Landlords Beware

Residential Landlord’s will need to think carefully about their Tenants and how much they should tolerate breaches of Tenancy Agreements following the decision in Southport Realty Pty Ltd Trading as Shores Realty -v- Rostas in QCAT recently. 

 

A residential Tenant was persistently late in paying their rent and the Landlord, through the Real Estate Agent, had issued 8 Notices to Remedy the Breach. As the Real Estate Agent had issued eight (8) Notices to Remedy the Breach without proceeding to issue a Notice to Leave QCAT held:

 

 “Shores Realty was signalling to Mr. Rostas, perhaps unintentionally, that it was not serious about enforcing the terms of the Tenancy Agreement”. 

 

As a consequence the Tenant was successful in opposing the termination of the Lease which was eventually applied for by the Landlord.

 

Landlords should therefore think carefully about how much they are prepared to tolerate breaches of Tenancy Agreements by Tenants before deciding to proceed with action to terminate Tenancy Agreements.