A water leak was discovered, plumber called, fixed in 3 days.
What, if any, compensation should the tenant get, and why?
Also, leak was hot water pipe, so there is a power component as well.
Thoughts? Discuss.

thumbs647 - 2021-08-08 18:59:00

Three days water. So about $5 worth? Maybe shout the poor dears a coffee?

pcle - 2021-08-08 21:19:00

OP sounds like a nice landlord. I would offer $20 to maybe cover power and water.

mazalinas - 2021-08-08 22:16:00

When it happened to us (as landlords) what I did was bring the water bill down so that it was the 'average' of the previous 6 months bill, and we covered the rest. To be fair it was pretty easy to do as this particular tenants water usage is very stable, so very simple to identify the extra costs. With watercare you can also claim a rebate from them, to offset some of the wasted water.

With regards to power, I'd probably do something similar, look at what the bill was and then what would be an expected bill, and we'd cover the rest. OR if it wasn't really a big deal in terms of power (which it may not have been), then see if tenant was happy with a small grocery/petrol voucher for the drama.

desi1969 - 2021-08-08 22:28:00

thumbs647 wrote:

A water leak was discovered, plumber called, fixed in 3 days. .

I wish we could find plumbers able to start in just 3 days in Whangarei. Here the delay is even longer than it is for electricians, ie, often more than 6 weeks. Severe shortage of tradesmen and apprentices.

webworth - 2021-08-09 02:27:00

That's life, move on.

msigg - 2021-08-09 07:16:00

Thank you all for your comments and input????

thumbs647 - 2021-08-09 11:38:00

thumbs647 wrote:

A water leak was discovered, plumber called, fixed in 3 days.
What, if any, compensation should the tenant get, and why?
Also, leak was hot water pipe, so there is a power component as well.
Thoughts? Discuss.

Gee compensation !! are we breeding a society, similar to the US, where if anything goes wrong we hunt around to find someone to blame and to get some money.. what happened to "oh dear this has broken, but it is fixed now, a wee bit of water and electricity was wasted, but that is life" !!
This is all based in the notion that all tenants are poor / weak / downtrodden people and all landlords are rich fat cats / ruthless / mean people..

onl_148 - 2021-08-09 12:34:00

thumbs647 wrote:

A water leak was discovered, plumber called, fixed in 3 days.
What, if any, compensation should the tenant get, and why?
Also, leak was hot water pipe, so there is a power component as well.
Thoughts? Discuss.

Depends how long it was leaking for. I assume that the three days was between it being found and repaired.
But unless it had been leaking for a minimum of some months, I wouldn't think it a significant cost, as others have highlighted in much more brusque terms.

pico42 - 2021-08-09 15:59:00

If the tenant noticed the leak, and the landlord immediately called in the plumber, I'd say no compensation. The landlord cannot control how busy the plumbers are, and even those in owner occupied homes are sometimes inconvenienced by water leaks etc. Such is life.

phoenix22 - 2021-08-09 16:22:00