A tenant has slammed her new real estate agent for ‘outrageous’ surcharges added onto new payment options as Australia’s cost of living crisis worsens.
Jessica, 34, who has lived in her Sydney home for three-and-a-half years and pays $800 per fortnight, was informed by her real estate agency last month that they would be merging with another.
She received an email from her soon-to-be property managers about the new payment options, which Jessica claims make it more harder to pay rent without incurring a surcharge.
Of the five options, just one offered no surcharge but there was a catch.
Every time Jessica has to pay rent, she would need to check her invoice for a new BSB and account number, which she would have to manually put in order to transfer her rent.
If she wanted to avoid that hassle and save time, she could alternatively pay with direct debit which carries a $1.95 fee, card with a 1.95 per cent and 30c fee, EFT wallet with a $2.50 fee or she could pay in person at Australia Post which carries the heftiest fee of $5.
The surcharges would cost hundreds extra each year, with direct debit totalling almost $1,000 in additional charges annually, which Jessica said she will not pay.
She sent an email to her new agents demanding an easier way to pay fee-free and threatened to lodge a complaint with Fair Trading if they couldn’t come up with an alternative solution.
Jessica explained in a TikTok video that real estate agents are legally required to provide renters at least one fee-free payment option and that she had never seen it done so poorly.
‘My real estate has just done the most audacious thing in a cost of living crisis, I’m starting to get the shakes from how angry I’m getting the more I think about this situation,’ she said.
‘It’s not like you can set and forget or just have the account detail saved in your bank.
‘No, every single payment you have to go into this stupid app that they’ve make you download, log in, go to the the rent section, find your BSB and account number, put them into your bank and then transfer the money.’
Landlords and agents must offer at least one ‘reasonably available’ method to pay rent in NSW
NSW law states that landlords and agents must offer at least one ‘reasonably available’ method to pay rent.
‘It is not fair that renters are being charged additional fees simply to pay their rent, especially amid current cost-of-living pressures,’ NSW Premier Chris Minns said in September.
Jessica has already lodged a complaint to Fair Trading but was told by the department it would be more beneficial if she tried to resolve the issue on her own first.
She emailed the agency with her ‘substantial complaints’ and told them that their terms were unacceptable.
Jessica, 34, has threatened to take her new real estate agents to Fair Trading if they do not offer her an easier way to pay her rent fee-free
‘I think it’s fairly abhorrent in a cost of living crisis to offer payment options that all come with a hefty fee tacked on,’ Jessica wrote.
‘Are you able to reduce some of the stress for us by providing one set of account details we can use each fortnight? I do not feel this is an unreasonable request and I do feel the options you have provided are highly unreasonable.’
Jessica claimed that her current real estate agent had no idea of the new payment options and that her agent was ‘gobsmacked’ to find out about it.
‘I don’t even think that they had any idea that this was how this new place did business,’ she said.
‘Normally this stuff doesn’t get to me too much but we are actually in a cost-of-living crisis. Rent is going up exorbitantly where I live.’
Viewers were quick to comment on the brazen system and commending Jessica for standing up to her new real estate agents.
‘I’m a PM and real estate owner and this makes no sense. You legally cannot have multiple trust accounts? And bsb and account details do not change week to week. This seems very sus and so bizarre,’ one woman wrote.
Another added: ‘As a real estate trust accountant I’d be asking why they simply cannot provide you with BPAY details. Otherwise I’d send them a cheque each month so they have to physically bank it & wait for clearance,’ another said.
A third wrote: ‘The hell? Why are they charging fees for direct debit? There are no fees to do that.’
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