Renter’s wild fight over $1100 cleaning bill

A Triple J presenter has revealed how she and her housemates won their bond back from their old landlord after they were taken to a tribunal for refusing to pay $1000 for an unnecessary end-of-lease clean.

Sydney radio host Sally Coleman took to Instagram to share details about the legal battle over the cleaning of a unit she shared with four other housemates.

The dispute escalated to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) after the real estate agent told the group to pay more than $1000 for professional cleaning of the property.

Ms Coleman revealed the group had already cleaned the property themselves before they moved out.

One claim involved a speck of dirt being found on a floor, a hair on the bathroom floor and dust in a cupboard, among several other minuscule claims.

She told the agent they would not pay this – only for the professional cleaners to be called in anyway by the property manager and an invoice for $1100 worth of services being handed to them.

Ms Coleman said she and her housemates again refused this and were taken to the tribunal, with their $6500 bond withheld until the case was resolved.

In another video, Ms Coleman revealed she and her housemates had met with the agent in a conciliation hearing.

A conciliation hearing is an informal meeting where parties can attempt to settle a dispute before any official NCAT hearings take place.

“Me and my housemates got together beforehand and we’re like: ‘We are not paying $1100 for cleaning, on principle,” Ms Coleman says in the video.

She says they then decided on paying $50 each for the bill as a “token amount” to “make the claim go away”.

Ms Coleman says she went into the meeting with over 40 pages of documentation, including printed photos and notes, of the clean they provided and the alleged disputes.

She said the agent “barely looked at them”.

Afterwards, the agent told them the owner would “not budge” and asked them what their best offer was, Ms Coleman says in her video.

“It really quickly became clear that this wasn’t about actually negotiating the cleaning, this was more like how much money can they get out of this meeting,” Ms Coleman says in her video.

She goes on to say the group asked for photos of what needed cleaning and how much it cost.

“There was no itemised invoice or receipt for what actually got cleaned and therefore it was kind of impossible to show why those certain things needed cleaning,” Ms Coleman said.

At the end, the $250 offer was accepted and she and her housemates got their bond back.

Ms Coleman also pointed out if there was an itemised invoice that had been produced “retrospectively” it would have breached Section 165 of the NSW Tenancy Act – saying it was a “little bit of help” pushing it over the line.

Under this section, a landlord or landlord’s agent must provide copies of estimates, quotes, invoices or receipts within seven days of a claim for a rental bond being made.

If not, fines of up to $2000 can be imposed.

Ms Coleman said the agent told her “penalties don’t scare me” when informed of this – something she said “speaks to the whole nature” of claims like this.

“There is nothing about the NCAT process that is scarier to a real estate agent than the prospect of losing a high-value client who has a big portfolio,” she said.

“When it comes to pissing off the tenants, breaking the law, going to tribunal, they will take all of those things if it means keeping the client happy.”