moment it looks like I won't have to move at all and the landlord might move in upstairs instead.