Landlords and rental agencies have withheld tens of millions of dollars in deposits to tenants simply because they have forgotten to remove multimillac on the walls, abrasion marks and minuscule cleaning problems such as fluff left in the dryer.
Cleaning costs accounted for nearly 1/4 yuan, or 28.6 million yuan, of a 112 million yuan deposit withheld by new state landlords in 2017, according to the latest data released by UrbanYou, a cleaning service.
Landlords in Sydney's CBD,Liverpool and Bondi areas are the least likely to refund deposits, and the total costs associated with the scenario are more than 1.5 million yuan.
Ross (Leo Patterson Ross) of the New State tenant Coalition (NSW Tenants'Union) said the current system encourages landlords to file small claims that are often not worth the time and money tenants spend fighting the end.
He said: "these claims may not be valid if they do go through court proceedings." If the landlord claims $100 for cleaning expenses and the court process may result in a $50 award, many people will not spend time and effort to get back $50, "he said.
It is for this reason that it is important for tenants to list everything they see in the report before they check in, Ross added.
According to the New State Rental Deposit Committee, about 45 percent of tenants have not fully recovered their deposits and 32 percent have received only part of the money.
Geely (Elke Keeley), co-founder of UrbanYou, says moving tenants often don't know what the landlord's cleaning requirements are, giving picky landlords and agents a chance to cut them off.
Most of the time, Mr. Geely said, landlords are asking for part of the deposit for reasonable reasons, but there are also people who want to take advantage of their tenants' slight negligence to trap them. She said: "We found that some tenants have been withheld for petty matters, such as stains on the kickboards and dust on the cabinets."
Ariana (Ariana Shutte), the tenant, was charged a $200 cleaning fee for fingerprints on the mirror and dust in the room when he moved out of the inner city.
One of her friends had not changed the bulb, and the other had not cleaned the oven, which had been withheld for 120 yuan.
"it's sad, because usually when you move in, the house is not so clean, and we keep it as it is until we leave." She said.