Compensation VCAT - No heater

ok, another mini/semi/medium rant from me, getting used to getting bent over ,

so for 6 motnhs between feb and Sep, the heater the prop was broken
reported in march,
sent electrician out 5-8 times,
everytime tenant not there, left cards and msgs

finally get through in sep,
get taken to vcat, agent turned up with logs showing dates and times attended, fees incurred for call out fees, gesture of good will done by doing other extra maintenance recently. gave evidence of BOM reports stating winter is not from Feb,

end up losing and ordered to pay 160 days of compensation

agents excuse is (oh its less then what they were seeking)
my reply: "they can seek whatever they want? so if its $10,000 then is it fine?

frankly im ******, other than appeal, what can I do?

 

Why did the tenant need to be there? Couldn't the electrician go in anyway?

 

You need your own subforum for these stories.

 

I'd be appealing on the basis of reasonableness armed with weather details for the period concerned.

 

Sell up and buy some shares!

 

Investigate making a claim against your PM since it looks like they couldn't even do something as basic as giving an electrician a key to the property?

Seriously, did they not just arrange for a key to be given over, and then double down on the stupidity by also suggesting that you could fight it at VCAT?

 

VCAT is disgusting, I'm not surprised this is the result. They can make any decision they want with no justification and no basis in legal precedence.

From here you need to;
1. Investigate whether your Property Manager was negligent.
2. Appeal the case.

 

I think the agent should have just gone in to conduct the repairs with notice. 160 days is quite long, if it was 2-3 weeks - then it wouldn't be an issue.

 

normally in VCAT - they would have to itemised a cost of loss (from those 160 days) which they then bring to claim against which will either be agreed to against or adjusted due to how the other parties argues in terms of waiving or unjust costs.

 

What sort of a heater is this - gas, electric? Did they use some other form of heating (or just freeze?) in that period?
With all the call-outs - were they agreed to by the tenants?
How much $ is "less than they were seeking"?

 

I'm curious how much compensation they got

 

I am not sure of the details - but they need to quantify the lost of heater.

Say for e.g. the heater was down the weather was like 1-2 degrees they had to go to hotel nearest one around the corner for say $180 per night and petrol cost and meals as unable took all adding up to around $250 per night for 3-4 days $1000.

 

No typically compensation for a single issue like a heater would be a fixed amount per week with reference to the total amenity of the tenancy and previous similar cases.

Maybe something like $5 to $50 a week?

 

As you said typically - all I know is I have made a similar claim as a tenant successfully though it was due to a water burst that flooded the property.

 

Compensation claims are calculated differently if its an issue that renders large sections or the whole property unlivable.

The heater issue didn't sound like one of those.

 

What compensation are we talking though ?

The tenant is right, in that they are paying for the place with the heating etc, but they are being unreasonable if they specifically tried to prevent it being fixed and then went to tribunal.

so

You either have a horror PM, or not being told the whole story, or the tenant is a total A

If your PM does not have in writing that they (tenant) do not want anyone to enter the property unless they are present to do this repair, then I think your toast anyway, because they did not prevent the repair.

Also, if not stopped, as soon as they were going to tribunal, why did the PM not get the trade in there to fix ?

As I write this, it seems maybe poor management & if you knew earlier, I would have chased it too..... I had a similar thing, PM could not for the life of them organise quotes and persons to do jobs, I spent about 30 mins over 2 days, and 2 things sorted.

 

I'm actually not blaming the agent on this one.
They did call the tenant to ask if theyre available

I'm just frustrated that I end up having to pay for thid

Admittedly it's partially my responsibility to get it done.

And when you have many properties obviously I have to deal with more problems.
I'm getting used to it and am getting less worked up these days.

Not sure if it's a good thing