Wear and tear is part of everyday life living in property. With that sometimes comes damage and hopefully repair.
For those renting property, you are at the mercy of your landlord to have repairs made in most cases so what can you do if they refuse? Does that make them a bad landlord?
While the rules and advice differ slightly from state to state, there are some common guidelines you can follow to help ensure you get your home back to its former state as soon as possible.
Urgent vs. non-urgent repairs
First off it’s important to be able to differentiate between what is classed as an urgent and a non-urgent repair so you know that your expectations are reasonable. This will also help you understand what you’re entitled to when it comes to tenant compensation for inconvenience.
Urgent repairs
These include any damage that makes the home unsafe or insecure, a lack of gas, electricity or water supply, breakdown or failure to any essential service for hot water, cooking, heating, cooling or laundering, and serious damage from a natural disaster.
How long landlords have to fix issues is escalated in cases of urgent repairs.
Mould is also an urgent repair as it can be toxic. The landlord is usually responsible for mould.
Non-urgent repairs
These are less well defined but you can loosely categorise these as anything that falls outside of the defined urgent repairs.
Who is responsible?
It’s important to note that the landlord is not required to make repairs for any damage that you or your guests caused.
If you break a window for example, it’s up to you to fix it.
Your landlord is required to maintain the property in reasonable repair, even if you were told about the area of disrepair before you moved in, this should be fixed.
Urgent repairs that have not been caused by the tenant are of course the landlord’s responsibility.
Put it in writing
This is your number one tip.
Sometimes a conversation seems faster and easier, especially when it comes to urgent repairs and trying to explain the actual problem in writing can be difficult, but ensure that you follow conversations up with a letter.
This gives you a record of the conversation as evidence that you notified the agent or landlord of the issue and when you did it.
Be sure to save and document any phone calls, text messages, emails and letters in case you need to use them as evidence down the track.
Another handy tip is to include photos of the damage.
You may find that this helps show the extent of the damage, helps give the landlord a clearer picture of what sort of costs may be involved and could help get the issue resolved faster.
If the landlord won’t make repairs
It’s important that you keep paying your rent.
Yes, you’ll be tempted to self-compensate for your troubles but resist.
Any ‘rent strike’ can result in a breach of your tenancy agreement and the landlord may be able to use this to end your tenancy.
Of course, depending upon the issue, you may be okay with this!
Skipping rent payments is never a good option though and can impact upon your ability to secure a rental property in future so steer clear of this tempting option.
You can get the repairs done yourself if they are urgent and you are unable to get in contact with your landlord/agent.
Follow these tips to help ensure you can recoup any costs:
- Don’t spend too much or you may not recoup what you spent. Your landlord is only required to pay for any reasonable costs so watch the dollars here. This ‘reasonable cost’ figure changes by state so be sure you are aware of your limit before approving any work to start.
- Get multiple quotes for the work – this helps to prove that your costs were in fact reasonable.
- Be able to demonstrate the following:
- The problem wasn’t your fault
- You made a reasonable attempt to make contact with the agent or landlord
- You gave the landlord/agent a reasonable chance to get the repairs done
- The repairs were carried out by a repair person named in your tenancy agreement (where possible) or at the very least by a licensed trades person.
Be careful not to undertake any non-urgent repairs yourself without the landlord’s consent.
If you do happen to get their consent, be sure it’s in writing and includes their agreement to pay for the work completed.
If the landlord won’t reimburse you or you can’t afford to do the repairs yourself
This is where things get a little more difficult.
There may be slight differences between states on the amount of time a landlord is given to reimburse you but it’s usually around 14 days from the date they receive the notice asking them to pay you back.
If this time comes and goes without reimbursement or you couldn’t afford to get the repairs done yourself, the next step can differ slightly from state to state but will generally follow these basic steps:
Put in a request to your state consumer affairs body
They can create a report about the repairs/ reimbursement needed and will send this to the landlord or agent.
Get the landlord to take action
Should that report fail to get some action on the repairs or payment for your out of pocket repair costs, you can apply (in most states) to the tribunal to try to force the landlord to take action on the repairs/ payment.
Take note of the time
Of course there are time limits between the report being received and allowable time to action these before you can apply to the tribunal so take the time to research your local state’s laws in this area.
This not only assures you won’t inadvertently miss your window of opportunity should the landlord take no action on the first report but will also give you guidelines as to what to expect from the landlord/agent.
Unfortunately there is very little that can be done after this should the landlord continue to refuse payment or make repairs.
Under certain circumstances the next best step would be to claim compensation however legal advice should be undertaken to ensure that this would be a viable option in your specific circumstances.
The consumer affairs body in your local state will be able to advise you of the best options for your circumstances and who to contact should you get to this stage.
