When I first arrived in Australia, I believe that every partner's life starts at the time of renting a house. In order to rent a house not to be cheated, people in the search for house is also time and again careful.
Recently, however, another Chinese student was deceived by Australian media news for renting a house.
More and more Melbourne International students encounter unscrupulous landlords in Domain:
"the contract made me listen to the landlord."
The Chinese student, Alex, is currently studying at Deacon Business School. Last November, Alex came home after fitness, but found a thief in his home!
Alex's laptops, game consoles, clothes, passports and so on were looted and lost more than $200000!
(figure Source: Domain)
Not only that, the whole room was turned over by thieves, and damaged! The most important thing at hand is to call the police to retrieve their belongings, and the other to carry out emergency repairs to the house.
Under Australia's law rules, landlords are responsible for keeping the house intact for the duration of the lease, and all repairs should be carried out by the landlord unless the damage is caused by the tenant.
So, according to theory, Alex is fully entitled to emergency maintenance to the landlord, and all maintenance costs are borne by the landlord. Even if Alex had paid to fix the house himself, the landlord would have to reimburse it within 14 days.
However, Alex not only spent thousands of dollars to cover the maintenance costs of the house, but also paid $900 more for cleaning!
This is because when he rented the house, he signed a private rental contract with the landlord!
Alex said it was difficult to get the landlord to pay for the repair of the house because of the terms of the contract, and the only thing he could do was obey the terms of the contract and pay his own money to repair the damaged house.
Otherwise waiting for him may be a more adverse ending.
(figure Source: Domain)
All this reflects that when Alex signed the contract, it should not have been familiar with such a law regulation, nor did it know that under such circumstances, the landlord would have to bear all the maintenance costs. But muddled to assume that the loss is their own responsibility, acquiesced in the landlord this unreasonable behavior!
And when Alex finally understood the law rules, only then found that he ate dumb loss! Until now, Alex is still begging for the undeserved expenses and hopes that his experience will give more overseas students a wake-up.
"overseas students are the main targets."
In fact, the Alex thing is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Australian media survey, in recent years in Melbourne, more and more overseas students have become the target of black-hearted landlords!
According to data from the state government, the number of international student renting cases jumped by 15.2 percent between 2016 and 2018, with the number of international students being tricked into renting their homes.
State government also gives some typical cases of students renting houses being cheated.
Misleading rental advertising
When many black-hearted landlords publish rental ads, they deliberately exaggerate the facts, describe their house as luxurious as five-star hotels, and promise to provide furniture and appliances to tenants. Such seemingly perfect conditions, attracted countless tenants scramble for rent!
In order to grab the favorite house, many tenants even gave up looking at the house, relying on just a few photo to finalize rental matters!
However, when they scrambled to pay the deposit and when they were preparing to move, the landlord was simply talking in his sleep.
The original spacious room, almost full of beds, even the living room is full of beds, at least six or seven people crowded together to live …
Some were even squeezed onto the balcony.
The bathroom and kitchen have become places to sleep.
Dirty and chaotic and crowded, there is no private space at all, it is not a normal living environment!
The landlord made all kinds of excuses to deduct Bond King.
After a lot of black-hearted landlords collected Bond gold, they decided that the money was their own! When tenants check out, the black-hearted landlord will look for a variety of reasons, eggs to pick bones like to pick a variety of faults, in order to reduce the return of Bond gold!
The ultimate goal is to leave Bond King in his own hands!
In addition, the various conditions for refund of the Bond gold in the contract, are also written by the landlords ambiguous! Many tenants from the beginning to the end do not understand how their own Bond gold was confiscated, why so much confiscation …
Ink editor has a friend once encountered such a situation. When she checked out, she found a professional cleaner and cleaned the room inside and outside, but she was stabbed in a corner by the landlord, and even the little stain on the wall that existed before she moved in was blamed on her. In the end, half of Bond gold was deducted.
This situation is so helpless!
There's no reason to refute!
Illegal charging of additional fees
This case is about tenants such as Alex, because they are not familiar with law, and for the landlord to assume the responsibility they do not have to bear, they pay a lot of money for nothing!
Apart from the fact that house has been damaged by outsiders, small problems such as broken faucets, ceiling leaks, gas leaks, and so on, do not have to be paid for as long as it is not caused by the tenants themselves. However, many black-hearted landlords impose these responsibilities on tenants, a year down to save themselves a lot of money …
After reading these cases, do you think you or people around you have ever encountered such a thing? The reason why this situation is becoming more and more serious is that overseas students do not know much about the law knowledge of Australian rental housing.
Because do not understand law knowledge, even if the landlord put all the responsibility on his head, malicious increase in the amount of compensation, add inequality clauses, but also willingly accept, can not see what is wrong; More seriously, some of the international students in a hurry to find house, when signing the contract will not read the terms and conditions, but in a hurry to sign!
The black-hearted landlord also took advantage of this, when renting a house, and passed on the responsibility that should have been borne by international students. Once something happens, you don't have to pay for it at all. It's all a matter for foreign student tenants to pay for the loss!
Most of the students are in the accident, only to find that because they do not understand the law and by the landlord severely posed, eat dumbby loss! Unfortunately, only a handful of foreign students choose to complain and use law to protect their rights and interests because they are passive, afraid of homelessness, afraid of being retaliated by landlords and afraid of being affected by their visas.
Clearly they are victims, but can not do justice, because most foreign students are self-confessed to bad luck, choose tolerance, just let these black-hearted landlords more wanton!
Such a vicious cycle, the entire Melbourne and even Australia's rental market is getting darker and darker!
Before you rent a house, you have to know that!
The rent market is becoming increasingly chaotic and has been closely watched by government and the Department of Consumer Affairs of Victoria.
In particular, the Department of Consumer Affairs of Victoria has launched a Mandarin version of the required information and recommendations for rental housing for Chinese students:
The one-minute video is also available in Mandarin, hoping that you can take a good look at it before renting, and remind relatives and friends who are renting recently.
To learn more about rental-related law information and video guides, you can also visit the website of the Department of Consumer Affairs of Victoria:
https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/internationalstudents
Finally, the editor also reminded you, usually know more about some rental law and terms, rent a house must not be cheap and eager to sign a contract, sometimes how long-eyed to ask a few more questions, may avoid a loss.
Whether you are a tenant or a landlord, please follow law with caution, bravely complain about problems, and don't let yourself suffer in vain!