[jocalla]

For all of you out there, who are soon to be renting here in NZ, please take note, if you know as little as ME about renting a house

We've been renting for a couple of months now, no problems there, but our circumstances have changed and we have decided to look at buying a property. I phoned up the estate agent for our rental just to keep her updated, and she advised me that I am on a FIXED tenancy agreement. :? and therefore cannot leave the property until the end on my lease which is 5th Dec :wah :wah :wah

When we signed the agreement I wrongly assumed that I would just have to give a months notice or something if I wanted to vacate, she DID NOT tell anything about the FIXED agreement I signed. I know at the end of the day I should have asked more questions but I wrongly assumed it was just a 'normal' rental agreement. The agent knew our position being new in the country and unfamilar with how things work but still DID NOT pre-warn us about this agreement.

Don't really think we can do anything about it, so the least I can do is pre-warn you all so you don't make the same STUPID mistake we did :?

Joanne

[Dave & Sandra]

Is there any chance of you getting somebody else to take over the rental agreement. Maybe somebody on this forum who are looking to rent for a longer period.

Just an idea

[RoadRunner]

So sorry to hear about your situtation!

I thought you only had to give 21 days notice to vacate so I went back to look at the housing brochure that NZIS sent. It explains that there are two types of tenancy: periodic (which requires 21-day notice) and fixed-term (which neither the tenant nore landlord can end early).

What horrible luck. It seems like you really can't count on the real estate agent to be helpful or open about issues. Guess that is counter to the Kiwi friendliness you hear so much about.

Best of luck!

RoadRunner

[neilw71]

Joanne,

Can you not offer to pay a couple of months rent in advance and let the landlord put the house back up for rent? If you are desperate to get into your own house, surely a payment or 2 is worth it if you accept that you just made a mistake and can not legally get out of the agreement any other way?

Neil

[Moorf]

In our experience the estate agents here are more evil than those in the UK - for instance, our agent for our current house purchase has a few houses in the same area for sale, so when we asked her what the annual rates would cost she told us $950 - wow, we thought, that fits our budget nicely... turns out the rates are actually $1700 a year - she knew this, so why tell us less? She had the cheek to turn round and tell us it was only really the cost of a few Happy Meals a month so why were we so bothered? (Another case of the vision of Immigrants being "walking wallets".)

Now turns out she was also aware of the Title problems that we are encountering and that the only reason the "protection" condition (i.e. referring to Title) was on the Agreement was at the Vendors request !!! Not hers.. she would gladly have sold us a property with potential probs....

RANT OFF :oops:

Now, back to Jo.. what is the worst thing that could happen if you up and leave the property? Lose bond? Or would you have to pay up to end of the agreement? Is there anything to say you can't sublet ;) ? Do you know the landlord and could you approach them rather than the agent?

Moorf

[richard]

We have a 6 month fixed agreement through Harcourts. They said that if we wanted to leave early they would attempt to find other tenants and until that happened we would have to carry on paying the rent.

Unless your place is totally minging I would have thought it could be re-let very quickly as there seems to be a lot of demand for rentals in ChCh.

[westi]

It might be worth you ringing the tenany tribunal ( in yellow pages ) they might be able to get you out of the tennancy if you have been mmis sold - best of luck. We were stuck in a rental we didn't want to stay in when we first moved and it's miserable.

[jocalla]

Thanks for all of your replies :nice1

I suppose I am lucky in a way that we are in a very nice house and not DESPERATE to move, and at the end of the day we signed the agreement so I will honour it, it just leaves a bad taste the way the agent has been :? .

Live and Learn I guess, just wish I knew about different tenancies before we signed. Just goes to show no matter how much research you do you can still get caught out. :? Hopefully no one else will get caught out like us :nice1

Joanne :cheers

[Beach Kiwi]

Check your contract, as you may be able to sublet.

Here's the Ministry of Housing website for information on renting: CLICK ME (http://www.dbh.govt.nz/housing/tenancy/index.html)