Page 2059 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
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This often happens with landlords who let housing properties. They find ways of making the tenant lose not only part of their bond but their whole bond. They find things wrong with the flat, unit or house that they are letting, so that the tenant finds that by the time that they have added up amounts for cleaning and everything there is nothing left - and the tenant may have left it in perfect condition. ACTCOSS told me of one tenant who had come to them with a case involving a very large mark in the bottom of an oven. Obviously it was a burn that had been there for many years. We know that this can happen if something is spilt in an oven and it is cooked with. It gets burnt into the oven by many tenants before and cannot be removed, no matter how much you scrub.
They made this tenant pay for what the tenant considered virtually a new oven, which meant that there was nothing left of the bond. This is a very serious matter because the tenant has to point out that this was all there before - and these things can easily be missed. But, unless a tenant pointed out that the mark in the bottom of the oven had to have been there long before the tenant took over and was there obviously for the tenant before, the tenant would not get their bond back because the landlord would say, "No, it was not there, and therefore you have to pay for it". With a rental bond board these matters can be disputed. We can get experts to prove that the mark in the bottom of the oven had to have been there for at least five or 10 years while the tenant had had it for only 12 months. This is the reason why we need to have something like this - to give the tenant this right.
It also gives the landlord the right to prove that the mark was not already there and that it is a new mark; or that the window has been just newly cracked or broken and, according to experts, the damage could not have been there before the tenant took over six or 12 months before. So, it is wrong for landlords to say that this is a very bad Bill or that it will do them harm. Such landlords are obviously the ones who have gained in a monetary sense from being able to keep the bond when the tenant has done the right thing.
We all know how serious this is to many tenants. Many tenants live from fortnight to fortnight for their pay and desperately need that bond back to go on to their next premises. You will find that many tenants realise this, so they are very careful; they look after the property with the idea that they will get their $300, $400 or $500, or whatever, back to go on to pay the bond for the next property they rent.
These people come to collect this money and they are not able to get it. Unless they go to the Small Claims Court they have lots of problems. A person whose first language is not English or who does not have a lot of education is daunted by the prospect of having to go to court to fight
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