Phone line responsibility in rental properties?

Ok so I moved in to an apartment 3 months ago and about 6 weeks ago I had a naked dsl connection set up with iinet, purchased the iinet modem and paid my connection fee. Worked great for the first 3 days, went on holidays for a month and then on my return it was no longer working. Went through the tech help support at iinet, they determined it was a line issue waited for 2 weeks for telstra to come out and repair, telstra came out and said there side of the line was working and that it was an internal wirring issue. Gave all this info to the real estate, they passed it on to body corporate, he came over and said that he would maybe leave a note under someones door who was an electrician who could maybe have a look as he didn't think it was justified having a technician come out and fix it. So everyone seems to be passing the buck here, so my question is who is responsible, me the tennant, the land lord or the buildings body corporate? Im at the point where I might just pay for the repair myself and forward the invoice to the real estate and see what happens, it seems NBN will reach me before I get my damn copper adsl working

It was part of the place when you moved in, so I would expect that its the responsibility of the landlord who then passes it on to the body corporate as its shared infrastructure.

Write a letter to the real estate agent setting out that it worked when you were first there, and has now failed and that you need it repaired.

Talk to them and try and arrange a date where it will be fixed by or you will have to look into getting someone to repair it and to forward the invoice to the real estate agents. Some landlords can be dodgy and try and avoid it, but it will be their responsibility. Even if they don't have to pay for it, it is up to them to follow it up with the body corporate, as you have no relationship with them.

(disclosure: Im no lawyer, so take this as you may, bla, bla, bla)

It would seem as though the buck is being passed on with the hope that it will go away.

While the Land Lord (LL) does not have to have a phone line connected to the property and is not responsible for the connection cost when a tenant moves in, existing connections need to be maintained in a reasonable condition – unless specifically excluded in the Tenancy agreement (case example Varghese v Liang & Huang (Tenancy) [2008] NSWCTTT 973).

When you gave information in regards to a faulty phone line to the Real Estate Agent (REA), It needs to be in the form of a Property Maintenance form (rather then a verbal communication, as verbal won’t legally hold up), also make sure you copy the form prior to submitting it. Unfortunately from here you need to wait the official Tenancy Agreement grace period of a couple of weeks for…

the REA to contact the LL.

and for the LL to contact Electrician etc.

and the Electrition to organize the job and inform the LL.

and the LL to inform the REA job being undertaken by the Contractor.

and the REA to inform you of the intention to come on the property to fix the line.

If you haven’t been contacted by the end of the grace period, then you can send an email (NO PHONE CALLS? WALK IN’ S) stating the issue/ the date it was first raised and how/ and remind them of the last property maintenance request form that was sent in, as this creates a paper trail of reminders and failure to act on the initial request (they know this, and it doesn't logo good for them if it goes to the Tenancy Tribunal), and request for an indication as to when the maintenance will be conducted.

If this gets no response/ action, then you can always send an email informing the REA of your rights and intention to personally undertake the organization of the repairs yourself with the bill to be forwarded onto the REA for payment by the LL, if the matter if the matter of the property maintenance form isn’t resolved.

Remember, you are required to follow the Tenancy Act… but so is the REA and LL (though they always try to bluff), you can always begin the process of taking it to the Tenancy Tribunal as this may get them jumping. But going this far won't do Tenant LL relationships any good. You would hope that a paper trail of emails stating failure to undertake repairs would get things done in a hurry.

Someone (let's call him a friend) rented for a while, and in every house he rented the phone line was normally not connected for one reason or another. In fact in one place it was cut by earthmoving equipment a very long time ago, underneath the front yard. This someone couldn't afford to wait for Telstra or the landlord to rerun the lines, so a quick trip to Bunnings and an electrical place later, the supplies were in place. Research was done to ensure that the line was completely up to spec, run inside the correct conduit, correct terminations etc. Total repair time was about half a day.

And normality was restored

If you're like my friend, not waiting is far more important than getting someone else to pay for it.

I've no idea how legal this is, so if you decide to follow my friend's lead, be sure to not get caught.

Also remember that open circuit voltages on copper lines tend to run at around 50V DC. Not a huge amount of amps, but enough to give to a tickle/cause magic smoke to come out of components if shorted or incorrectly wired.

I think your friend should redo the joint. You aren't going to be any worse than that. I thought they had better enclosures than that that had some sort of grease to seal the joint.

I had a Telstra tech that came out to repair my very old lead-in. He cut off the perfectly working service to reterminate it, and didn't realise that the old wire had a varnish covering as well as insulation. So he would 'strip' it, test it, and strip a new section. After about 5 tries I asked him if he could humor me and scratch off the varnish, and what do you know, it worked. They aren't infallible and I am sure the quality of the work will depend on lots of factors.

Your friend on the other hand, while not supposed to do it, has a vested interest in doing it properly.

If it was me, I would get a couple of the grease filled connectors of the type Telstra blokes use, and a small wire cutter and pliers.

Bung them in your pocket and ask whoever has the key to open the cabinet for you "as you need to take some details for a service tech."

Then do a quick snip and crimp, bung it back in the bag and it's all good.

Actually - if it was me, those locks are usually pretty easy to open.........
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When I bought my house it had ruddy awful phone reception.
Ended up finding a bunch of dodgy joins in the ceiling and garden.
Telstra didn't want to know / quoted outrageous rates to rectify.

Asked the comms ombudsbloke for info regarding dodgy work by previous owners, they came and had a look and couldn't give a rats freckle.

I renewed the dodgy cables myself, using all the same gear Telstra use.

Still had a crook line

Telstra fellas did on-line testing and bounced a signal down the line.

They determined that when the area was wired for cable telly, the cables were dragged through the Telstra conduit - which ripped the insulation from the phone cables, causing them to short out.

Telstra ended up running new cables between the pit/post and my place at no cost and lotsa apologies.

stephen