Santa Teresa housing compensation: Kwementyaye Young’s missing door could cost $190,000

What is the price of a renter’s distress? Judges pushed to put a price tag on the feeling of ‘disappointment’ when living in a dilapidated home after an Aussie grandmother won a landmark tennant’s rights victory.

A Territory grandmother’s missing door could cost the government up to $190,000 after the High Court ruled landlords are liable for the “disappointment and distress” suffered by tenants in dilapidated homes.

On Thursday the NT Court of Appeal considered the landmark case of Kwementyaye Young, a remote grandmother whose nine-year battle led to the High Court unanimously recognising for the first time the right of tenants to be compensated for distress when a rented house does not meet legal standards. 

The Santa Teresa resident sued the NT Housing chief executive in 2016, after her home was left without a back door for almost six years leaving her vulnerable to the elements and intruders, including snakes, wild horses and other people.

For three months each year Ms Young was forced to abandon her home as the broken airconditioning unit made her desert home “uninhabitable” as temperatures ranged from below zero to more than 40 degrees.

More than 70 households in Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte) sued the NT Housing chief executive over a failure to provide urgent repairs to a list of 600 issues in their homes, including Kwementyaye Young's six year wait to replace her missing door.

Her case represents a list of 600 urgent repairs across 70 households in Santa Teresa – an hour’s drive from Alice Springs – with residents reporting leaking sewage, exposed electrical wiring, structurally unsound buildings, and no running water or ventilation.

In November the High Court recognised her right to sue the NT government for not carrying out housing repairs on their rental properties.

But her landmark victory came with a bittersweet note, with Ms Young passing away before the ruling.

After years of living in the “dilapidated and uninhabitable homes”, her final communication with her NT government landlord was to inform her that her rent was going up.

“My client died waiting for justice,” her barrister told the Supreme Court on Thursday.

Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte).

Matthew Albert, acting on behalf of her estate, said the initial compensation Ms Young was offered to repair her missing door was $100.

In 2020 in the NT Court of Appeal, Justice Jenny Blokland increased this to $4.93 a day – around half Ms Young’s daily rental rate – to a total of $10,200.

But Mr Albert said the “disappointment and distress” compensation ruling meant the final value could total $190,000 for the missing door alone.

He called on the full bench of the Supreme Court of Appeal to use Ms Young’s case to establish a financial baseline for “distress and disappointment” compensation in the NT, providing clarity to an estimated 90 similar housing cases already in the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT).

However Chief Justice Michael Grant asked why the Supreme Court “should concern itself” with the matter of tenant compensation – usually dealt with by NTCAT.

Justice Grant said addressing the missing door alone created an “impossible task”, due to the “potential overlap” with other faults in her home.

“The shower head drain was leaking for 2100 days, the toilet had poor flush for 534 days, the leak under the sink was there for 477 days, the perimeter fence was bent for 2328 days … and also possibly another 1500 days to take account of the value of a working air conditioner,” he said.

“We either remit it all or we take it all on.”

Solicitor General Nikolai Christrup, representing the chief executive of housing, said the compensation exercise was still an “evaluative exercise” and “a matter that should be dealt with by the tribunal”.

Mr Albert flagged sending it back to the NTCAT could open it up to another “futile” “cycle of litigation”.

The Court of Appeal adjourned the hearing to a later date.