Aussie tenant fuming over $550 bill for 'minor' repair job
The property damage has put renter's rights in the spotlight.
An Aussie renter has accused her real estate agent of "over quoting" a repair job after being slapped with a $550 fee for a small chip in a kitchen benchtop in the apartment she was moving out of.
Sharing an image of the surface two weeks after she vacated the unit, the woman said she'd been asked to reimburse the cost of fixing the counter, which her partner accidentally damaged by dropping a Pyrex bowl on it.
"The quote they gave me just seemed unusually high," she wrote on Reddit. "I've gotten two separate quotes now with the lowest being $286. It just seems they're pulling numbers out of their a**."
The Melbourne resident went on to explain that the original quote came from an informal email from her agent.
"We are happy to fix it but the rental agent is asking for $550 with no invoice or proof that they've fixed it and is also asking us to withdraw our bond claim," she wrote. "What I'm asking is the best way to go about this without the rental agent making a pretty penny over my damages to the landlord's property."
Is this legal?
When it comes to rental properties in Australia, reasonable wear and tear is expected with ageing and everyday use. So where does this tenant stand?
"Personally, I would say the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal will definitely hold it as wear and tear," property solicitor Monica Rouvellas told Yahoo News Australia. "Tribunals tend to refer to the Australian Taxation Office's depreciation schedule for particular things like carpet or features of a house, and they use that to guide how long things should reasonably last."
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However, Ms Rouvellas explained that it can come down to how long the tenants have been in the property, the age of the benchtop, how big the chip is and where it's located.
Still, she said she's "a bit surprised" as to why the tenants have been asked to reimburse this particular amount when accidental damage is "something that the landlord should be insured against".
What can the tenant do?
Ms Rouvellas suggested there are options for the tenant to find a preferable outcome. "The first point of call is to write to the real estate agent saying you feel it's unreasonable, mentioning your rights as a tenant and that it is reasonable wear and tear given that a Pyrex container dropped," she said.
Then she would try to negotiate to see if the cost can be waived or even reduced to something that feels a bit more reasonable, or to split the cost 50/50.
"If that doesn't work, I would then tell the tenant to apply to the tribunal to dispute that particular cost, because — I'm not sure how big that place is — but $550 could be their weekly rent, and that's a substantial amount of money to put towards a repair of something that seems to be of a minor nature."
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