As Property Managers, we deal with the Residential Tenancies Act and its regulations on a daily basis. We often come across things that just seem to defy common sense! For example, here in SA we cannot compel or even ask a tenant to clean carpets when they vacate a property at the end of a lease. Mind you – most have more common sense than the Act and do it anyway!
We also find something similar with gutter cleaning. Again, you would think that this would be a tenant responsibility but no; once again this goes back to the landlord.
The next thing is light globes. Common sense would tell us that if a light globe needs replacing that the tenant would attend to this simple matter. Again, the Act requires landlords to replace globes and have every globe in the property in good working order when the tenant moves in.
Tree and shrub pruning is also something the landlord is required to do. We cannot ask the tenant to do this task either.
The good thing is that the tenant is required to pay their rent on time – every time as well as to look after the property and maintain it to the condition in which they received it at the beginning of the tenancy.
