End of a Lease

With the purchase of our new house, we’re finally wrapping up the end of the lease on our rental. (If you’re curious on how we got our rental, check out this post.) The end of our lease is a bit of a mess because we made a classic inexperienced renter mistake: we told our landlord we were moving too early. We have a fixed lease, meaning we are committed to renting our house until October 6. However, in a bizarre fit of “we’re trying to be nice and give them a heads up,” we told the property management company (Barfoot & Thompson) that we were planning on moving out and would not renew our lease at the end of its term. We gave them this news at the end of July, but said we didn’t know our exact move out date yet. We also told them not to worry, that we knew we were obliged to pay rent until October 6. BAD IDEA. Wait until the very last legal minute to tell the property managers that you plan to move out. That’s typically 21 days before the end of the tenancy. (Here’s a good guide to ending a tenancy.)

Within a few days, our landlord gave us the required 90 day notice that she was going to put the rental on the market and WE needed to get it ready for showings. Um, what? We needed to do work to help her sell her house? As it turns out, renters only need to make reasonable accomodations for showings. The owner can’t demand that we make the house available whenever they feel like it and insist that we go around cleaning up before each and every viewing. Renters don’t have to agree to open houses or allow any photographs of their personal items for promotional material. Its ok to insist that there is notice before a viewing. It is also ok to request a discount in rent for the time showings are taking place. We negotiated a 33% discount on our rent for each week there are showings. (Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer or expert on this. Please talk to a real estate lawyer and check on the rules and regulations yourself. A good resource to start with is here.) It is ok to say that a proposed viewing time doesn’t work for your schedule. We initially said that viewings could only take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays between the hours of 1 and 3, and only with 48 hours notice and approval.

I wanted to make sure we were out of the house prior to any viewings or open houses. That was part of the reason for moving out well before our lease was up - so I wouldn’t have to worry about random strangers looking through our stuff. I think if we had just kept our mouths shut and not mentioned that we were moving until until three weeks before our fixed lease was up, we would have saved ourselves a huge heap of trouble.

As it was, we had the bulk of our stuff out of the house before the first showing, but the house wasn’t clean and there were still lots and lots of straggling items left behind that we plan on collecting piecemeal as we settle into the new house. There is no way the house presented well during a showing, but maybe that doesn’t matter in Auckland’s insane housing market. If the agent and owner had simply waited a few weeks - while we were still paying the full rent - they would’ve had a much better property to show.

The week before our lease was up, we made sure the house was empty and clean, expecting to get some sort of instructions on what to do to wrap things up. It was absolute radio silence. Nothing. We emailed Barfoot & Thompson to confirm our last day in the house, and we got a response with our final day and the last amount due for our portion of the water bill. There was no mention of a final walk through, or inspection, or what to do with the keys. Absolutely nothing. Without any information from the rental agency, on October 6 Jon took pictures of the entire house, walked down to their office, and handed the keys to a clueless woman working the front desk.

Five days later, Barfoot & Thompson sent us this form to sign and return to them. Fortunately, they agree that the house was in good shape when we left and aren’t holding any of the bond for repairs. We should get our bond refund within 10 business days. My fingers are crossed that this last step will happen in a timely manner.