Very Green, would it be worth trying mediation - usually offered at no cost to either party via your local Justice Department? There is a very high success rate when both parties are prepared to attend, but attendance is voluntary.
If you contact your local Dispute Resolution Service with a description of the problem, they will follow through from there. Best of luck. It's a horrible situation.
Hi Julia!
Thanks for dropping in with that good bit of advice. Its funny you should mention that becaue I offered to enter mediation with the tenant and the housing department at a neutral place (their office I sugested). It was almost a week with out a reply and I sent them a follow up email saying that my tenant will be vacating on Saturday and where does this leave me? I also highlighted the fact that I had not heard back from them regarding mediation.
I just got home from work and recieved and had an email in my inbox.
"Please accept my apologies in relation to the delay in response, I have been looking into your request for mediation. Mediation has been offered to the tenants of ** ***** Rd, and ** ******* Rd ************. However the tenant is under no obligation to accept, all parties including your tenants will have to be in agreement. Once the tenants at the above address have advised the Department of their decision to participate or not the Department will advise you and provide updated information. "
I replied to the lady I have been speaking to, informing her that I will offer mediation to my tenant as well but I am pretty sure the responce will be an emphatic NO. She has already made the decision not to resign the lease and will be out by Saturday lunch. I also included a query relating to Klogg's suggestion. I asked if she knew if there was any application process to lease my property to the housing department or the immergration department.
As I have been doing with every email I send or respond to, I CC'ed in the minister for housing. Not that he has had anything to say about it, but at least its a record of complaints incase I need them in the future.
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It has also been pointed out to me via a private message that I may have come across as a little defensive with regards to my post about being Aboriginal and the things I have been trying to acheive in life etc. By no means did I mean it to sound that way. I was just sensing the opening for some cheap comical gags regarding housing department tenants and was just trying to politely make it known to everyone that I am infact Aboriginal and just like any other race on the planet we have those that swim with the current and those that swim against it. My apologies if it sounded like I was insinuating racial prejudice via my comments. It was actually just me rambling on, and on, and on.. and we ended up at my passion which is control systems.
I just want to thank everyone for their kind words of wisdom and support while I work my way through this issue and I will definately keep you all posted on the outcome. With any luck someone in my same position will surf past oneday when this thread is dead and burried and the advice given may help them come to a solution.
Cheers!
***Edit*** I don't know if I mentioned... The situation is the house next door which is a corner block. The house behind that one is also occupied by housing department tenants. Two different families that get on so famously they kicked over the dividing fence so they could just wonder between houses That is why there are two addresses mentioned in the email from the housing department.