I have an update for you all on the landlord who is trying to keep our bond. For those who missed it, he’s refusing to give us (my boyfriend and myself) our money back because we made unauthorised renovations to his home. The way he puts it we sound like monsters, but I’ll tell you what we actually did? Got the toilets fixed, got rid of mould, repaired the fixtures and fittings and the air conditioning. In Melbourne, rental properties have standards, and this one wasn’t up to standard. And yet, we’re getting punished for living there.
I’m struggling to get my head around this whole situation. In my last post, I was wondering if I could make this a legal issue, and you guys were really helpful in the comments and told me exactly what to do. So I followed all your advice and took it to the appropriate people. I now have a full-on legal battle on my hands. I’m exhausted and I don’t understand why my old landlord would be doing this to us. We were the perfect tenants. He must have an extremely sad life if he’s using his time like this.
Tomorrow we’ll be facing each other in court. I’m suing him for stealing my money, and he’s counter-suing me for treating his property in a way that breached the contract. My lawyer says that we have a much better chance at winning this case than the landlord does, but he’s a powerful man and I’m a woman… you know how these things often go. My boyfriend can’t be in attendance because his name wasn’t on the lease. If anything, that’s the only thing I’m guilty of, not getting air conditioning repairs. Melbourne landlords have been given a bad name thanks to this guy.
I’m very glad that I’m moving to Sydney once all of this is over. I hope the landlords there are better than this man is.