Rental woes
There are any number of reasons why being a renter in Australia is something you want to avoid if you possibly can. They mostly boil down to this: renters are second-class citizens. It is assumed that you are either poor (and thus safe to ignore) or it’s merely a temporary state until you buy something and become a Real Person.
And thus we arrive at the current source of stress and anxiety.
Three and a bit months ago we were served with a 120-day Notice to Vacate plus a letter saying we were welcome to re-apply for a lease on the house we’re living in. We’ve been here for going on three years, and they pulled the same stunt last time. Their goal is to avoid periodic tenancies, because they figure it’s a desirable-enough area they can be picky about it.
Anyway. We get back to them at the start of January saying we’d like to renew the lease. The agent appears to be having trouble getting hold of the owner, or getting him to tell her what he wants, or something. She’s sufficiently professional to be stonewalling us pretty effectively.
In any event we’re now in a position where we have two weeks to negotiate a new lease, probably including a rent increase, with no idea how big an increase that is likely to be, and if we don’t have that new lease sorted we are legally required to leave.
So if it comes down to it, we could easily be in the position of having to choose between becoming homeless or paying a rather large rent increase.
If we don’t have anything useful from the agent by close of business today we pretty much have to assume that we’re going to have to move, and start hunting again in earnest. Finding a new home and moving in the space of two or three weeks in the current rental market is not a happy thought.
Update: the agent finally got back to me. She’s been leaving messages for the owner, who has thus far not been responsive. She doesn’t think there’ll be any problem getting the lease renewed, expects there will be a rent increase — that’s happening everywhere at the moment — and while she claims to sympathise re: the probable extremely short notice on rent increase prior to end of the lease “that’s why we asked you to decide two months ago”.
Unless the increase is in the three-figure area I suspect we’re going to have to just put up with it. This will hopefully be our last rental lease before we buy, and I suppose we will at least have lots of time to look for our new place over the coming year.
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