Air con unit in Adelaide: advice needed

I have a property in SA and my real estate agent has told me something and just wanting to confirm.

My preperty has existing tenants for a few years.
Aircon unit stopped working a while ago and was told by the agent I'd need to replace the entire unit.

I said I didnt want to do that and the tenants just recently signed a new lease agreement whilst the aircon unit was not functional.

She's saying now that it 'has to be fixed by law' as it was working when they first moved in.
I said, but it wasn't working when they signed the contract.

I'm am happy to sort it out but the agent is pressuring me now that I have to do it!

Any advice please.

Cheers

Scott

 

Hi Scott,

You'll find that they rented the place on the basis there was one present. Renewing doesn't count.

Tribunal has/can award a daily compensation for this kind of thing. I saw $5 a day recently for a dishwasher scenario.

 

@Scotty3 if it the AC dead - it's dead, you probably best get a quote from a sparky or AC person to replace it (and also ask them if they re-service it and is possible to revive the AC)

Understand that depending how old the AC is it may require new piping which could be more $$ as any new installations requires the unit to run using R410A pipes as oppose to R22 which are different in diameter sizes. Also is the AC back to back with the condenser as in just against the wall or is it a distance from the condenser (which would mean cutting plaster, replaster painting cost). This will affect the price.Also how many kw? is it 2.5, 5, or 7kw? as higher kw more $$ obviously.

 

Thanks Dan! That's what I was after.
I was more a little frustrated that they chose to inform me of this after renewing lease

 

Still have to replace it at some point. House has to have aircon, even small split in lounge or something to keep em happy

 

SA tenancies act states that the landlord MUST conduct all necessary repairs and maintenance. Tenants can claim compensation for work not being done and they WILL get it so sorry Scott there is no way you can get out of it. The lease renewal is irrelevant to this case.

We've sent over 10 work orders for air conditioners in our office a few days ago when the weather was hot for the first time in the season, seems that all our tenants turned their air conditioners on at the same time and our office was flooded with repair requests.

Most split systems are not worth fixing unless they are under warrantee as repair costs can be as much as replacement costs. Always a good idea to purchase ones with a 5 year warrantee.

 

Can I ad; under SA legislation, it needs to be replaced with similar sized unit as what was existing, or a better one. Replacing with a smaller one will enable tenants to claim compensation.

I had to have a talk with one of my landlords recently who wanted to buy the tenant a fan to compensate for an air conditioner she did not want to repair.. um ... no!

If you don't want to replace it, remove it completely before the next tenants (not the same ones on a lease renewal), patch up the wall and rent the property as one with no air conditioning - it will be more difficult to rent but landlords are not legally obliged to provide something that was not pre-existing.