Landlords get guidelines for every occasion
PROPERTY AUTHOR and consultant Brian Kerr has produced two new books aimed at making life easier for residential property landlords.
Kerr is a former tenancy mediator with the Department of Building and Housing, and has also been an active property investor for 30 years.
During that time he has seen almost every type of problem landlords and tenants can encounter – from the rent not being paid, to the rental being trashed, to landlords failing to love the tenant’s pet pooch as much as the tenant does.
His first book, The Complete Guide to Landlording was published in 2011 and has since been reprinted. His new books, The Residential Tenancies Act and The Complete Landlord Forms, have been written as companions to his first one, but will be just as useful on their own.
The Residential Tenancies Act contains a copy of the legislation in book form, along with a comprehensive index of issues landlords are likely to encounter with tenants, which refers them to the appropriate section of the act.
This is arranged in an easy to follow format with subjects listed alphabetically.
So if a landlord has a query about say, body corporate levies, they can look that up in the index which will refer them to section 39(2)(c) of the act, which deals with that issue.
Similarly, if their concern is damage to their property, they can look up ‘‘damage’’ in the index, which lists eight different damagerelated issues from ‘‘fair wear and tear’’ to ‘‘termination because of damage’’ with each entry referring to the appropriate section of the act. The index runs to 19 pages, each with around 40 individual entries, so the list of subjects covered is comprehensive.
It is particularly useful because some subjects are covered by more than one part of the act, in which case the index lists the multiple references, meaning a landlord would be less likely to slip up on all the clauses.
Kerr believes a reasonable knowledge of the act is crucial for landlords, and the book is designed as a quick reference guide they can use whenever they are dealing with a tenancy issue.
The Complete Landlord Forms is a compendium of 39 different forms landlords can use as templates for various situations.
As well as the obvious ones such as a Tenancy Application form and a Notice to Terminate a Tenancy form, there are also forms which can be used for such issues as
allowing a tenant to keep a dog on the premises, issuing a notice to increase the rent, or notifying the tenant that the property is for sale.
The forms are all A4-sized so that a landlord can quickly look up the one they need on the book on the appropriate page and place it on a photocopier or scanner and print as many as they need. The landlord would then just fill in each section of the form as necessary.
Kerr said following the forms’ standard formats should help ensure that landlords properly meet their legal obligations when dealing with tenants or third parties, making them less likely to get tripped up on technicalities.
The book of forms has a recommended retail price of $25 and the guide to the Residential Tenancies Act is priced at $29.99. They are published by Australis Publishing.