An Australian woman was awarded $1,500 in damages after a real estate agent came into her home while she was sleeping.
According to News.com.au, the woman and her husband had leased the Canberra unit for the last five years. The agent arrived for a scheduled inspection, but the woman was asleep in her bedroom with her two-year-old son.
In a hearing conducted by the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the agent claimed that he knocked several times at the front door before letting himself with a master key. However, surveillance video showed the agent simply let himself in without alerting the tenant.
During the tribunal hearing, the woman said she was “terrified” because she “heard a person in the apartment.” The woman said she hid under her bedsheets because she was not wearing her Islamic headscarf.
After encountering the woman in her bedroom, the agent continued the inspection of the apartment before returning to the bedroom to take photographs. The agent explained to the tribunal that he “had a job to do,” adding he had “seen much stranger things than a person in bed in my inspections.” After the incident, the woman and her husband broke their lease and moved out.
The tribunal ruled the agent’s actions was trespassing and faulted him for unprofessional behavior to the tenant.
“In this tribunal’s view, a woman fearful of someone who has entered her home, embarrassed by her lack of modesty as she repeatedly testified, and in a vulnerable position hiding as she was under sheets, is not in a fair position to conduct such a conversation with a large male, stranger to her, standing unexpectedly in her room,” said the tribunal in its judgment.
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I’m a realtor in the United States and this has happened to me several times with an appointment to sell new that I was coming to the property with clients doing a showing because I had asked them to put the pet away. Walked in we’d been there for 20 minutes downstairs we go upstairs in the house and find that the seller is in bed in a compromising position. We just quietly exited I did later speak with the seller and say that they were warned that we would be showing at that time and every time I ever visit any property I knock several times since a realtor even if it is my own listing
I also knock, even if the unit is purportedly vacant. Once, during a showing- my buyer , the listing broker and I entered a bedroom during an official appointment- to find a young adult male on his bed, naked, but for the guitar he vwas playing…fortunately, my client was an adult make, who just laughed.
In addition to knocking and or ringing the doorbell, I always do a loud “hello” the minute I’m inside a dwelling. Helps you tremendously to avoid these situations. I do it even if it’s marked vacant. You never know if someone may be inside doing work or something else.