Page Seager’s Residential Tenancy Legal Advice Hotline provides a service to assist REIT member property managers with legal matters arising under the Residential Tenancy Act.

This will give your property managers robust support to deal with most residential tenancy legal matters ‘in-house’ and without the need for a separate engagement with lawyers.

What does it cover?

Page Seager’s Hotline provides REIT Members with*:

• Unlimited telephone / video consults with Page Seager’s lawyers for residential tenancy legal queries such as evictions, liability (tenant and landlord responsibility for repairs and maintenance and ‘break lease’ issues) and to discuss strategies to resolve disputes and deal with technicalities of the Residential Tenancy Act.
• Legal and strategic advice and assistance to properly draft and serve a Notice to Vacate.
• Basic correspondence with tenants if legal issues look like becoming a problem.
• Template suites including checklists; initial letters of demand; notices to vacate; template affidavit (witness statement) evidence; and legal submissions.
• The first appearance on an application for orders in Court for vacant possession is included in the monthly price⁺.
• Periodic ‘lessons learned’ sessions with your property management team to ensure learnings are shared.

What are the benefits?

Often, small problems can be resolved with early intervention, meaning they don’t become ‘bigger problems’.

We think there are multiple key benefits for our members by having Page Seager able to provide this service:

• Your property management team benefits by having the support of a core team of expert lawyers ensuring that there is always someone available to respond to your property manager’s emails or phone calls.
• Your landlords benefit with expert legal support on residential tenancy issues, securing their rent payments and legal position, without needing a separate legal engagement.
• There is certainty of price and value on the basis of a low ‘per property’ price fixed each month. This gives the team incentive to engage with lawyers even on matters that might not otherwise have warranted seeking advice.

For example, if one of your tenants is breaching the terms of a lease, then using the Hotline, your property managers could benefit by:

• Getting early access to legal advice by phone to consider whether there are grounds to have a formal letter of demand (for example, for unpaid rent or to cease a nuisance), to gently get them back ‘on track’ and working with you and your property owner.
• Get assistance to otherwise resolve the matter by agreement.
• If the problem cannot be remedied, getting legal advice to ensure that formal and compliant process is taken to provide your property owner with vacant possession in the shortest possible time, in compliance with their legal obligations. This would include identifying a relevant breach of lease and remedies, form of notice to vacate and applying to court for vacant possession including evidence of ‘genuine or just’ reasons for order.

What does it cost?

• The Hotline starts from $3.00 ex GST per property under management, per month, and depends on the total number of properties under management.
• Disbursements such as process server fees are extra, and professional fees after the first appearance on Court on a ‘vacant possession’ matter are extra and would be agreed prior to being incurred.
• There is no ‘lock in’ period – you can cancel the service at any time, so you and your property owners are not paying for a service that is not being used.

Other terms and conditions apply to this service, so please reach out to Page Seager for full details.

If you need some extra help, Page Seager can customise a plan that works for you. Typically, a custom plan would include the Standard Hotline plus other legal services including:

• Retainer options, including having one of our lawyers retained in your business for ‘on site’ legal support (secondment).
• HR, employment and WHS legal advice.
• Litigation and dispute resolution advice and representation.
• Corporate and commercial advice and documentation.
• Planning and development.

Contact Page Seager here to discuss scope and price and how to take up this offer.

* Terms and conditions apply
+ This covers the first 3 hours of the first Court appearance. Any necessary subsequent appearances (or other Court matters such as appeals from decisions of the Residential Tenancy Commissioner) will be at rates discounted from normal hourly rates, which will be agreed with you in advance.