Every Agent Has a Story: Liana Slipetsky

Our next story comes from Liana Slipetsky, Co-Founder of iAgree, who shares the two key lessons she learned, following a roof replacement job that was completed on the wrong house.

• Attend the site with a landlord before committing to any decisions regarding maintenance.
• Review and inspect every single detail before signing off on a maintenance job (in this scenario, is it house no. 12 or 12a?)

Transcript

Hi, my name is Liana Slipetsky, and I’ve been in real estate for a very long time.

I just found my subagent’s license the other day, 27 years. Most of that time’s been in property management. I’ve run my own business for the last 13 years. Boy, have I seen some things in my time.

One of my very first jobs, and that was in Albert Park in Melbourne, and I worked in an all-female office. It was probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. We had a great team there. We actually had quite a few high-profile landlords then. One of them, she’s a lawyer, and a comedian.

She owned a property, and I remember that the tenants would constantly ring in and complain about the roof leaking. After getting the three obligatory quotes, she decided on one. It was all done, the invoice came in. It was actually quite a lot of money. We sent it onto her, and she paid it.

I remember coming into the office on a rainy Melbourne morning, and the first phone call I took was from these tenants. They said, “Oh, no, the roof is leaking again.” We couldn’t understand how this had happened. The roofer had actually done the wrong roof.

There were two houses side-by-side. They both happened to be rental properties. When the roofer arrived to actually do the job, the tenants in the next door house thought none the wiser. They just thought perhaps their agent hadn’t informed them.

We had to deliver this news to our client, who was not very happy. The funny thing I remember about that is her comment to us, and it was, “Why didn’t you check it?” I remember sitting there with our team thinking, “Well, how are we going to check if the roof was done?” In the end, the roofer had to go back. They had to do the roof on the correct property. The neighbours basically got a free new roof.

If I had to do anything differently, I’m really not quite sure what we could have done. Other than getting a car with roof racks, and maybe a 10-foot ladder and climbing up there and seeing it for ourselves, I’m not sure. I think with maintenance, it’s really important, if there are big jobs, that perhaps you take the landlord along to have a look.

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. I’m just not sure what we could have done. It was just one of those things, and a pretty funny story in the end. I can tell you it was very stressful for all of us for a while.

Two roofs for the price of one. That’s probably about it. The moral of the story.