By unfairly I mean, I was not advised in anyway and when I called the real estate to rectify the situation I was confronted with a very disgruntled, rude and obnoxious real estate who refused to talk to me in a professional manner.  

Last Friday I found out off a real estate that I had been blacklisted 3 years ago. I was unaware of this and looked straight into it where I found the real estate and contacted them on how to resolve this issue.

Firstly I looked up the circumstances where you can be blacklisted and laws on blacklisting - such as having to advise the tenant etc to see where I stand.

My side of the story is I was on a lease with my partner at the time but I had to leave him and the premises in quite a rush due to personal circumstances. I advised the real estate that I had left and went into detail about my circumstances however I was never contacted by this real estate again and as far as I was aware my ex partner was still there.

When I called the real estate regarding been put on a blacklist I found out that my expartner had not paid the rent and left the place in quite a mess with an outstanding balance of almost $2000 after the real estate took the bond.

The real estate advised me that I owed $971 but even if I paid her that amount she would not guarantee that my name would be removed, I asked how long I could be kept on the database and she said 7 years but after this she would put me straight back on. She also threatened to have me fined $10 000 for not advising her of my whereabouts for the past 3 years but I still have the same mobile number I did back then so really I was not that difficult to find. She also said that she sent me notification of the blacklisting to that address I had left when she knew fine well I was not there and I thought you could only be blacklisted after you had left the premises anyway.

To make matters worse the lady whom I spoke to finished the conversation with "how dare you call me with your bullsh** you fu***ng little dirty bit**" and hung up. I would think a real estate would be more professional but this was the attitude and language that I was confronted with. I did not provoke the situation at all, I had called to rectify the situation as I have never been blacklisted and I was willing to pay the $971 but I have come to the conclusion this would not make any difference at all.

Now I am terribly upset about this situation and I do not wish to recontact or talk to this woman again, I am 7 months pregnant and this is the last thing I need at the moment.

Does anyone know who I should contact to help me with this mess?

Contact the Residential Tenancy Association - depending on where you are in OZ it may have a slightly different name.  You are probably going to need to do a statutory declaration as well.  Plus  a letter to the principal of the agency from you encapsulating what you've posted here might be useful.

Just to let anyone know, i didn't act on this, i left it to Karma to sort out the absolute cow who treated me like crap.......oh and had to buy my first home as i couldn't rent through a real estate anymore!!! (Not a bad thing at all, except now the bank owns me instead) And i didn't pay her back - with no intention to now, she should have thought of the money before she called me names.

I would like to know of a website though where we as tenants can advise each other of bad real estates and agents. They have a blacklisting place, why can't we? I wouldn't wish meeting this horrible horrible woman on anyone (except muderers, rapists etc)

Sara

Sara,

I am a landlord and currently facing very serious issues with my tenant and managing agent who is knowingly supporting my tenant and providing good references for her, despite the fact she deliberately is not paying rent (1 month to be exact) because the tenants sister works in real estate and knows her way around the law and my agent is absolutely #$@! scared of her, hence the favouratism; but I am pursuing this all the way no matter the cost even if I am at a financial loss. It is the principle that counts and no landlord  should suffer a loss through deliberate theft by the tenants actions.

I too want the current managing agent exposed and the tenant blacklisted to show them that they are not invincible and cannot flout the law without consequences. I am very convinced now, that a background check of the tenants tenancy history was not conducted as I trusted my agent to do the right thing. My big mistake, and I regret deeply for not asking for evidence of the tenants past. Lesson learnt.

Be very careful about naming names on public forums because these agents who resort to rogue practices are extremely vindictive and ruthless. You could have severe legal issues futher down the track. I advise you to seek concrete legal advise before acting.

LLord

I believe we are on the same side here, however once again I see you are advising against naming and shaming on the web.  This effectively cuts down the options of tenants and landlords to maintain a public forum where they can discuss their experiences.   Partially I wonder if perhaps your comments are actually intended to steer the readership towards using legal aid (perhaps from this very site which I would argue could not be impartial). 

Do you have examples of where private individuals stating their experiences and naming names on a web forum have had defamatory action taken against them?  For my own learning I would be very interested to read these cases. 

BearBait

BearBait,

I wasn't advising against naming and shaming anyone on a public forum, but only to excersise caution before publishing names and to seek legal advise before doing so to find out what the limitations are for both tenants or landlords without legal ramifications.

The last thing anyone wants is to be dragged through the courts for expressing their unpleasant experiences on a public forum by publishing names. This could in effect to some extent be deemed as defamation.

So be careful, seek legal advise before hitting that keyboard and naming names. You could however give exact details of your experiences without naming anyone or a company; that's OK, only you know, but when you post agents or tenants or landlords names that's a different kettle of fish.

In answer to your question, the last paragragh, I don't have any examples and not aware if any individual has had defamatory action taken against them for naming names on web forums, but I will digress a little and say people have had action taken against them for uploading photos of other people on web sites without permission. I know this from news articles.