amounts owed can be rounded up or down,
which has led to a dispute between a landlord and a tenant, who started to deliberately underpay the $1,200 rent by 1 cent each week,
the tenant claimed that they “applied the rules” they had found on the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) website regarding the
rounding of transactions, for
example, 1 and 2 cents are rounded down to the nearest 10, 3 and 4 cents are
rounded up to the nearest five, 6 and 7 cents are rounded down to the nearest
five and 8 and 9 cents are rounded up to the nearest 10, the landlord commented, “The
property is a three bedder that my family used to reside in but that we’ve
rented out for the last four years,” the landlord wrote on Facebook. I rent
direct to him and there have been no major issues in the past. We are three
months into a 12-month lease. He has started to deliberately underpay rent by 1
cent each week. I know it is deliberate because he used to pay the full amount.
I let it slide for the first few time, but my wife suggested I send him an
email asking if he could correct it,”
in response the tenant replied siting a ACCC website, “This clearly states that the amount is rounded to the $1200
due and as such I consider the rent to be paid on time and in full. I request
that you do not contact me about this again,” the tenant wrote in his reply to the landlord’s email,
proceeding to ask the homeowner for some repairs, it is I guess petty to fall out over just a cent a month, but I have to say if I were a landlord I would certainly strike this tenant from my list to let too! as it happens it appears the renter misconstrued the
ACCC “rules” they linked to in the email, the website very clearly states that
the rules around rounding when dealing with small change only applies to cash
transactions, the advice the tenant linked to also goes on to state that
payment through cheque, credit card or EFTPOS meant it was unnecessary to round
the total value of the transaction.
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