NEW RENTAL LAWS - Fodder for an episode of 'Utopia'.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to take our esteemed law-makers seriously, as yet another list of inexplicable laws are thrust upon us like a bucket of unsolved Rubik's Cubes, for us to try to make sense of and actually implement.
Case in point - see below an excerpt from the RTA website. The Form 18a - General Tenancy Agreement ('Lease') now includes a field for us to add the date of the last rental increase.
But what if the property is brand new, or never been rented, or sold and the new owner has no idea of the rental history?
Would it not be logical in such situations, to have a tick box or a field next to this to add the reason for no date?
Ummm, no..... instead we need to 'communicate to the tenant in writing' if we cannot provide the date....
So does this 'communication' form a part of the Lease? Should this be sent at the same time as the lease? or before, or after?? A lease should hold up on its own without random emails or other communications that refer to an omission in the statutory form. What if the email is misplaced? What if the property is transferred to another agency? Or Sold???
And are we now responsible for creating the legal wording of this 'communication'?
So yet again, The REIQ, to protect its members and keep the industry from crumbling, is scrambling trying to find a solution to this conundrum through their industry-leading forms, RealWorks.
And find it they will.
And implement it we will.
Without any assistance, acknowledgement, compensation, or (dare I sat it) apology from those who created this mess.
Seriously, something has got to change.
.
