Hi all,
I have a question regarding who should wear the costs resulted from a missing connection box stolen/taken by landlord/prev tenant without notifying the upcoming tenants. The details are as follows:
We signed a rental contract, which starts on 10 Jul 2020
We organised NBN HFC internet connection on 21 Jun 2020, everything was set for moving in date. The NBN internet connection requires a connection box that was supplied and previously installed in the property. The connection box is property-specific and must not be removed from the property. However, the connection box was removed from the property by previous tenant/landlord.
The real estate agent/landlord failed to inform this to me
~until I asked on 8 Jul 2020~ although I did ask more than a week ago, they only responded on Wednesday 8 Juk, 2 days before moving in.The internet installation is now delayed up to a week due to the missing connection box.
I work from home and internet is a must, not to say my wife and kids. I will have to buy a temporary internet service while waiting for installation scheduled for next week.
The installation could have been further delayed
~if I didn't ask the agent on 8 Jul 2020~ if the agent didn't respond to my question on 8 Jul 2020, which I asked last week, about the connection box. Other tenants in similar situation might get caught on this easily and can suffer greater delay.The landlord refuses to compensate me the cost of the temporary internet connection.
My question: should the landlord compensate me the cost of the temporary internet connection giving that they took away required connection box and failed to notify upcoming tenants?
This happens quite often as I was told by Aussie Broadband, there are some cases people got compensated by their landlord, am I unreasonable? Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/nbn/comments/a10zk9/missing_nbn_hfc…
Here is a reply from NBN:
"The nbn equipment installed at your premises is provided and owned by nbn and remains the property of nbn. Removing it is considered tampering with a Telecommunications Network, which is a Federal Offence. Should the equipment have been damaged by the person who removed it then the replacement costs will need to be recovered from them by nbn."
Update:
- Updated my question to make it clearer
- My position is landlord should compensate something. I am just uncomfortable to pay for someone’s acts. They should have at least informed me earlier so that I could arrange NBN to come earlier.
- I actually did ask them about the box more than a week before start date but took them a week to respond back and it’s 2 days before moving in.
A bit extra information:
- ISP usually checks if a new connection is required nbn technician visit, whom will bring the connection box with them if it’s not installed before. In my case, poi check returns class 24 that meant the box had been installed previously, confirmed at order time as well as via phone support.
- The connection box will not be sent automatically on a new connection. You would need to know whether you need it or not and call up. I would expect majority of renters wouldn’t know what it is, not to say know whether it’s required for connection or not.
- Can confirm landlord lived here previously so no previous tenants.
- My main drive is not really $$, it’s more about annoyance/inconvenience, looking at the timeline below, you might get why I am frustrated:
- Internet arranged 3 weeks before moving date, confirmed by ISP no equipment or technician visit needed
+ Asked agent 9 days prior moving date, got answered only 2 days prior moving date
+ Called Aussie BB immediately to schedule technician visit, could only get earliest appointment 9 days later, a week after moving date.
This wins the most petty post of the year award hands down.
Exact same thing happened to me in my rental (the NBN boxes look like any other router, no suprises that tenants take them with them). I had no internet for just over a month (Telstra was shut down at start of COVID). Count yourself lucky.