Housing NSW's 'eRepair'

Getting Housing NSW to do repairs is hugely frustrating for many public housing tenants and their advocates.

So will this new initiative of Housing NSW improve things? It's eRepair, an online service where you can do your duty as a tenant (per s 51(2)(b) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010) and inform Housing NSW of the need to repair damage and defects at your premises.

Well, maybe not. Your correspondent has just had a quick go, and of two pretty randomly formulated repair requests, twice wound up in a dead-end.

For example, clicking 'Doors'>'Internal doors'>'Other internal doors, for example, a bedroom'>'Door is difficult to open or close' ended with this:

My first impulse was to go back and see where I went 'wrong' – a bit like in the old 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books of your correspondent's childhood. (Maybe if I fudged things a bit and said the problem was with a bathroom door I would have gotten a different result, and when the tradie turns up I could just point him to the real problem.)

That was the first impulse; after that I just gave up on the whole frustrating adventure.

If you're a public housing tenant with a repair problem, by all means give the eRepair thing a go, but if it does not work for you, do as any tenant can do: apply to the Tribunal for an order that Housing NSW do the repair.

Whatever Housing NSW's 'program of works', you've got a contract that says they'll repair defects as necessary. Hold them to it.

Your local Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service would be interested to hear from you about any problems to do with repairs, too.