Tenancy

[Ruslan]

Hi,

If a tenant is not happy with something about his tenancy, what can he do to influence the landlord or landlord's agent?

In my case, I'm dealing with the landlord via his agent. So I never talked to the landlord, and the agent doesn't want us to contact directly. All the more, the landlord is living in Australia now.

I'm not happy that they didn't provide aircons service receipt, didn't do cleaning before I shifted (so I had to pay for cleaning and going to charge the agent), and also they didn't warn me there's no water heater in the kitchen. There's a heater button which lights when I turn it on, so I was under impression there's a heater, and didn't check carefully; particularly because the agent said that he'd already checked everything and that anyway they'd repair anything I notice not working during the first month of my tenancy.

Ok, those are not very big problems themselves; but I don't like that the agent hasn't been very honest / diligent. So I need him to fix the problems quickly. I checked my tenancy agreement and found no any ways in it in which I can influence the landlord. But I think cleaning, aircon service and one-month-landlord-repairs-everything period are a norm.

[Sydney C]

Hi,

If a tenant is not happy with something about his tenancy, what can he do to influence the landlord or landlord's agent?

In my case, I'm dealing with the landlord via his agent. So I never talked to the landlord, and the agent doesn't want us to contact directly. All the more, the landlord is living in Australia now.

I'm not happy that they didn't provide aircons service receipt, didn't do cleaning before I shifted (so I had to pay for cleaning and going to charge the agent), and also they didn't warn me there's no water heater in the kitchen. There's a heater button which lights when I turn it on, so I was under impression there's a heater, and didn't check carefully; particularly because the agent said that he'd already checked everything and that anyway they'd repair anything I notice not working during the first month of my tenancy.

Ok, those are not very big problems themselves; but I don't like that the agent hasn't been very honest / diligent. So I need him to fix the problems quickly. I checked my tenancy agreement and found no any ways in it in which I can influence the landlord. But I think cleaning, aircon service and one-month-landlord-repairs-everything period are a norm.

Hi Ruslan,

For most cases, repairs that costs under SGD$100 would normally be absorbed by the tenant. However, the agent should have included such terms into the tenancy agreement so as to avoid future complications

[German_Expat]

I am in my second tennancy now. The usual practice is that within two weeks to one month of moving in you report all defects to the owner/agent who then has to rectify this or you may rectify this yourself and deduct the cost from the rent. If you dont report these defects then you may end up responsible for those and cumulative defects arising from the defect. We had a problem with our aircon. When we moved in we checked teh aircon and found it had not been cleaned, also the condensation drainage was blocked and the aircon was dripping badly. We notified the agent and he arranged for a aircon service contractor to rectify this.

[Ruslan]

Some agents use certain tricks. Eg mine gave me the contract to sign in the last minute; so I only later figured out it didn't include some owner responsibilities / tenant rights that I typically met in other contracts. Be cautious about such things.