Mikaela Cowan is currently out $8000 in unpaid rent. Picture: Facebook
An Aussie nurse has laid bare the uphill struggle landlords face to remove tenants who fail to pay for months on end.
Mikaela Cowan, 31, is owed $8000 in unpaid rent as she struggles to juggle the mortgages on both her investment property and her home on a single income.
Ms Cowan bought the investment property in Victoria’s Mill Park prior to the covid pandemic but decided to rent it out in 2023 when she moved into a one-bedroom apartment following a break-up.
Things with the new tenants appeared to be going well at first, however, just eight months into the lease rental payments started to fall behind.
“They’ve been put on four payment plans which they continue to fail to pay,” Ms Cowan told Yahoo Finance.
“We gave them a notice to vacate back in December and yet according to VCAT (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) that means absolutely nothing.”
Victorian landlords say they get little support from VCAT. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers
Ms Cowan has joined growing criticism of VCAT’s apparent stance to favour renters over landlords.
It is a problem Ms Cowan is still battling despite struggling to make her own payments.
“They’re currently around $8,000 in arrears. Meanwhile I’m a single, 31-year-old nurse on one income and paying two mortgages – which just keeps increasing with every rate rise we have been having,” she said.
“We just received a new hearing date which isn’t until the 19th of May, which is incredibly frustrating.
“We have also given the tenants another notice to vacate, citing I want to move back into the property due to financial hardship.
“The whole system needs to be overhauled and common sense needs to prevail which VCAT do not seem to have.”
Ms Cowan’s view is one backed by other landlords across Victoria who found themselves in similar situations.
Daniel Yeats slammed his state’s tenancy laws after renters squatted in his property for a year without paying and virtually destroyed the home in the process.
Daniel Yeats found his investment property completely trashed after a year of trying to regain possession from tenants who never paid rent. Picture: Channel 9
Mr Yeats was left $25,000 out of pocket and forced to find another job after the battle to evict the tenants from his Melbourne investment property stretched out to a year of tribunal hearings and bureaucratic red tape.
Mr Yeats, a first-time property investor, was subjected to 13 hearings at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal before finally regaining possession of the home in South Morang in January.
The tenants, a mother and her two daughters, left the property in such a poor state that when he finally set foot inside the home after a year Mr Yeats couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
He said more than 10 cats were roaming the home, the property was crawling with maggots, walls were smeared with faeces, and the stench was overpowering.
When he finally got inside, Mr Yeats found a house of horrors. Picture: Channel 9
Between unpaid rent and legal fees, Mr Yeats said he was forced to take a job as a FIFO worker to pay for everything.
Those costs won’t include thousand of dollars Mr Yeats now has to pay for cleaning and repairs.
Mr Yeats has since launched a petition urging the Victorian government to step in and help innocent Australian like himself.
Property lawyer Justin Lawrence from Henderson & Ball said landlords in Victoria were always treated as “the bad guy”.
“It’s absolutely crucial that every landlord totally vets their prospective tenant, references, checks, employment history, even bank statements,” he told A Current Affair.
“I think the starting point for most laws across Australia is that they should be fair. If you’re a tenant and you don’t pay rent, you should be evicted.”
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