Recent Feedback
My father in law owns 4 properties in Auckland, 2 of which are rented out. These 2 properties are in arrears of up to $7000.00 in total. We have made numerous attempts with our property manager to resolve this matter.The property manager by the name of Scott keeps telling us that the tenants are not paying up. We've also requested to have tenants evicted if they are not paying up, but we have not heard from him. The last time we heard from his was via text message & it was in January. We have even paid a visit to his home but no response. Therefore 3 weeks ago we visited the tenants for the 1st time. We were advised that the tenants are WINZ clients & their rent is paid straight out from WINZ into Scott's Bank account. As a result they have never missed a payment. We've always had our suspicions about this property manager. We want to know how can we get rid of him & recover our arrears please?
Already Tried: We are currently looking for a property lawyer to fight our case but we just wanted some help to point us in the right direction.
Hi Welcome to JustAnswer. My first response will follow shortly. Please feel free to follow up if anything is not clear
You need to visit the tenants and change the rent payment forthwith. You should change to another rental manager or collect yourself from now on. You dont need his consent to do this if he has embezzled some of the rent, which seems to be the case. if the property manager is a real estate agent he should have placed this in his trust account and you may want to discuss this with the Real Estate Agents Authority at www.reaa.govt.nz/ and possibly the police.
It may be WINZ you need to see about changing the account for the rent of course.
Hi, we have issued the tenants with a letter with Dad's bank account number for the rent to come straight into. Its really complicated because when dad 1st bought the houses it was with a company called Home ownership. I remember that part of the contract that dad signed was if dad wanted to sell the houses before the contract was over, Home ownership gets $10,000.00. Another part of the contract was that if there were no tenants in the properties at any time, they will pay the rent during that time to Dad. However this company went into liquidation. The current property manager claims that he & another guy bought the contracts & are trying to continue the running of the properties on their own. He is in breach of the contract as he was not able to pay any rent to dad during the time when there were no tenants in one of the properties. We are worried because we are not sure where we stand legally.
I think you need to see a lawyer urgently and find out what these contracts actually mean. The impact of the liquidation and the purchase by the property manager are clearly complex, and need careful analysis. Do you have lawyer acting yet?
We have an appointment with a lawyer next week monday.
Take all the papers in but by changing the rent you have at least stopped the losses increasing. It sounds dodgy to me.
If he is a legit property manager, should he be on the list of licensed agents on www.reaa.govt.nz
He should be, the best ones are, but it isnt compulsory.
Ok thank you very much for your help.
I hope you sort this but i think you are going to have a problem with this manager and getting the rent
Thats what I told dad, reality is we may never recover the arrears.
Experience: LLB MMgt FAMINZ 32 years qualified as lawyer