Has your rent ever been reduced because something isnt working?

[AliBaby]

We pay $520 a week rent. Air con was one of the things we had a must when securing a rental.

Well our air con is broken. Broke before Christmas. I am still waiting for it to be fixed. This has been ongoing since before Christmas. A guy came out before Christmas and couldn't find the problem. Then the real estate closed the next day for 2 weeks. Contacted them when they re-opened that the problem hadn't been fixed. Had a guy come out last Friday, he said it needs to be re-gased and that it should have been detected the first time that they came out. I asked when he would be back to do it and he said he would have to contact the real estate about it before going ahead and fixing it.

I rang the real estate and asked when it would be done. I was told that it is less than 2 years old so they were trying to contact the supplier/installer to see if it was covered under warranty and they will get back to me as soon as possible. They also said its a busy time of year for air conditioning companies so yeah that might be a delay as well. I don't want the landlords to be in debt if they can get something covered under warranty but.......

here we are in a heat wave with no air con!!!!!! I have bought 5 pedastool fans, one for each bedroom and living space for it to circulate the hot air to at least give a bit of relief. I have not been able to keep the kids or myself in the house the last 4 days and have been hiding out at the shops and at friends places. Our house is westerly facing so the heat is unbearable.

Are we entitled to any rent reduction or has anyone had any experience with a similar situation? Any advice appreciated.



On

[e_p]

not personal experience but a friend of mine got a rent reduction under similar circumstances to you except it was broken heating over winter. She ended up having to take her landlord to VCAT to get it - I'm not sure what the process was before that. Good luck!

[Peace]

Unfortunately you have to continue to pay the full amount of rent. Keep hassling at the agency daily by phone and email if you can. It's pretty much all you can do at this point. Let them know how annoyed you are too. At $520 a week the landlord should be able to repair the air con! It takes one phone call to find out if it's covered under warranty and arrange a repair. You can always ask for a rent reduction until it's repaired and see how you go..

I feel for you this heat is hideous.

[squeezles]

We were landlords last year when this happened to our tenants. Unfortunately over the Xmas/New Year period it IS hard to get someone in to fix things (we tried and our land agent tried). It doesn't help you much I know! That said the middle of January is enough time for things to have been sorted. I'd be hassling your landagent. It may be that they are dropping the ball and not passing messages to your landlord or have forgotton to chase it up with the relevant repair people. If you hassle enough you will get action.

[BlackCat]

We have a similar problem only rent privately. I hope you get it sorted.

[~*familyof3*~]

I have had that once,but I rented through foundation housing at the time. And it was brand new. In the end myself and my neighbour (she had the same issue and rented through the same place) had to do all the foot work. Foundation housing sent us a copy of the ownership of the units and we sent them to the aircon guy who then did it through warranty. Hope they fix it soon for you.

[Lisa]

Yes. We were reimbursed some rent due to having no air conditioning for a month. We requested a reimbursement due to the fact that our rental agreement stated we were renting a fully airconditioned house. We were reimbursed one weeks rent.

[black_rose]

We had our rent reduced when renting through Vic roads. They signed the condition report as working but once we were moved in there was any it had been pulled out! So they reduced the rent by $5 a week for us. They didn't want to replace it as it was being pulled down for Eastlink.

[Jaycee]

What state are you in? I would definitely be calling your tenancies advice hotline, surely you should be entitled to a reduction for such a long period without a/c?

I'd also be calling daily.