“It’s so nice to know that those who hold their tenants in contempt can in turn be held in contempt.” Columnist HUGH SELBY takes up the story of little Dion and his gran and their shabby treatment by Housing ACT. But not for much longer…
The ACT public service has put together useful information on being a tenant.
You can see it here. It explains that the tenants of Housing ACT (the body responsible for helping those who don’t have a half mill to hand or the capacity to borrow it, to have a roof over their heads) are bound by the same rules as all those others who don’t have the capacity to buy, but are ineligible for public housing, and so scramble to find something in the private rental market, such as it is, which isn’t great.
Tenants of Housing ACT, says the advice, must “tell your housing manager about any damage that happens”, and, “look after the home and keep it in good condition”.
The web advice also has an easily accessible online “Rental Book”. This is comprehensive, easy to read and quite straightforward. It includes information about repairs, which is the focus of this article.
For example, the official guidance from our government is that: “Landlords (which includes Housing ACT) must complete urgent repairs as soon as practicable”.
The standard terms of a tenancy agreement ( from which the useful information was sourced) are to be found in the Residential Tenancies Act Schedule 1.
It was interesting to find that the words in the schedule are not “as soon as practicable” but are, “as soon as necessary, having regard to the nature of the problem”.
We learn that the following, among a longer list, are urgent repairs: a broken toilet, a serious roof leak, a dangerous electrical fault, any fault of damage that makes the property unsafe or insecure, or is likely to cause injury to person or property.
Little Dion wants Uncle Andrew and Aunt Yvette to look at his place
CityNews readers will recall little Dion’s broken toilet and cistern, at least four leak points in the roof, a light that fills with water, the mould in the walls, the non-opening window, the druggie syringes in the garden and the rusted metal outside – well, all of them are “urgent repairs”.
Landlords (which includes Housing ACT) must complete non-urgent repairs within four weeks.
If the non-urgent has a limit of four weeks, then “urgent repairs” must be done rather quicker than that. It follows that “as soon as practicable” or “as soon as necessary” are not permission to do nothing for many months. It is an instruction to do the repairs in rather less than four weeks.
How then can it be that months have gone by and these urgent repairs are not done?
Dion’s gran pays the rent on time. She has made a front garden out of a mess – but he still can’t play outside because it’s not safe.
Is it that there is one law for those who run Housing ACT and another for those who live in their housing stock?
I looked for some legislative provision that requires Housing ACT to do repairs. I found that ACAT (our local tribunal) can make an order requiring performance of the tenancy agreement.
But, so what? There are penalties for Housing ACT failing to comply, but those penalties don’t call anyone to account. They are, with respect to Housing ACT, useless.
All of which explained why nobody is fixing Dion’s home and garden.
One enforceable law for them, Housing ACT, to use against tenants, and another “look good, but useless” law for their tenants to use against Housing ACT.
Where there’s a will there’s a way: often the result of rummaging around on the internet. Lo and behold there was a NSW tenant who tenaciously pursued NSW Public Housing for years and years in the NSW Tribunal.
The article reports that Public Housing ignored Tribunal orders to do repairs. That was until the Tribunal said that it could refer the matter to the NSW Supreme Court to consider whether Public Housing was in contempt of the Tribunal.
The article sets out the reasons of the Tribunal: very interesting and persuasive.
That led to the head of the NSW Department apologising to the Tribunal, and to the long awaited repairs being done. That Department then went further, bringing in new procedures to stop this kind of “do nothing” response.
Dion’s gran has been getting some help from lawyers to prepare a case against Housing ACT in ACAT.
I doubted whether it would improve their home until I came across the NSW decision.
That really improves the odds of little Dion being able to open his bedroom window, flush the toilet without an umbrella, not see any mould, and play outside by this coming spring.
It’s so nice to know that those who hold their tenants in contempt can in turn be held in contempt. That might lead to one or two of them exchanging their plush offices for some space in the AMC. Brings a smile doesn’t it?
Is it too much to ask ACT Housing keep tenants safe and dry?
Former barrister Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.
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