Tenants and compensation

I'm currently going through some issues with a tenant of mine. Now to start off there are some complications. He's an approved occupant of the property, not the lease holder. So in other words he's allowed to stay at the property, but not really responsible for anything. On top of that, I was informed recently that the actual lease holder has moved out...

There are three issues that are being discussed at the moment. The tenant has not been happy with the responses we've been giving him, so he's taken it further to the Tenant's Advocacy, for them to go into bat for him. I'll be going through the issues here.

1. The orginal lease holder has been at the property since 2006, so his condition report is 4 years old, but of course still valid. One of the items on the condition report mentions the heater that is in the lounge room, and that it is not in working condition. However the tenant has put in a request for it to be fixed, and the landlord has declined it, which she's well within her right to do, as mentioned it states very clearly that it wasn't working at the commencement of the lease.

The tenant only moved into the property with the lease holder maybe 6 months ago, so he wasn't aware that the heater didn't work. The loss of the property's heating is classified as an urgent repair, and should be fixed within 48 hours. This of course hasn't happened, which is why Tenant's Advocacy are more then happy to get involved.

2. Back at Christmas time the tenant reported to our office that the oven wasn't working. We sent an electrician around to have a look at it. He did so and sent in an invoice that read "Oven and grill doors needed adjusting, current oven racks are not the original, have supplied some more second hand racks to help out. Due to the age of the unit it could do with replacing." However the oven was still working.

The tenant came back in after Christmas and reported that the oven was still not working. We sent the electrician back out, and he reported that it was still working, the tenant was still having problems with the racks. So we had the oven replaced.

The breakdown of cooking appliances is also considered an urgent repair, so needs to be fixed within 48 hours, however as the oven was still working this did not apply. The tenant of course felt differently.

3. A tap was reported as dripping, so we sent a tradesman out to fix it. A few months later the tenant reported the tap as dripping again, so we sent another tradesman out to fix it. As far as we were aware between these two times the tap was not leaking. He currently owes over $200.00 in outstanding water usage, and is after compensation of $100.00 of that usage due to the dripping tap because he is now claiming that the tap was never fixed. I have explained to him that unless we know about it there's nothing we can do about it.

I convinced the landlord to offer the tenant $20.00 in the way of compensation for the dripping tap. $20.00 equals approximately 18,000L of water, which personally I believe would not have been wasted in the time that the tap was dripping.

While the matter has not been settled, and I have no real way of knowing what the outcome will be, I am confident that the tenant is just uneducated on what is and isn't legislation. He never had the chance to sit down with me and go through the lease, to understand everything that was required of himself and the landlord. I am hopeful that once this settles he will be a better informed tenant.

I'm explaining all of this for both landlords and tenants out there, please be sure you know where you stand with everything. If you do genuinely feel put out by something that is or isn't happening please contact an advisory service. It can only help.