Renting and Open House days?

Holden Caulfield said :

WalkTheTalk said :

HC at #9. I understand your sentiment. There’s an important distinction to be made though – it’s the sons’ house AND Gantz and his/her partner’s home.

+1 to Phil M’s advice.

House, home, I get the diff. But, y’know tenants aren’t the only ones with rights in this situation and so far it’s been a pretty one-sided discussion. Based on what the OP has told us so far it’s only the landlord’s rights that are looking like being denied.

I’ve had my fair share of rental experience and I’ve been a landlord, I know how it works from both sides. I agree it can be a pain in the neck (from both sides) at times. But that’s life.

Watson said :

Holden Caulfield said :

So if it is YOUR home, as you say, then why are these two randoms able to sell it?

This is unrelated to the open house request, but that really annoys me about renting in Australia. That they never let you forget that it is THEIR house and you should praise yourself very lucky that they will even let you use it, even if you are barely allowed to breath in it. And even though you pay through the nose for the privilege. This is not so in other countries where it is common practice to paint the walls in whatever colour you fancy when you move in and noone complains about a nail in the wall or similar.

Well, like any walk of life, there are some crap landlords and some good landlords. This most definitely applies to tenants as well don’t forget.

It’s not about good or bad landlords at all. It’s about the culture of renting here. You are supposed to leave the property in exactly the state as when you moved in, allow regular inspections, etc. These are constant reminders that this is not your home and they can boot you out anytime. This is not the case in other countries I’ve lived in where you are allowed to act like the place is yours until you move out, obviously apart from trashing it. You still pay for any repairs for damage caused by you apart from normal wear and tear.

Sorry, completely off topci!

the tenant’s union site says that allowing inspection by appointments, but not open days, is a valid approach. less invasive and less risk of people lifting your belongings.

it depends on your relationship with your landlord. our LL is brilliant, i would do pretty much whatever they want as they have been quite good to us. however if the relationship is purely professional you needn’t go out of your way just to help them out. if they want you to go out of your way they should offer something to make it worth your while.

Have you considered the purchaser may also be an investor who wants good tenants? I have done this with 2 properties I have purchased. The tenants in place were good people and were given the choice to stay, which happened in both cases. I suggest get the place looking good and have the agent pass on to the prospective purchasers that you would like to stay, if that is the case.

By the way the last property I sold was tenanted at the time. They chose to move out which was fine. I paid for the end of lease clean.

Watson said :

When a landlord did that to me, she gave me a rental discount for the weeks that these inspections were happening and organised a cleaner before each inspection. She even ended up paying for the end of lease clean, I seem to remember. So it was kind of worth my while.

Though I think if it happens again, I’d just move out immediately.

That is brilliant of the landlord. Well done to them.

WalkTheTalk said :

HC at #9. I understand your sentiment. There’s an important distinction to be made though – it’s the sons’ house AND Gantz and his/her partner’s home.

+1 to Phil M’s advice.

House, home, I get the diff. But, y’know tenants aren’t the only ones with rights in this situation and so far it’s been a pretty one-sided discussion. Based on what the OP has told us so far it’s only the landlord’s rights that are looking like being denied.

I’ve had my fair share of rental experience and I’ve been a landlord, I know how it works from both sides. I agree it can be a pain in the neck (from both sides) at times. But that’s life.

Watson said :

Holden Caulfield said :

So if it is YOUR home, as you say, then why are these two randoms able to sell it?

This is unrelated to the open house request, but that really annoys me about renting in Australia. That they never let you forget that it is THEIR house and you should praise yourself very lucky that they will even let you use it, even if you are barely allowed to breath in it. And even though you pay through the nose for the privilege. This is not so in other countries where it is common practice to paint the walls in whatever colour you fancy when you move in and noone complains about a nail in the wall or similar.

Well, like any walk of life, there are some crap landlords and some good landlords. This most definitely applies to tenants as well don’t forget.

Holden Caulfield said :

So if it is YOUR home, as you say, then why are these two randoms able to sell it?

This is unrelated to the open house request, but that really annoys me about renting in Australia. That they never let you forget that it is THEIR house and you should praise yourself very lucky that they will even let you use it, even if you are barely allowed to breath in it. And even though you pay through the nose for the privilege. This is not so in other countries where it is common practice to paint the walls in whatever colour you fancy when you move in and noone complains about a nail in the wall or similar.

But I agree, it’s better to work with them. Would be worth asking them for a rent discount for the inconvenience though.

Hamilton said :

Have the first open house – invite some friends around and nude up!! Should turn them off pretty quickly!!

Speak for yourself!

HC at #9. I understand your sentiment. There’s an important distinction to be made though – it’s the sons’ house AND Gantz and his/her partner’s home.

+1 to Phil M’s advice.

Yeah, that’s the thing, as reply #1 shows you’re not within your rights to refuse reasonable access. I’m not denying it won’t be a pain in the arse, but complaining about it isn’t going to alter the rights of the property’s legal owners.

Holden Caulfield said :

“We (My partner and I) believe we’re well within our rights to decline the requests, as we’d prefer to not have images of our belongings online for anyone to view, and believe we should not have to go through the continual hassles presented by having to vacate OUR home each Saturday morning.”

So if it is YOUR home, as you say, then why are these two randoms able to sell it?

OUR place of residences.

phil m’s advice seems pretty fair and reasonable to me. Throwing toys out of the cot and refusing access is not.

“We (My partner and I) believe we’re well within our rights to decline the requests, as we’d prefer to not have images of our belongings online for anyone to view, and believe we should not have to go through the continual hassles presented by having to vacate OUR home each Saturday morning.”

So if it is YOUR home, as you say, then why are these two randoms able to sell it?

phil m’s advice seems pretty fair and reasonable to me. Throwing toys out of the cot and refusing access is not.

Have the first open house – invite some friends around and nude up!! Should turn them off pretty quickly!!

Hey. Good on you for taking it so well. I once went through 2 open houses each week for 7 weeks… joy! I guess all I’d add is that obviously you can (& should I think) be present during each inspection. If the agent/s direct you to alter the appearance of things, it’s up to you whether or not you do that. But being present at inspections, particularly if you present as friendly and cooperative, does make it a bit more of an attractive purchase for a genuine investor. And assuming you want to keep living there, that’s the kind of purchaser you want. Good luck :).

Thanks for the advice guys, very much appreciated.

I guess it would be best to just agree to the Open House and allow the pics and avoid having valuable items present in them.

We may hopefully negotiate to have our lease terminated earlier on the grounds of it will be easier for the owners to sell it while vacant.

Same thing happened to me. Your rental agreement will say that you will permit “fair and reasonable” access in the event of a bona fide intention to sell. Of course there is no definition of what fair and reasonable means. But I found my agent to treat me in a fair and reasonable way so I was happy to respond in a fair and reasonable manner too.

Declining the requests is not a fair and resonable response on your part IMHO. However, insiting they limit each open house to an hour, or that they not do more than one per week, and that they don’t make last minute changes to times and they keep you well in the loop about whether there are any prospective buyers and how it is progressing is all part of fair and reasonable.

For me: The photo appointment wasn’t muich of a hassle. I just cleaned the house to inspection spec and was present when the photographers were there and helped shift a few personal effects around to room so they stayed out of the photos. The agent and photographer helped with that. They have to do it all the time.

However: The open houses were a pain. Not going to lie. It was a big inconvenience. Thankfully my agent made 45 minute appointments, arrived dead on time and always closed up dead on time also.

Yes it’s hard on us poor renters when this happens. But unfortunately it’s the “c’est la vie” of renting.

When a landlord did that to me, she gave me a rental discount for the weeks that these inspections were happening and organised a cleaner before each inspection. She even ended up paying for the end of lease clean, I seem to remember. So it was kind of worth my while.

Though I think if it happens again, I’d just move out immediately.

Similar happened to us, but we were happy to end lease.
You do not have to vacate the house (although agen will prefer that), which leaves a few options.
Nothing to stop you having a few visitors around, bbq, music etc during ‘reasonable access’!
Our pushy owners got the message in advance and we negotiated lease termination at our convenience with no for-sale inspections before we left.

Put in a lowball offer to buy the place. If they accept it then it’s a win win.

Have you read this yet?

http://www.tenantsact.org.au/Advice/sale.html