Energy and Water Ombudsman (Victoria) (EWOV)

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Housing issues and EWOV
Information for community agency workers in Victoria, Australia

Types of housing (public, private and transitional)
Housing status of EWOV’s customers
EWOV and the Office of Housing
Transitional housing
Private rental housing
Related EWOV webpages
More information: EWOV's fact sheets

Utility issues and housing issues can be closely connected—particularly for tenants who
can’t control the energy or water efficiency of the premises they live in. Although EWOV
is not in a position to influence housing outcomes for individuals or housing policy, we have explored and reported on the crossover of housing and utility issues in our work.

Types of Housing

There are about 1.9 million residential properties in Victoria:

about 71% are owner-occupied and
about 20% are privately rented,
less than 4% are public housing.

EWOV has paid particular attention to public housing—both the housing leased directly by Victoria’s Office of Housing (OoH) and that managed by community agencies on behalf of
the OoH (transitional housing).

There’s more information about types of housing in Victoria, and the OoH’s housing assistance programmes, on the OoH website.

Housing status of customers contacting EWOV

EWOV asks its customers about their housing status.

About 40% decline to answer (as is their right), but of those who answer:

owner-occupiers are slightly under-represented at 66%,
private renters slightly over-represented at 25% and
public housing tenants are fairly accurately represented at 4.6%.
people who rent housing for Indigenous people make up about 0.5%
a further 2.7% of customers disclosing their housing as ‘other rental’—which may
include caravan parks, boarding houses or transitional housing (discussed below).

EWOV uses this information in a way that doesn’t reveal anybody’s housing status (without their consent). For example, we use it to keep track of how accessible our service is.
We also use it in specific projects—such as the transitional housing project (discussed below).

EWOV and the Office of Housing

EWOV works with the Office of Housing (OoH) —which manages public housing—in a number
of ways:

we provide a quarterly report to OoH on cases received from public housing tenants, sometimes raising questions and issues as appropriate
EWOV’s Conciliators and Enquiry Officers contact OoH staff members for assistance
with and information about specific cases
when EWOV visits metropolitan and regional areas, we try to visit local OoH offices to discuss opportunities for co-operation and any issues relating to utilities.

EWOV and the OoH only disclose tenants’ details to each other when the tenant has provided their consent to this disclosure.

Examples of utilities issues where the OoH can help EWOV include:

when customers need to establish their move-in date for the purposes of utility billing
obtaining Certificates of Electrical Safety where these are necessary before a property can have the power turned on
where energy field audits have identified specific issues with the appliances in a
particular property
when customers have experienced a gas or water leak on the customer’s side of the meter resulting in a high bill.

EWOV can't help when the tenant’s problem relates to the maintenance or repair of
appliances owned by OoH. In these cases, the tenant should contact OoH’s maintenance area.
An application form for non-urgent repairs and maintenance can be downloaded from the
Office of Housing’s website. For urgent problems, phone OoH’s urgent maintenance number:
13 11 72.

EWOV doesn't handle complaints about OoH. If your client is a public tenant who's having problems with OoH:

in the first instance, contact your local Housing Office—you should be advised
about higher levels to which to complain if you are not satisfied
if the OoH doesn't deal with your complaint to your satisfaction, contact the
Department of Human Services on 1300 884 706
finally, you can contact the State Ombudsman of Victoria on (03) 9613 6222
or (non-metropolitan) 1800 806 314.

For information on how to handle your client’s tenancy problem, try the website of the
Tenants Union Of Victoria. It publishes fact sheets on public housing and also a
Public Housing Tenants’ Handbook.

Transitional housing

There are about 12,000 properties in Victoria used for transitional housing. Owned or leased
by OoH, they are managed by community organisations (Transitional Housing Managers (THMs). They are let out on a short term basis to people who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.

As they are short-term rentals—and may be the first property the tenant has been
responsible for—utilities issues can arise. For example:

a new tenant may find that the previous tenant didn't finalise their account
THMs may face a ‘privacy wall’ when trying to sort out problems with utilities
THMs may need to find out which company a tenant was with for electricity and
gas and have trouble doing so
some young transitional housing tenants may have trouble setting up accounts
tenants may face out-of-hours connection fees if they're not able to give advance
notice of when they'll be moving into the property.

From 2006 to early 2008, EWOV worked with a range of THMs to develop and refine a list of issues—these were then discussed with relevant companies, both water and energy.
Tips that came out of this work include:

THMs should use email rather than fax when dealing with utility companies
there are practical reasons for THMs to let utility companies know when tenants
move out, even though the tenants should do this for themselves
where there aren’t separate meters for separate tenants within the one house
(i.e. when each of the tenants has their own lease), the utility accounts should
be kept in the name of the THM.

One of the outcomes of this transitional housing project is a fact sheet for new transitional housing tenants.

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Private rental housing

EWOV does not handle complaints about private landlords—this is outside our jurisdiction.

However, sometimes a tenancy issue may also involve a utility company—we can help
to sort out that side of things. For example, if a faulty heater causes a high electricity bill
and your client’s landlord won’t fix the heater, EWOV can't help resolve the complaint with
the landlord. However, if you and your client haven't been able to negotiate a payment plan
for the high bill with the electricity company, then EWOV can assist with that side of things.

Who can you contact about the problem with the landlord?

Consumer Affairs Victoria (a government agency) on 1300 55 81 81 (local call cost)
Tenants Union Victoria (a not-for profit advocacy agency) on (03) 9416 2577
or via its website. The TUV has many fact sheets available on all aspects of renting.
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) Residential Tenancies List
on 1800 133 055.

Related EWOV webpages

There is a page available on the utility aspects of moving in or out of a home:

Moving in or moving out

More information: EWOV’s fact sheets

High bills

Information for new transitional housing tenants

Last updated: 9 June 2008

Feedback about this webpage: website@ewov.com.au

For enquiries and complaints, phone 1800 500 509 or see our enquiries and complaints webpages.