How was the landlord greedy?
It is hard to say. The linked site seems to be purpose built to put the boot into Coronis Rentals whether this is justified is impossible to say on the face of it.
It supplies some documents, with no provenance, that purport to be about a problem with renewing a lease that accuses Coronis of all kinds of things. Who the accusers are or whether there is any substance to it you would not know without some further research - possibly not then.
The domain registration, whose name has been carefully selected to grab the attention of those looking for Coronis, has the owner “redacted for privacy”.
There is also a link to an Current Affair article that also makes some accusations but that is bread and butter for ambush journalism and not to be taken too seriously without support.
Without corroboration the claims made do not contribute much to the discussion of rental problems in OZ at the moment. I am wary of activist web sites that do not identify the owners or sponsors.
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Taking on the landlord’s aggressive rent increase in NSW won a bit but lost most of it.
This seems to be how it goes anywhere there is a shortage of housing.
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Well if you were a tenant and the owner of the house you rented REQUIRED you to change the electricity account into the owners name so that the owner could pocket the solar rebate and which would also cause you to loose government rebates for pensioners (if you were one), and then the owner could invoice you for whatever he liked, perhaps with an administration fee to boot… what would you call it?
Undetermined?
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Without having full facts, including both sides of the story, I wouldn’t be in a rush to call it anything.
Good on you @gordonc. Give them heaps. As a past landlord I would never have allowed that sort of stuff from my property manager. Or done it myself.
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Well the purpose of what I am doing is to demonstrate (and test out in QCAT) that there are other areas of law that a tenant can use to defend against being bullied, instead of just relying solely on each state tenancy legislation. Those areas of law are Unconscionable Conduct under the ACL and Duty of Care being common law.
BTW… Nowadays all domain registrars I know of, automatically redact for privacy, and my name is readily available in the statement of claim, i.e, Gordon Craven along with my signature. So what’s your real name syncretic?
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Thank you Gregr,
I know as a fact the the PM is incompetent, and she blames the owner for instructing her. Down the track it should be revealed if that is actually true, or perhaps the owner is being kept in the dark as she has refused to provide the owner’s contact details.
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Well it should be revealed who is ordering what since you have both PM and owner as respondents in your QCAT application. Wish you the best. There should be more people like you out there fighting for consumer issues and against unfair and unreasonable contract terms.
Web connectivity has provided a huge opportunity for political opportunists, liars, lunatics and frauds to deceive us for their ends as well as for honest citizens to have their say. Once there there were gatekeepers to reporting but now anybody with a connected device can become an influencer or a lobbyist and we often don’t know who they are. Whether we know who they are or not the readers can still be mislead, either by fervour and lack of objective fact checking, or by design.
It has become essential before forming an opinion to check who your informant is, what their real message is and the evidence behind the claims that they make to further their aims. A large number of threads here are dedicated to that process. I feel this question ought to be treated just the same as any other.
Following the link that you gave I got to a 49 page document that was not identified or placed in context. It looks legalistic but I am no lawyer so I don’t recognise what its purpose is nor do I have any idea who created it or whether it has any legal standing. It is just a complex document with addenda.
You now say that you are Gordon Craven who has posted here for 5 years as gordonc and that you are the person named in the document. And although not mentioned it seems you are responsible for the web site.
The first problem I have is that this is all after you posted a link with a very brief comment and no explanation. The second is that any casual reader who has not read this thread and who has not followed the breadcrumb trail who reads the web site still doesn’t know all this. So here we have a web site that wants support for a worthy cause, that wants readers to get in touch with somebody and give their name and email address.
How is the casual reader going to verify from the web site the bona fides of the purpose or whoever is behind it? Unless you provide some way to to validate your content it is indistinguishable from the fiction of the crazies and the grafters. Ask yourself, how would you validate the coronis rentals document if you had nothing to do with it before reading the website?
Before a pile-on cascades over my head I have not made any accusations. I did not take sides but said there is insufficient information. For some readers “I don’t know” is not acceptable, their view is you have to be for us or else you are surely agin us.
Your declaration that gordonc and Gordon Craven are one and the same does not actually validate the origin of document in question much less tell us if it is a factual account of anything. Using the handle syncretic and not revealing my name does not say anything about my motives, truthfulness or my abilities.
So if you are a real person (which history here suggests is true) and you are making a genuine case against improper conduct - good luck. If you really do want supporters and not just to get it off your chest (which is one of the purposes of this forum) I suggest your web site needs work and if you want to use the forum to keep us updated you might add some explanation to make it easier for the casual reader to follow the narrative.
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“Victim” also needs to be careful about defamation.
By definition, this kind of web site only seeks to give one side of the story, and therefore makes it difficult for the independent reader to come to an opinion as to whether anything unreasonable, or worse, has occurred.
There are of course appropriate mechanisms for resolving such disputes, where both sides present their version of events, and claims are tested for accuracy.
That is recommended anyway for all domains. Otherwise, among other things, you get too much spam. I would rather my domain registrar has to filter out the spam.
Not that anyone here can verify that.
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Noted syncretic, thank you.
This seems to be fairly normal with water (by way of example) i.e. full bill is paid by property manager (on behalf of owner) and tenants have to pay the usage component to the property manager.
Whether that causes a problem depends on lots of things e.g. a breakdown of trust (as seems to have occurred here) or e.g. the transparency provided by the property manager or e.g. whether the bill can be verified independently by the tenant by some other means.
LOL, well I haven’t heard of that happening but you never know. Is this just a hypothetical though? Does the offered lease actually specify an admin fee? In theory you could negotiate the inclusion that no such admin fee applies - if “relations” hadn’t reached the point that they apparently have.
And that is in the case to be heard in QCAT. If you read it.
Many on this site advise taking their issues to various state tribunals. Well here is an example of someone doing just that. Given that we have a current rental ‘crisis’, this is very much public interest.
I have sued and been sued for defamation in the past. I kind of know a bit about it.
AND
In fact, the other side of the story IS available in the Evidence Schedule attached to the Statement of Claim. I agree it’s limited and the reason for that is the other side REFUSES to explain.
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Without wider comment, while you wrote ‘in theory’ do you have any evidence any renter has been successful in negotiating much if anything with an agent or landlord? The best outcome I am aware of was linked in one of my previous posts. What we usually see are renters afraid to report or try negotiating anything for fear of becoming homeless.
Following on there is a topic from 2021 related to agents requiring rent be paid through an extra cost provider adding dollars to the monthly payment for the privilege. There is a similar topic from 2018.
A conclusion everyone may not agree with is that worries raised seem more common than theoretical.
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They won’t negotiate anything, they only make intimidating demands. This component falls neatly into being Unconscionable.
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Most definitely. But I concede
a) importantly, the current rental market is more tight than usual, and
b) certainly not in respect of something specific relating to admin fees on electricity bills.
Also, the poster appears to be in Qld and I have exactly zero experience of rental in Queensland - which impacts on the tightness of the market, and the applicable law.
The statement of claim does appear to envisage the possibility (requirement) that conciliation is attempted. So some kind of negotiation may take place - and that would be an opportunity to express a concern that an admin fee may be applied to the processing of the electricity bill, and get it ruled out or ruled in.
PS
If reporting or negotiating anything is a worry then taking legal action will win even fewer friends.
So what is it? You do and would like to share it with us?
The loathsome creatures that are some property managers are not your friends. You may as well be dealing with Dementors from Harry Potter.
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