BEWARE OF THIS REAL ESTATE!!
I am writing about our experience renting a commercial lot with Cayzer Real Estate in Port Melbourne. We have been renting that property for 3 years but it was hell of an experience. One day, we had the dishwasher leaking and we had to close the main water tap that night after business close hours till the plumber comes out, unfortunately we only manage to get an appointment from the plumber after 3 days but the very next morning (the top tenant) came down and he was saying he didn’t had water supply, to our surprise which we didn’t knew all this 3 years, we had the same water meter. I then confronted the real estate about this issue and he only answered “you are responsible to pay all your outgoings!” such a bad way of dealing and really unprofessional. We felt something really weird and this has cause us great stress as we felt cheated of all this years. We then decided to hire a Lawyer, as the real estate was just not bothered and was just chasing and asking us to pay as usual.
The real estate manipulated us all this years by making us paying water and outgoings for the top property too, the property belongs to the same landlord but how could they not do a separate meter or charge us separately. What a rip off! They hide about this meter to us and made us pay all this time (it is not a small amount), if there was no leakage in that dishwater we wouldn’t have found out!
We are very happy that we found the Lawyer, he did an excellent job by checking on the bills and recalculating the proportions of all the outgoing for the 3 years of tenure. Despite asking for separate water rates and council rate the Real Estate even replied saying that is not their job to keep all that records when Lawyer asked for the separate copies of itemise bills. We didn’t renew our lease and we manage to get back the refunds and bond after almost 2.5 months of battle and bringing the matter to VSBC Mediator. It was a back and forth between the real estate and Lawyer as the real estate didn’t want to agree to the figures, it came to a time that it became really rude and unprofessional. They in fact started manipulating that this was a lease transfer and wanted us to redo the walls for the left over from the previous tenant. What a shame!
We also had issues with GST charges, the real estate repeatedly stated that no GST was charged during the 3 years tenure, after 2 months of denial, they have then accepted that they have charged GST, when the Lawyer emailed, all they did was just replied to email saying “thank you for bringing this matter up, it was mistake from our end” Really unprofessional! Several threats were made to us as the real estate wanted to withdraw the payments from the bond for the make good of the wall, they were so pushy even without solving this issues, and not wanting to cooperate with what was requested by the Lawyer.
We will be bringing this matter to the media so that it will be made aware to the society of how Cayzer Real Estate treated and manipulated. This is for making everyone to be careful in dealing with Cayzer Real Estate. This is a ride and experience for new small business owners like us. Be extra careful when dealing with this company! Check your agreements and have it done by a good Lawyer!
Antwoord van Cayzer Real Estate
While much of what you have written is inaccurate, we will simply state the following facts:
Firstly, we did not negotiate the lease with you. It is standard business practice that one would carefully read a lease and negotiate any terms that were not acceptable PRIOR commencement. The lease was prepared by the solicitor for the landlord and a managing agent has a legal obligation to apply the terms and conditions of the lease. We have no legal authority to change a lease.
Secondly, the simple make good repairs that were required from you at the end of the lease were NEVER completed to satisfaction for over two months, despite repeated communications with you.
It is in the interest of all parties that the end of a tenancy is handled thoroughly and according to the legal obligations set out in the lease. The landlord was prompt in agreeing to fully compensate you for the outgoings as part of settlement of the matter.
The process of ending your tenancy was prolonged through your repeated failure to understand what your legal obligations are as a commercial tenant. It would appear through your actions and your public complaint that you either did NOT read or understand the terms and conditions of a commercial lease. Throughout the process we were courteous, professional, fair and above all, patient.