To start, I am neither a lawyer, or an accountant, or an REA. I especially not your lawyer, accountant, or REA. I did however just go through an unnecessarily annoying process to convince my outgoing REA about my rights on getting my bond back, and I thought it might save you some heartache.

It involved diving well into the weeds of NCAT case law which the system does not make easy to find. I am also an owner. I think it's important for everyone on both sides of the equation to know their rights and have them represented.

Some Basics:

What is your rental bond?

Your rental bond is cash that you put down at the beginning of your lease to protect the owner against potential damage done to the property by you while you live there? It can legally be no more than 4 weeks of rent and in practice will always be 4 weeks of rent.

How do I get my bond back?

Your rental bond is not held by your REA or the owner. It is held in trust for you for when you move out. If you are renting in the last few years, it will be held by Rental Bonds Online for you. If you have a very old lease that predates RBO, it will be held as a paper bond. You will need to fill in this form to reclaim your bond.

Now here's a bit of a secret: Whoever claims the bond first starts a 2 week clock. Once that clock is started, the number on the form is what gets returned to the tenant, unless it is disputed. You really really want that number to come from you, and you want it to be your full bond amount.

Tip 1: As soon as your keys are returned, submit your bond return.

But my landlord is claiming that I damaged things!

This is where things get interesting.

Tip 2: in general, don't be a dick. If you really damaged things, try to get them fixed. Don't be that tenant that means your landlord will never rent out to parents/young people/pet owners again.

But what if you didn't damage things, what if you just lived in the property like any normal human would and now some things are a bit scuffed? If you take the most obvious reading of the tenancy act, you are not responsible for fair wear and tear. fair trading does a pretty piss poor job of explaining what fair wear and tear is, so let me show you the best resource I have found at your disposal.

These brochures written up by the Eastern Area Tenant Service are amazing. I am in no way affiliated with them, but they have done an absolutely bang-up job. They cover in detail, point by point what case law is relevant for various parts of your property and what NCAT has ruled on in the past. These are very hard to find find resources, so I cannot be more grateful for the work they have done here assembling this.

Tip 3: read the brochure that covers your damage But you have one major secret weapon that very very tenants know about. Lets go on a quick diversion into accounting land.

What the hell is depreciation?

(if you are an accountant, please don't hurt me, this is a hilariously simplified explanation)

As much as landlords try to pretend that this isn't the case, a rental property is a business. That's why rental properties are eligible for negative gearing in the first place. When you buy an asset (a thing with value) for a business, you don't instantly get to write off the whole purchase as a tax write when you buy it. Rather, the ATO has figured out what the expected life-span for any common asset is.

You are allowed to write off the amount that your asset has lost value this year as a tax write-off. This is depreciation. Say you have a van that cost 50k and has an expected lifespan of 10 years. You can write off 5k of its value each year as depreciation. When you hit 10 years, there is nothing left to depreciate.

So what?

All that stuff in your property? The carpet? The floors? The paint? They are all assets with a life span. And as much as your landlord would like you to, they are not eligible for new for old replacement. The real kicker is this. When an asset is fully deprecated, it's replacement cost is accounted at zero. If you damage a 10 year old carpet, you cannot be held liable for any damage because legally, the replacement cost of this asset is literally zero. It is, from an accounting point of view, worthless.

My rental agent will never believe this!

You're right, they won't. And they will absolutely push back. If you followed tip 2, the clock is already against them.

Tip 4: Rental agencies will typically charge around $200 an hour to represent an owner at NCAT, make it not worth their time.

NCAT case law is fairly readable, but not so easy to find. Once you have found the relevant case via the brochures, you can pull it up on austlii to find whether it really does apply to you. I've done the work for you in the case of carpets and wall-paint which are your most common claims.

Walls

Your case is Acevska v Foss (Tenancy) [2010] NSWCTTT 541 The relevant section of the ruling is

I find that the deemed life of paint in a rental property would generally be between 7 to 10 years. The evidence indicates that except for some patch up work on the second bedroom ceiling and entry the property has not been repainted in this time. I therefore find that the landlord would not be entitled to be compensated for any losses incurred for repairing/repainting the pinpricks and the gyprock, the minor dents and pinpricks noted would form part of the preparation work for the usual repainting of the premise. I find therefore that even if the pin pricks and damaged gyprock (which is very small) are beyond fair wear and tear, the landlord has not suffered any loss. This is because of the fact that it has been 10 years since the walls were last repainted and therefore either in excess or equal to the deemed life of the paint

Carpets

Your case is Barrera v Meyer [2003] NSWCTTT 57 The relevant section of the ruling is

Carpet is deemed to have a life of approximately 10 years and is depreciated over that lifespan. The Tribunal finds that the landlord is not entitled to the cost of replacement carpet or of any portion of that sum as the carpet had reached the end of its deemed life. The landlord had therefore not suffered any real loss. The claim is therefore disallowed.

Disclaimer

(If you are a lawyer please correct me, I am speaking to the best of my understanding)

NCAT is not, like actual court, bound to its own precedent. It should rule similarly in similar cases but is not bound to. If you end up taking this to NCAT I can obviously not guarantee any results.

I also cannot guarantee that this will not :

• Blacklist you from returning to your current REA
• Blacklist you from finding future property
• Land you on some secret industry watch-list