Brisbane landlords and realtors are the world’s leading edge of landlord practice
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If you’re like me and also the truth is that they are scamming you, which you have plenty of evidence of, the RTA will waste several months of your time “organising” some “dispute resolution call” where a limp-wristed RTA goon will try to get you and the real estate company over the phone to agree to a deduction from your bond (“come to an agreement”). They say this saves time and money on tribunals but actually it’s another layer of bureaucracy and anti-tenant landlord protection.
If you refuse to come to an agreement during your dispute resolution session, the real estate agents disputing your bond refund have 2 weeks to do paperwork to submit the matter to QCAT for a hearing 6-12 months later. If they don’t do that, the money is finally released.
In my case the real estate agency was clearly bluffing so I never agreed to any deduction of my bond, and after pointlessly holding all of my bond money for several months they released it rather than waste time and money admitting to a civil tribunal they broke about 5 other tenancy laws when I rented from them. So basically your real estate agency can legally hold your bond money for months for no reason and hope you pay them a ransom.