A tenant who was given just hours to vacate his home after complaining for years that the property was ‘sinking’ has won $5,000 after taking the case to court.
Malcolm, who did not want to use his real name, had lived in the rental house in Moreton Bay, north of Brisbane, for seven years.
However, in 2019, he noticed that the tub in the house seemed to be sinking and sent Ray White Woody Point’s real estate agent an email with photos of the buckling internal timbers and rotting wood.
The home continued to pass property inspections until June 4 of this year, when the home was deemed “unlivable.”
Malcolm was served an eviction notice the next day and given just 16 hours to leave the house.
He decided to take his agent to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) for not meeting minimum housing standards. The ABC reported.
The minimum housing standards, which were introduced last September – just a month before the tenant signed a new lease on the home – require officers to ensure a property is in good condition, weatherproof and structurally sound.
Comments filed in state civil court described the house as being propped up with bricks and rocks in places where stumps had rotted away.
Malcolm was given 16 hours to vacate his rental property in Moreton Bay, north of Brisbane, after complaining for years that the property was ‘sinking’.
Tribunal judge Peter Eardley found at the end of last month that the ‘structural integrity’ of the house had ‘substantial problems’ and that the officer had denied responsibility.
Within weeks of the eviction notice, the agent put the property up for sale, describing it as “some TLC (or a bulldozer).”
Mr Eardley said the estate agent chose to sell the property rather than carry out basic repairs to make the house habitable.
“It is clear that the landlord had no intention of doing anything to bring the property into a condition where it could be habitable to a tenant,” Mr Eardley said.
Ray White Woody Point representative Jeffrey Brown told the tribunal he had looked after the property for ‘many, many years’ and it was only in June that he noticed a problem with the property.
Mr Brown explained that during an inspection in May or June he noticed that Malcolm had propped up screwdrivers and wrenches under the house stumps.
The officer asked the carpenter – who had inspected and cleared the property six months earlier – to review the structural integrity of the house.
The carpenter assessed the stumps and said, ‘Hey, that’s not safe,'” Mr Brown told the Tribunal.
Mr Brown submitted a five-paragraph carpenter statement to the tribunal explaining that the house met minimum standards until the June 4 inspection.
The carpenter wrote that the bathroom and shower had always been ‘usable’, despite numerous emails from Malcolm claiming they were ‘sinking’.
Mr Eardley told Mr Brown he ‘couldn’t be serious’ after he challenged the timeline he presented to the tribunal.
Tribunal judge Peter Eardley found at the end of last month that the ‘structural integrity’ of the house had ‘substantial problems’ and that the agent had denied responsibility
He claimed the stumps had been in a state of disarray for much longer than June 4, after examining photographs showing one tree stump propped up with six stones and another with bricks.
“This state of affairs does not appear to me to be in any way a true reflection of the landlord’s knowledge of the condition of this property,” Mr Early said in his decision.
Malcolm requested $17,359.50 in compensation to cover his moving costs, lost income and back rent through last September.
Mr. Early awarded the tenant $5,000 and explained that his enjoyment of the property was “detrimental” because the agent refused to fix the property’s problems.
However, he rejected several of Malcolm’s claims, including that the state of the house had affected his cats.
The property sold for $590,000 within weeks of going on the market, but has since been demolished.