A bit of legal rental advice needed!

[Purple Princess]

I wonder if anyone could help me???

 

We are currently renting a property in Qld, and need a little bit of advice as to whether or not our landlord is in breach of his contract.

 

The original lease we signed in January 2010 had some Special Terms attached, two of which the landlord complied with (although ASAP to him was about 3 months). The third is a bit tricky, the lease states:

 

'Air-conditioning to be installed approx June 2010'.

 

Our real estate has been in contact with the owner and he is refusing to put air conditioning in. The real estate has stated to me today that she has been in contact with Residential Tenancies Authority and they have told her that because the lease says "approx", he is not in breach of contract!!!:arghh: (she doesn't agree with them though and is on our side)

 

Now my Australian Oxford Dictionary states approximately as:

 

'fairly correct or accurate'

 

I'm not one usually to make a fuss, however, we have been paying rent based on the fact that air conditioning will be installed and I think 5 months is not 'fairly correct or accurate' and don't feel that we should have been paying the additional premium.

 

If anyone has been in a similar situation, could you share your experience of this and outcome for me??

 

Steph

xxxx

:notworthy:

[calNgary]

Steph have you rang the RTA yourself and asked them exactly where you stand ? If not i would do it first thing Monday morning, in the meantime i would discuss with your agent about a drop in rent should it not be fitted soon to cover the cost of you puchasing and running a mobile unit.

 

The only ''issue'' i can forsee, is that because the weather isn't currently hot enough to require the use of aircon they may not be too willing to drop the rent just yet.

 

Cal x

[Purple Princess]

Thanks Cal,

 

I haven't rung them yet, when I got the information tonight, I tried to ring but they were closed. Their automated service said they would be open in the morning, so I'm going to try then.

 

I know what you mean about the weather though, it's certainly not been warm enough for air con, perhaps heating!!!

 

I'm not too concerned really about the reduction in rent, it's just after the real estate contacted him and he said he wasn't going to put it in at all, my thoughts were how long is approximately??? Could we be waiting another 5 months or 5 years!!!

 

I really don't want to upset the real estate they have been excellent, and you do hear such bad stories about some, I guess we were just lucky. The main reason we want clarification on this is we have broken the lease agreement (legally and through the proper channels) and want to make sure that we are not financially penalised if he is in breach of his side.

 

Steph

xxxx