Last August we reported on a tenant who was taking HNSW to the CTTT for their failure to deal appropriately with her anti-social neighbour.
We are pleased to announce that SHE WON !!!
It took 7 months to go through 3 court hearings - the only defence offered by Housing was a handful of fabricated incident reports with incorrect dates and fictitious events. With over 100 pages of evidence against the noisy neighbour, none of which had been acted upon in two years, Housing's position was indefensible.
The tenant reports that it was a long, hard process; emotionally draining but very worthwhile.
"Although you are not allowed to have lawyers at CTTT, Housing still sent along a legally trained representative who did his best to intimidate, badger and bully me. Even so, I do believe I got a very fair hearing; the Tribunal Member read all the papers and asked all the right questions. In the end the evidence spoke for itself."
The tenant was awarded a refund of part of her rent for the two years that she was subjected to unreasonable noise and anti-social behaviour shattering her right to quiet enjoyment of her property.
"It was never about the money" says the tenant, "I just needed to send a very clear message to HNSW that they can't treat us like this - and a clear message to the Ferals; your behaviour is NOT acceptable."
"I would like to encourage every tenant, in every state, to put their Dept of Housing on notice - we are NOT going to take this anymore."
UPDATE April 2011: The rental refund awarded from the CTTT was delivered to the tenant concerned and promptly forwarded to other non-profit, underfunded Tenant Support Services and Networks as acknowledgement of the wonderful unpaid work they do to assist tenants in need.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tenant SUES Housing NSW - and WINS!!!
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LOVE IT, GOD BLESS YOU, I AM HAPPY FOR YOU,YOU HAVE JUST MADE MY DAY! WILL TELL EVERYONE WHO WILL LISTEN.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:This is encouraging but the dept is still failing to do its job!I have been in my property and have never had an inspection!!I live near drug dealers and the dept are aware of this but still they contnue their drug trade while the rest of us suffer from the ferals entering the area to buy their drug. the ferals give all of us living in social housing, a bad name and we are therefore judged by the community for their actions. I had a police officer tell me once.... people in dept of housing are SCUM!!!!! Kick the ferals out. Let them live in the outback suburbs where there is nothing. Let us good tenants occupy the homes.
DeleteThis is the best thing I have EVER heard in regards to the Department of Housing. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling in all of the other situations with "anti-social" neighbours and all of the good, law abiding tenants who have to put up with them. I just want to say a great big Thank You to this lady who took on the DOH and won, you have given me some hope. God bless you!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hanging in there for months. Now more of us need to do it.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your great outcome!!
ReplyDeleteWish there were more people who had the time and energy, to make the DoH accountable for the way in which they treat decent tenants.I'm fed-up with them rewarding bad behaviour. The majority of us are decent living people and deserve to live in a safe place. Thank you.
Congratulations on having the courage to stand up to not only DOH but the revolting neighbours. It certainly is time DOH came to realise that good tenants are better to have than certain others.
ReplyDeleteBravo!! I myself have had more than my fair share of problems dealing with doh, If you let them they will walk all over you! - enough is enough
ReplyDeleteWell done and Congratulations on representing many of us. I hope your recovery of health is swift and you can now enjoy living peacefully. You are an inspiration for all of us who have been and are treated poorly by some of the Housing NSW employees :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations May you now be able to live in peace and harmony. And to everyone else this shows what we can AND should do, just because we are housing tenants does not mean that we have given up our rights. This lady has inspired me into finally standing up to housing and asking for my rights. I have had 9 years of anti social neighbors and its time to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH.
ReplyDeleteAgain congratulations to this wonderful lady and THANK YOU
VERY VERY proud of your determination and courage;you give us all hope..thankyou for being a great example for all of us DECENT tenants!!Hope DOH now realizes that they have a responsibilty towards us tenants and start taking complaints more seriously;after all it is part of their job and what they are getting PAID for! Once again THANKS
ReplyDeleteWell done......a HUGE thank you for doing this, you have made all the good tenants feel that at long last there is hope and justice.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been so emotionally draining for you, but worth it in the long run. May you long continue to now live in peace.
Thank you again for being so courageous.
shocker how the dept of human services cares nothing for complaints, they are swift to serve up policy that suits office only.
ReplyDeleteI have been in and out of court with an extremely anti-social neighbor for the last 3 years!!! he has freelegal(gay activist group arranged) as he is openly gay, So I had 2 get a lawyer and am now thousands in debt.Even though i won my case he continued 2 harrass for the next12mths b/4 police moved on the continuous breaches!!! they lost on a 'technicality' and now he has escalated 2 a ridiculous degree. I am in a situation were my only choice 4 peace is 2 leave my housing!!!!! Housing Dept. did nothing!!!!!I'd love the name of her advisor as she obviously didn't have a lawyer!!
ReplyDeletewell done! I had a bad neighbour that verbally harassed me, vandalised my car and made my life of misery and no matter how many complaints I made It made no different it was her word against mine...I even applied for mediation to sort it out, but when it came to it she said no, and that was it cased closed!!and yep she used her race and got out of everything! I called the police, and I was told I needed to get video surveillance to get proof!
ReplyDeletethis story has given me the inspiration to take action and take housing nsw to court. I lived in a complex of 12, and i know of 5 tenants putting in for a transfer on the grounds that we had a middle eastern gang living at the complex, dealing drugs, violence, abuse, they were using intimadating tactics to other tenants, my family were assaulted by these criminals, police were constantly raiding the premises... housing had hundreds of complaints, but they couldnt evict. we all lived in fear. I was on a 2 year priority transfer, i could not live in fear anymore so i packed my stuff, grabbed my kids and moved interstate. at present time i dont have my own place, i share a room with my 4 kids. Apparently these criminals still live there and no other tenants were transferred, they are still all living in fear for their lives. it was a living nightmare living in the ghettos of greenacre...
ReplyDeletei am going through a nightmare at present at housing are not helping at all, i feel like i am beating my head against a brick wall
ReplyDeletespiff
my neighbour has rang the police over nothing got an event number and now says she is taking out an AVO. What for. I aksed the police about how people can be charge for making false claims, and he said oh they can but we must take every claim seriously. We have done nothing wrong. This woman is going to tribunal, and is making up stories.
ReplyDeletespiff
I had a mentally ill next door neigbour screaming on her balcony about me for the last 18 months. She has a fixation about me, that I have installations in her house, out to get her and her family, paranoia, hearing my voice 24/7 in her head mocking her and thought control. For the last 6 months I have been calling the police, last incident one week ago, especially after her death threats that resulted in an AVO which meant nothing as she's sick right? finally mental health services got involved after I begged them that I can't live next to this madness. Yesterday I found out the quiet of the last 5 days was due to her being committed in a mental hospital for treatment/schizophrenia. I dread of the day this neighbour coming back as I have heard from her previous neighbours that when she comes back things will get worse. Still housing wont transfer me stating 2 year minimum wait, even though I am on priority list for unsafe house. My family will never be the same people we were once. Mutual swap - no body intrested.. tried everywhere... Any advice as to what I should do??
ReplyDeletereading these stories makes me feel blessed that I live in a small complex of 14 2 b/room units in a lovely town in the northern rivers. We have had one nightmare neighbour in 20 years and luckly for us she had more and more children and was rewarded with a large house far away from us. I was the only one here that ever tried to do anything about her, every one else was too scared and the DHS process is in favour of the scumbag, not the decent tennant. All I can say is write letters to everyone you can think off, local member, Minister of DHS, local paper, any minister with anything to do with health,housing,children. Be as annoying and noisy as you can and ask questions in your letter because they have to reply to questions. They can ignore a rant but not a question, they have to answer and if they don't write again.
ReplyDeleteI have reported my noisy swearing neighbours on numerous occassions, I have been told I can't transfer from here without proof, they want me to call the police, and get records of it, the police have enough to do, without coming here every day to my house, and it would make it worse if the neighbours get the chat by police all the time, I already get called a f en dog now because one of my neighbours stole from me, and I contacted police, she stole to support her drug habit, my power tools worth around $500, I could not have her charged as the people she went to would not make a statement to police, as they were selling drugs, I have contacted my local member and they are trying to help me, but my lady in my area office doesn't care, she just says to call the police, OMG Sue
ReplyDeleteGreat news there is a light at the end of the tunnel after all. I have been putting up with dangerous neighbors, death threats, threats of rape all reported to the Police for years. Of course DOH dose not a thing, I am taking one to court for AVO next week, it seems that it will never end. All the drug deals have so many rights, I just feel like a speck in the ocean, but I am just holding in.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear some one had a win.
Gee a lot of story's the same, i have got drug dealers ex junkies dogs barking shouting etc, just goes on and on, the doh just tell me (You choose to live in government housing)Look at the results here one good outcome ( no mention of what happened to the bad tenants). Getting to be similar to USA ghettos.
ReplyDeleteIt would of use to your readers if you published the link to the CTT judgment so that people (I) may see the reasons why the Tribunal made its decision.
ReplyDeleteI have a similar situation and need to be sure of the law before I proceed with any application.
John
John, please email admin@ourhouseswap.com.au
DeleteYou should be aware that the recent decision of teh CTTT held that the Department of Housing was not liable to a tenent where a neighbour caused the noise
ReplyDelete"It is the view of the Tribunal that the Act does not contemplate that a respondent (Department of Housing) has an obligation to provide quiet enjoyment of the area surrounding the premises, or any obligation or to control the behaviour of other tenants with whom it has residential tenancy agreements, even if it were possible to control such behaviour."
Doyle v Department of Housing NSW (Social Housing) [2011] NSWCTTT 320 (20 July 2011)
John .
Doyle vs DoH was lodged BEFORE the new Act so the decision was made under the OLD Tenancy Act 1987.
DeleteThe new act states:
Residential Tenancies Act 2010 - Sect 50
(3) A landlord or landlord's agent must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the landlord's other neighbouring tenants do not interfere with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of the tenant in using the residential premises.
Congrats to the lady that took doh to the tribunal and won.I told my cso i will be taking them to the cttt,and she said I don't have a leg to stand on.I have been beaten 2x,constantly harassed,have no peace,being called a f....ng wog etc..I had to love with all this crap for the past 10 years or more..Wrote a letter to the minister,frank terrezini,he took his time in answering me after 6 months or so.Then i got a letter from one of his staff saying that doh is taking my matter seriously and as soon as there is a vacant 2 bedroon place they will let me know..I have been on priority since 2008.A young woman from my complex had 4 transfers in 4 years...WHY,HOW??? simply..she has someone in the office helping her...Fair!!?? Taking this matter as far as it needs to go...We should all get together,form a group and take it to the cttt...
ReplyDelete