'Notice of Intention to Leave' - How Soon Do You Feel Tenants Should Notify The Real Estate Agency at End of Lease Renewal?

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    ThithLord on 06/12/2019 - 09:15

    +1

    It's not like that - it means I notify them now that I'll be vacating in February. So my worry is if I notify them now, there'll be inspections up until I vacate.

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  6000SUX on 06/12/2019 - 12:08

  +1

  Dont burn your bridges with the real estate company. Also being a landlord i would say your proposed tactic is a little unfair (even if technically correct in the contract saying 2 weeks etc).
  Personally i would opt giving notice early/mid Jan. Meet them halfway.
  But i guess this thread is about personal views rather than X is correct and Y is incorrect if you get me :)
  Good luck

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  TailsK on 06/12/2019 - 12:45

  +1

  You can tell the agent what your intentions are (perhaps over the phone), but not formally notify them. You could say "at this stage we're we not looking to renew, but will notify formally closer to our end of lease date".

  At the same, there could be an advantage in telling them early as they could help you source something new and potentially work with the landlord to let you break the lease early (if it's mutually beneficial).

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  ihbh on 06/12/2019 - 15:13

  +1

  How about this win-win solution:

  You tell them 4weeks/30 days out. If the standard notice period is 2 weeks in QLD, there's no point holding open inspections 2 months out because most tenants won't look that far out. This will give the landlord and agent sufficient notice to maybe plan to do up the place or start advertising for another tenant and minimise any vacancy.

  One way to check the potential length of open inspection inconvenience is to mystery shop the agent (e.g. get your partner to call them pretending you want to lease something and ask when some new stock will become available … and lead into how early they start advertising/doing open inspections), and use this to adjust your notice period.

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  troy1976 on 06/12/2019 - 17:07

  +1

  A few thoughts on this.

  As per others, it depends on your State's tenant legislation how much notice you have to give (and some people are surprised that you are required to give notice on a fixed term lease, which in some ways seems odd but makes sense at least from the landlord/real estate agency perspective). Them asking very early is definitely for their convenience not yours and worth keeping that in mind.

  I have a great relationship with my property manager and presumably through them the owner, but I remain aware of my rights at all times. It's not that hard to look up a 'plain language' guide to your rights as a tenant specific to your State - I would do so as they often resolve those questions left hanging by the gap between legislated requirements and what agents present as 'something you must comply with'. I have turned a blind eye to multiple breaches of my rights over the years as I felt maintaining a good relationship was more useful but it's still a balance and you definitely need to keep it in mind.

  Having looked at prospective rentals in years past when people were clearly still living there, I felt embarrassed to be there. I also noted that on every occasion, the agent would necessarily be unable to see what people looking through were doing (as it was usually a multi level townhouse). I don't care if they collect phone numbers or not, if something gets stolen your odds of the police interrogating everyone on the list is about… zero. It's an invitation to thieves and people who want to see what sort of security you have (or don't have). And yes, not to mention being expected to clean the house constantly just for strangers to traipse through.

  Being very practical, I agree with dragging out official notification to them - cognisant of the legislated requirements. Since you intend to leave I would normally suggest going along with early notice but based on the bait'n'switch with the car parking (no small thing these days, particularly if you live in a densely built area where street parking is hard to access) I don't think they deserve any more than the minimum compliance. What goes around comes around, even for the much vaunted 'landlord'.

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    ThithLord on 06/12/2019 - 17:24

    Thanks for your input - the legislation in QLD is very clear, two weeks notice for intention to vacate - so I'm absolutely fine from that standpoint.

    I think there'll be a lot of interest in my place because it is basically one of the cheapest places in Brisbane for its size - I've loved the location, but heaps of downsides that others might not be able to stomach.

    The parking situation still has left a bad taste in my mouth, even 2.5 years down the road! Cos they still advertise all the units (when they are vacant) as 1 park.

    When I queried the REA about the lack of parking they fed me some BS that technically you can fit six cars in car port. Yeah, right, with about 5cm between cars you could!

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  Jimmycfc on 06/12/2019 - 18:17

  Pfft stick to what you signed in the contract or what your state legislation is.

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  HeWhoKnows on 06/12/2019 - 18:39

  -1

  Ignore the real estate agent.
  The lease becomes an ongoing month to month lease with 21 days notice required to vacate after the fixed term ends.
  Read the terms of your lease.
  There is absolutely no need to renew.
  Not renewing into a fixed term lease gives you the flexibily to leave any time you want which is exactly what you want OP.

  Furthermore they must give at least 60 days notice of any rent increase in NSW.
  Would not be much different in QLD.
  Again check your lease details.

  So in short IGNORE THE REAL ESTATE AGENT and tell them to stop harrassing you or you will file a complaint with the relevent authorities.

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    dizzle on 07/12/2019 - 20:49

    However, some landlords/Real estates prefer 12 month contracts. So they are within their rights to end a tenancy and ask you to sign a new one. It's a risk for them as it costs more to advertise and get new tenants, but they factor in that it also costs you to move and you may sign to avoid that.

    Now that may not affect this case as he wants to leave anyway, but they will guess that he doesn't want to stay and give notice to end the tenancy, which will give them the same rights for inspections anyway.

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  Greem85 on 06/12/2019 - 19:15

  +3

  There is a reason why real estate agents, and major real estate franchises in general, have such a bad reputation. They know that Tenancy Agreement in each state regulates interactions between you and them in a very weighted way, and cuts down the time they will have to find a new tenant when you leave. So they employ these scumy tactics at times, where they send you carefully-worded emails which on first read will make a normal person think that they are compelled to e.g. provide a declaration of intent to stay/vacate/renew fixed term. However, after a second read you quickly realize they do not state anywhere that it is a legal requirement threatened with any sanction.
  In practice the only thing that a real estate can do in your situation is:
  a) Send you a notice of termination X days ahead of end of lease date (in NSW it is 30 days I think)
  b) Let the contract run past its end of lease date, and end up with a tenant on a periodic term.

  They DO NOT want the option "b" to happen most of the times, since it shifts the power balance heavily towards the tenant in regard to lease termination (at least in NSW). To avoid this, they will try to kind of make you believe you should give them some sort of declaration of intent, but in practice you owe them only what is explicitly written in your lease agreement. Nothing more, nothing less.

  My advice to you: do nothing, unless they pester you with a few more emails. Reply to the latest one @ 5:30pm on the last day before X-mas break with the following: "I have not made up my mind yet, I will get back to you by put here your lease end date minus 15 days". By doing that you have nothing to lose (you know you will be leaving, and even if they flip and send you a termination notice, they will not get around to doing that before early Jan), and you are sending them a clear message about knowing your rights and responsibilities.

  On another note: I know that in NSW, real estates cannot organize home inspections for prospective tenants earlier than 2 weeks before the end of your lease, and even then they cannot occur more often than 3 times per week (I think?). Might be worth checking with your state's tenancy act about that matter - you might be protected by default against excessive inspections/open houses.

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  monkeyfood on 06/12/2019 - 19:27

  +1

  landlords and estate agents are not your friends, they are there to make money off a service they provide to you, business is business you should not be their friend as well and do what is best for number 1 (you) not your house, not your investment let them worry about it and do the work.

  Enjoy your free time and peace let the know as late as legally possible

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  Tek58 on 07/12/2019 - 03:30

  +1

  I haven't seen it mentioned here yet but QSTARS (Queensland state-wide tenant advice and referral service) is a FANTASTIC free service (I think they take donations?) for all things renting from the tenants perspective. I've called them up a number of times and they've been really helpful.
  https://qstars.org.au/

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  eggboi on 07/12/2019 - 09:56

  I don’t get the comments here telling the OP to wait until 2 weeks out, or saying 2 weeks isn’t enough. If the OP doesn’t respond to confirm continuation by around 2 months out from end of lease, at around that point, the RE will serve notice to leave at end of lease. Then all the inspections will start happening anyway. The reason RE does this is to ensure the smallest possible chance of having even one week of vacancy between tenancies.

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    eggboi on 07/12/2019 - 09:58

    +1

    There’s nothing against the RE giving tenants early notice. They could tell you the day after your lease starts that you need to vacate at the end of 12 months if they wanted to.

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  Dogsbreakfast on 07/12/2019 - 11:14

  +3

  Ask for rent decrease. Interest rates havent gone up…

  Then if they say no, give them 2 weeks notice.

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    ThithLord on 09/12/2019 - 08:38

    Pretty damn cheeky, eh?

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      ol mate on 10/12/2019 - 06:56

      There's 2 empty units, so there's obviously more supply than demand as well…

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  jsb on 16/12/2019 - 16:54

  You can definitely ask for rent reduction. If your rental agreement mentions 1 car park and you don't have a fixed space to park, you can easily ask for rent reduction for the parking issues you have faced.

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