Landlord Information

Just prior to your new Tenant moving into your property, your Property Manager will complete an Entry Condition Report on site. This is a seven-page legislatively-required Report detailing the visual condition of the property inside and out, including the condition and colour of all inclusions, for example, walls, floor coverings, light fittings, appliances, gardens, driveway, lawns etc., at the start of the Tenancy.

Your Property Manager will spend up to two hours at your property compiling this Report. In addition, we will take approximately 100-500 photos of your property to further support the report. It is part of our service and office policy that we take these photos to form part of your Entry Condition Report; they are vital evidence if there is a dispute when your Tenant eventually moves out.

Routine inspections are carried out by our Property Managers every 17 weeks.  Our Staff are highly trained to identify any potential damage or maintenance as well as completing a highly detailed report.

We will also let you know if we see any preventative maintenance issues, such as floor coverings, guttering issues, etc.

Our process for renewing a lease begins three months before the lease expiration. There are a few reasons for this:

1. If you would like the rent to increase for the new lease, we like to give as much notice as possible to the tenants, though there is no required time limit.

2. If you are wanting to ask the Tenants to vacate at the expiry of their lease, we are also required to provide the Tenants with two months’ notice.

3. We like to get an indication, as early as possible, if the property will become vacant. The last thing we want is your property to be vacant. Maximising your rent return is our goal.

We will email or post you (depending on your preferred method) a document three months prior, which will include the date your written instructions are required to be returned, and a general market overview along with our recommendation for the renewal of the Tenancy. We ask you to return the last two pages of this document, giving us your written instructions relating to the length of the lease and rental amount, along with your instructions about servicing the smoke alarms. If you do not return your written instructions by the due date we will attempt to contact you.

If we cannot contact you, as explained previously, we will follow the emergency contact procedure. If we are still unable to contact you, we will issue the Tenants a new lease as per our recommendations in our initial letter to you. However, your written instructions are preferred. Once we have received your written instructions, we will email or post the Tenants their new lease, and, once returned, we will process it through our system, arrange the smoke alarms as per your instructions, and send you a copy of the signed lease for your records. The Tenants are given seven days to return their signed lease to us. If the lease is not returned in this timeframe we will follow up.

If the Tenants have not returned their new lease within one month prior to the expiry, we will contact you to advise you that, in this instance, we recommend a Notice to Leave be issued. The main reason for this is, that most Landlord Insurance Policies do not provide insurance coverage if the Tenancy is a Periodic lease.

Legislation requires Tenants to provide us with a minimum of two weeks’ notice prior to vacating. Once we have this notice, we will call or email you to advise you when the Tenant is vacating your property, and request your instructions in writing in relation to reletting your property. Once the Tenant vacates and hands in the keys to our office, the legislation gives us three business days to carry out the Exit Report. We will book the exit inspection as soon as the Tenants hand in the keys to your property. At the inspection, we check to ensure the property has been left clean, neat, and tidy, including the yard, and to ensure there is no damage (fair wear and tear excluded). If there are items to be rectified, the Tenant is given 24 hours to rectify them. If they are not rectified, we will arrange for our tradespeople to carry out the work and for the amounts to be deducted from the Bond. Subject to legislation requirements, the RTA generally holds an equivalent of four-weeks rent as the Bond. Once your Property Manager has completed the vacate inspection, they will contact you to advise you of the condition of the property.

Once the Bond is finalised and you are satisfied with the condition of your property, it is ready to be relet. If there is money owing in excess of the Bond, the Property Manager will arrange a dispute resolution with the RTA who acts as the mediator. This is where the Entry Condition Report and photos will be used as evidence on your behalf. If this mediation process does not rectify the issues, an Application to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) is submitted to go in front of a magistrate to verify the amounts owing. At this Tribunal Hearing, the judgment made in favour of the Landlord or Tenant is ordered. Boettcher Realty is also able to engage Barclays, a debt collection agency, to recover the outstanding funds, or a claim can be made on your Landlord Insurance. By legislation, we can list the Tenants on a default Tenancy Database.

Legislation requires that the Landlord/Property Owner must have all smoke alarms at their property serviced, tested, cleaned, batteries replaced and the expiry dates checked within 30 days prior to a lease being renewed, and at the beginning of a new Tenancy. We strongly recommend the use of Smoke Alarm Solutions to carry out this service as they also provide us with a compliance certificate that confirms the property complies with the Fire Safety Regulation. Most Landlords use this company or a similar company. In the unlikely event of a fire, one of the first requests by your insurer is for you to show proof that your smoke alarms were compliant with the law and work. It is your choice to service them regularly, but most Landlords employ a company to take on this responsibility. For more detailed information on the packages offered please contact our Senior Property Manager.

We strongly recommend that any property with an individual water meter be made 3-star WELS compliant by a licenced plumber. This enables us to pass on the total water usage charges to the Tenant. For example, when your water bill arrives from Queensland Urban Utilities, there will be a base charge and a consumption charge. If your property is not 3-star WELS (water compliant), you, as the Landlord, will be required to pay the base charge plus almost the entire consumption charge.

The Tenant is only liable to pay a small portion of the bill. This is the Residential Tenancies Authority’s (RTA) advice. If your property is 3-star WELS (water compliant), you only have to pay the base charge and your Tenant will pay 100% of the water consumption. Each individual bill can vary by hundreds of dollars; it would be wise to have this service approved for your property. This service to your property is also tax-deductible.

We disburse rental monies to all our Landlords twice monthly, being the sixteenth day of each month or the next business day, as well as the first day of the month or the next business day (public holiday’s taken into account). 

Some landlords take advantage of this service and some prefer to receive their statement monthly. Advise your Property Manager of your preference for disbursement frequency as we individualise to suit your specific requests. Your statement, along with any paid invoices, will be emailed or posted to you the same day the disbursement is processed. You will receive one monthly statement and then one annual summary statement for the Financial Year. This saves you time as you only need one yearly statement for your accountant. we can also send you monthly and annual statements directly as required.

Our office is open Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm. For any after-hour emergencies, please call our office number which will divert to our after-hours mobile. Leave your name, number and the emergency information and a staff member will contact you. We regularly check this message service after hours and over the weekend, including public holidays. Your Tenants are also advised of this procedure prior to renting your property.