Real Estate Law Homework: Tenant Rights and Property Sales

This document presents a comprehensive analysis of a real estate law assignment, addressing key aspects of property management and sales. The assignment explores tenant rights and obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2010, including scenarios where landlords seek to conduct significant work on properties. It further examines strategies for attracting new landlords to property management agencies, emphasizing marketing and agreement terms. The document details the processes involved in property sales, from advertising and showing properties to selecting tenants and completing sales agreements. It also covers the roles and responsibilities of property sales associates, including wage structures, dispute resolution, and professional development through courses like the Diploma in Real Estate Marketing and RERA Compliance Training. Additionally, the assignment delves into the regulatory framework of NSW Fair Trading, emphasizing consumer rights, ethical practices, and the consequences of breaching fiduciary responsibilities. It highlights the importance of agents' ethical conduct, including restrictions on beneficial interests and the need for transparency. Finally, the document addresses the role of specialists in providing expert advice, the significance of property inspections, and the required documentation for property sales, including swimming pool certificates.

Running Head:

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Part B:..............................................................................................................................................3
Answer to question 1:......................................................................................................................3
Answer to question 2:......................................................................................................................4
Answer to question 3:......................................................................................................................4
Answer to question 4:......................................................................................................................5
Answer to question 5:......................................................................................................................6
Answer to question 6:......................................................................................................................7
Answer to question 7:......................................................................................................................8
Answer to question 8:......................................................................................................................9
Answer to question 9:......................................................................................................................9
Answer to question 10:..................................................................................................................10
Answer to question 12:..................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................13

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Part B:
Answer to question 1:
Residential Tenancies Act, 2010 has been followed to answer the questions related to the
tenants’ rights and responsibilities.
The rights and obligations of a tenant are governed by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2010. The
act makes it clear that a tenancy agreement between the tenant and the land lord gives certain
rights to the tenants. In this case since the land lord has not given any notice to the tenant for
carrying out significant work in his property the tenant can prohibit the access of the land lord to
his property (Act 2014).
The rights of the tenants in such situation are as following:
I. Tenants can apply to the NCAT.
II. The application above can be made to find out whether the land lord has violated the
tenancy agreement by not serving notice of carrying out significant work on his
property.
III. Tenants cannot be evicted unlawfully even if the purpose of eviction is to carry out
significant work on the property of the land lord.
It is important to note that the Residential Tenancy Act, 2010 also casts certain obligations on the
part of the tenants and the agency which is representing the land lord in this case can use these
obligations to support the contention of the land lord. It is important to understand that the proper
repair and maintenance must be carried out on the property of the land lord on regular basis to

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keep it safe and in good condition. Thus, the land lord can use this as a possible reason to carry
out significant work on his property (Bently and Sherman 2014).
Answer to question 2:
Attracting new land lords to the property management agency is one of the most successful
methods to increase the property management portfolio. Using attractive marketing strategy will
help the property manager to attract new land lords to the property management agency. Apart
from that offering lucrative terms and conditions of tenancy agreement will further motivate new
land lords to come to the property management agency (Bridge 2015).
An agreement shall be signed between the land lord and the property management agency
immediately after the new land lord has made the approach.
In order to understand the requirements of the land lord it is imperative to conduct a thorough
checking of the requirements of the land lord. These requirements are to be communicated and
preferably documented for future reference (DeFondet al. 2014).
Answer to question 3:
Firstly an agent shall be chosen after taking the decision in relation to the property. Necessary
advertisements shall be published in respect of the property to attract prospective customers to
the property.
The property shall be shown to the prospective buyers and tenants after following the standard
procedure. A particular date and time shall be fixed to show the property to the prospective
buyers and tenants. On such time and date the property shall be shown to the prospective
customers in presence of the land lord.

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Tenancy application is the process by which a prospective tenant makes application to the
property management agency for taking the property on rent. The suitable tenant can be selected
from the applicants after verifying their credentials from the application forms submitted by
them.
Questions to verify the tenant income and employment will be asked to complete the
reference checks.
The tenant needs to pay holding deposit before signing the agreement.
The importance of tenancy agreemen0t is immense as this will guide the rights and
obligations of the tenants as well as the land lord of the property (Frier 2014).
Answer to question 4:
The information in relation to the requirement of documents for completing the sale of
the property will be presented to the clients before starting the procedure to complete the sale
agreement. The information shall be provided in the form of written list to the clients. The list
shall contain all the documents that will be required to complete the sales. It should be noted that
professional standards shall be followed to complete the sale of the property.
The documents that will be required to make the sales are contract and title of the
property.
James and Grace being the owners of the property have the option to sale the property.
The owners can also decline to sale the property and reject the prospective sale agreement. They
can also ask to enhance the sale price if the price currently offered to them is not to their liking
(Hodkinson and Essen 2015). The seller can use the following advertisement:

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 Advertisement;
 Boucher;
 Bill board;
Agent commission, agent advertising costs, auction costs, GST, prepayment fee,
settlement fee, early exit fee are the fees and charges which are to be paid by the owners of the
property before and after the sale.
The ownership document proving beyond doubt that the property belongs to them; in
case the property has been acquired by mortgage loan then the detail of such mortgaged loan
along with necessary documents of loan.
The offer of each prospective purchaser needs to be scrutinize in great detail to check
which offers are most beneficial for the owners of the property. These offers shall accordingly be
sorted to present to the owners of the property (Law 2015). The method of sales that is
suggested is auction. It will help the seller to gain more revenue for the property.
Answer to question 5:
Property sales associate shall receive $694.90 minimum weekly wage for the first six
months which shall stand to increase to $719.20 as minimum weekly wage after the completion
of first six months as property sales associate. In case there is any agreement between the
employer and the employee then the employee in addition to the weekly minimum age be in
receipt of a portion of commission paid to the employer.
In case the employer needs the employee to use his own motor vehicle for the purpose of
employment then necessary reimbursement shall be made to the employee accordingly. For
engine capacity of a motor vehicle of 2.6 liters standing charge of $109.10 per week along with

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$0.15 per kilometer of running and a lump sum payment of $187.91 will have to be made to the
employee for use of his own motor vehicle in the employment.
A proper discussion shall be made with the employer before accepting the employment as to the
entitlements of the employee along with the roles and responsibilities of the employee in the
position of a sales associate.
Firstly, the dispute shall be tried to resolve in the workplace by discussion between the employer
and employees. Later senior management should be informed if the dispute regarding the
payment does not resolve after such discussion. The employees shall report the non-payment of
employee entitlements to the Fair Work Commission at the last instance. Fair Work Commission
might also appoint another person or organization to resolve the dispute and to verify the
working conditions provided to the employees to improve the same.
Diploma in Real Estate Marketing, RERA Compliance Training, and Sales Training are few of
the courses which will help to develop the skills and knowledge of an employee to meet CPD
requirements.
The reasons for choosing the above courses are as following:
I. The Diploma in Real Estate Marketing will help the sales associate to learn the skills
to use effective marketing strategy for selling properties.
II. RERA Compliance Training will help to improve the compliance requirements in
relation to the business of Real Estate. The following website will help us to learn
more about these courses,
http://www.nirem.org/

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Answer to question 6:
NSW fair trading regulates the property industry by safeguarding the rights of all consumers; by
giving business and traders advices on fair and ethical business practices. NSW fair trading has
made it mandatory for business and traders to obtain license for carrying the business and to
comply with the statutory requirements for avoiding cancellation of license and fines.
Fair trading practices introduced by the Government, fair trade practices are to be followed to
ensure that the rights of the clients and customers have been protected. The privacy of the
client’s information is of utmost importance and it is to be maintained by following the standard
guidelines provided in NSW fair trading along with other relevant legislations.
In case of breach of fiduciary and ethical responsibilities there are penalties which are to be
imposed on the party who has committed such breach. The quantum of penalty depends on the
severity of fiduciary and ethical responsibilities. The pecuniary penalty for the breach of
fiduciary responsibility is $20000.
The image of the agency will be negatively influenced in case of any such breach and thus, the
perception about the agency in the eyes of the investors and customers will be tarnished.
Maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the clients’ information is essential to minimize
the risk of breaching clients’ rights to privacy.
Answer to question 7:
Restriction on obtaining a beneficial interests in the property is the main foundation on which the
relationship of agent and principal, i.e. clients in this case is based. An agent should at no cost be
financially interested in any of the transactions with the property of the clients except to the
extent of commission. There should not be any personal gain which should accrue to an agent

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involving the property transactions of his clients. In case any of the family member of the agent
wants to purchase any property from the agency then the agent should detach himself from such
property transaction.
The agent should disclose if he is interested in any transaction before such transaction is
completed to ensure that the parties are aware of any interests that the agent has with the
properties of the clients. In case the clients find out about any personal gain made by the agent at
the expense of the client then the client will have the right to recover such gain from the agent.
Answer to question 8:
The client can ask agent about the different matters pertaining to the specialized areas. It
should be noted that in order to provide specialist advice the agent should obtain advice from the
experts. In order to find out the appropriate specialists it would be important to give due
considerations to the qualified personnel with necessary qualifications in different fields such as
civil engineers, designers, architectures etc. The specialists should be found after appropriate
consideration and search from the relevant website of the appropriate authority. The
documentations that are necessary for the selecting the experts are the names, qualifications of
such personnel, address, communication and contact details, relevant fees should be maintained.
The specialists are required to make necessary investigations and provide the report. It is
important for the agent to keep the documents pertaining to the investigations by the experts that
includes procedure of investigations, result of investigation and the result of the overall
investigation.
The pre purchase property inspection report are a written documents describing the
condition of the property. This reports includes details of damp, cracks, safety hazards and the

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faulty roof. This is carried out before the exchange of the sales contract so that the problems can
be identified. The pre-sale building inspection will be carried out to assess the quality of civil
structure, its condition in the present, whether there is enough safety measures which have been
installed in the building, the water and other facilities in the building all these should be properly
checked (Zhang et al. 2015). The law provides that in case the property has swimming pool then
the following documents should be attached with the sales contract:
 Certificate of compliance;
 Occupation certificate and the evidence that the pools have been registered;
 Noncompliance certificate;
Is should be noted that if the certificate of noncompliance is attached with the contract of
sales that means obligation is transferred to the purchaser. In relation to swimming pools the
depth of the swimming pool along with its breadth shall be given due importance. Also the
quality of water in the pool and provision of water discharge and water refilled in the pool should
be checked.
Answer to question 9:
In this case a successful deal has been negotiated for the sale of the property. The
settlement is a process by which the property is legally transferred from one person to another.
This is conducted by the legal and financial representative of the buyer and the vendors. The
settlement in general takes place within six weeks of the signing of the documents. The exchange
of contracts in relation to house purchase can be termed as the final step which occurs after all
necessary processes have been completed in relation to the proposed sale. The necessary deposits
and banking deposits have to be made by the buyer before the completion of sale. The number of

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business days within which a property buyer can walk off from the buying agreement is referred
to as cooling off period. The cooling off period is generally provided in the agreement of the
contract of sales. The Pre-settlement inspection refers to the process of inspection conducted on
behalf of the seller to verify the ability of the buyer to pay the required amount to acquire the
house. It is conducted so that disputes can be avoided after settlement of the contract of sales.
The vendor is the seller of the property. The vendor’s perspective in the above processes
are just slightly different. The exchange of the contract takes place when both the seller and the
purchaser agrees in making the sales of the property at an agreed price and terms and condition.
The vendor is also allowed to walk away from the contract of sale and the number of business
days within which the vendor shall exercise such option is referred to as the cooling off period.
The cooling of period is provided within the contract. The vendor also requires to maintain
certain percentage of deposit in bank to provide for the guarantee in case of the contract is not
completed due to the faults of the vendor (Sánchez-Olleroet al. 2014). The buyer has the right to
demand a pre settlement inspection report. The report will contain the details of the condition of
the property so that the buyer can make informed choice about purchasing the property.
Answer to question 10:
Part A:
Sione in such case should adopt the compromise negotiation technique to complete the sale of
the property. Since both the buyer and seller wants to buy and sale the property respectively but
the transaction is not going through due to $10000. Both buyers and seller shall be asked to
compromise a portion of $10000 to complete the transaction. This will be beneficial for both the
buyer and the seller as neither will completely gain $10000 nor will completely loss $10000.

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By outlining the attractive qualities of the property Sione should convince the purchaser that it
would be a great buy for his portfolio and he will be beneficial with the acquisition. There are
generally numerous qualities in a property; outlining these again and again will help the agent to
get through with the sale of the property. Thus, Sione should continuously mention the great
qualities of the properties to affect the sale (Li 2014.).
Part B:
Discussion in cool and calm head with Lee is the only way to defuse the situation. Lee should be
asked to come inside the office and should be told to express his problems that he has been
experiencing in detail. The officer should assure him that necessary steps shall be taken to fix the
issues with the property.
Use of gestures along with hand movements are the better way to communicate with Lee under
such circumstances. However, if any interpreter is present in the office then it would be a better
idea to ask Lee to speak in his own language, i.e. the foreign language, and the interpreter to
interpret the same in English.
Answer to question 12:
Jacob and Naomi can certainly terminate the tenancy agreement however they will be continue to
liable for payment of rents till the agreement expires or till the time the land lord begin letting the
property to other tenants, whichever is earlier.
The tenancy agreement shall be ended with mutual agreement by proper negotiation between the
land lord and the tenants so that none of the parties are financially worse than before. Necessary
inspection such as the condition of the let out property, whether there have been any damages to