Renting a home
A house, unit or apartment you are renting to live in. Most of your agreement is set by law and cannot be changed. What can be changed is everything the landlord has added at the back — and that is where the problems are.
The standard form is only half of it
Every state has a law protecting home renters. It sets minimum standards, controls when your rent can go up, protects your bond, and says how a tenancy can be ended. If a clause in your agreement conflicts with that law, the law usually wins.
But the protection stops where the standard form ends. The special terms, the extra pages, the body corporate rules — those are negotiable, and they are where the obligations that surprise people live.
You have to know a clause is unenforceable before that helps you. People who follow an invalid clause for two years rarely get that time back.
When it is worth getting advice
A six-month rental on a standard form usually does not need a lawyer. These do.
- Long leases. Two years or more. The cost of leaving early can run to months of rent.
- Anything with extra pages attached. Special terms, house rules, furniture lists, garden or pool obligations.
- A company or trust is the tenant, and someone is being asked to guarantee it personally.
- Family arrangements. Granny flats, life tenancies, or an older relative putting money into a property they will live in. These go wrong often and are usually written down badly or not at all.
- Live-work or mixed premises, like a shop with a flat above, where it is not obvious which law applies.
- Rent-to-buy arrangements. Get these checked before any money changes hands.
- You are the landlord, letting a property for the first time.
What we look at
- What it costs to leave early, and the notice each side has to give.
- How and when your rent can be increased, and the limits in your state.
- Your bond and the condition report. The condition report is the most useful document you will ever fill in, and most bond arguments are decided on it.
- Who fixes what, and what happens in an emergency.
- The special terms. Some of these are not enforceable. Some are. The difference matters.
- Body corporate rules on pets, parking, noise and renovations. These bind you and are rarely handed over with the agreement.
What you get from us
You send us the lease and everything attached to it. A senior solicitor reads it, and you get four things back.
- 1Written advice you can act onPlain English, no Latin, no hedging. Every clause that could cost you money, what it means in practice and what it is likely to cost.
- 2Your obligations, listedWhat you have to pay, when, and what happens if you are late. Outgoings, rent reviews, make good, guarantees and insurance, set out in one place.
- 3A list of changes to ask forSpecific amendments, in order of importance, written so you can send them to the landlord or their agent as they are.
- 4A call with the solicitor who wrote itNot a paralegal and not a call centre. The person who read your lease answers your questions about it.
All of it for the fixed fee. If we think your situation needs more than preliminary advice, we say so before you pay anything.
$1,100
Including GST. One fee, agreed before we start, that does not change.
You get a written advice from a senior solicitor within 5 business days from receiving your documents. It points you to the clauses that matter, flags anything that is not standard, and tells you what you can push back on — plus a phone call to talk it through.
Already in a dispute?
This service is advice on a lease before you sign it, not help with an argument already underway. Tell us what has happened and we will say honestly whether we can help, or point you to the free tenancy advice service in your state.