Melbourne renter wins $2260 bond back at VCAT after two years

A Melbourne renter has won her bond back after almost two years and she says her case serves as a warning to other tenants.

A Melbourne woman is celebrating the abrupt end of an almost two-year battle to get her $2260 bond back for a house she previously rented – and she hopes it serves as a warning to other tenants.

Kacie Stephens, who owns The Big Clean Co., a business that does end-of-lease cleans, shared her experience across three TikTok videos, with one clip being viewed over a million times alone.

She explained she rented a house with her family for 12 months and on vacating in late 2022, the landlords wanted to keep her entire bond plus another $880 for repairs.

“I was mortified by this amount, I felt angry because I didn’t agree with the claim and I also felt embarrassed: as someone whose business is largely end of lease cleaning and helping tenants get their bond back: having mine withheld put me on a side of the process that I really did not want to be on,” she told news.com.au.

Ms Stephens said the claims included that they needed to paint two rooms, replace doors, repair water-damaged plaster in the bathroom, fix a fence broken fence paling and give the garden a makeover.

She addressed the fence paling and gardening claim in her now viral TikTok videos.

“The wood is cracked and they wanted me to replace it. The fence is so old. It has nothing to do with me,” she said.

A broken fence paling was one of the issues. Picture: TikTok / @kacie_thebigcleanco

Kacie Stephens said it was not her responsibility to fix the old fence. Picture: TikTok / @kacie_thebigcleanco

As for the backyard, Ms Stephens said it was “pure dirt and weeds” when she moved in, making it “incredibly hard to maintain”.

In her video, she explained: “We just whipper snipped it, that was it and I was like ‘yes it doesn’t look the same anymore’ … It’s been a year of living here and it was a dirt patch.”

She said she offered some money after getting a quote from Airtasker to deal with the backyard but this was rejected.

She said when she moved in, the backyard was a dirt patch with weeds beginning to grow. Picture: TikTok / @kacie_thebigcleanco

Ms Stephens acknowledged it didn’t look the same and offered some money but not her whole bond. Picture: TikTok / @kacie_thebigcleanco

Eventually the matter was taken to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) with Ms Stephens having to attend a hearing on Friday.

She said she was ready to defend herself but was pleasantly surprised the VCAT member, who was hearing and deciding the case, dismissed the case.

“Oh my god, I’m literally shaking. I can’t believe it, it got thrown out. It got dismissed in under 10 minutes,” she said in a clip after the hearing.

She said the reasoning was because the landlords did not have any receipts to show out-of-pocket expenses.

The VCAT order, seen by news.com.au, said the $2260 bond held by the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority must now be paid to the renter.

Ms Stephens was “so relieved” the matter was finally over as she feared it could have been drawn out even further after waiting so long for VCAT to hear the case.

She said most of the evidence she had prepared to argue the case was based on the condition report when she moved in.

“If you are in a rental or moving into a rental, make sure you fill that condition report out in so much detail because it will save you,” she warned her followers.