This landlord was ordered to repay $10,960.44 of rent to his tenant because of un-permitted work that had been carried out on the property by the previous owner, that technically meant the tenancy agreement was unlawful.

It seems the law is not on his side despite going through a process to obtain a Certificate of Acceptance from  the local Council giving the ‘un-permitted’ work the stamp of approval.

There’s a couple of key learnings here:

• ALWAYS do your due diligence – make sure you get a LIM or if you’re confident that you know what you’re looking for, make sure you thoroughly check the property file.
• Good property managers are worth they weight in gold!

Read the full news article here.