Tenant won almost $1,000 compensation after suing landlord over cracked toilet seat

A man who sued because of a faulty ­toilet seat has been awarded almost $1,000 compensation by a tribunal in Australia. In claims to the Victorian Civil and Administrative ­Tribunal, Riley Nottingham alleged the toilet seat at the one-bedroom rental property in the Kensington suburb of Melbourne was so badly cracked it cut skin and drew blood.



Mr Nottingham, 23, said he was so embarrassed by the loo he asked some visitors to use a nearby public toilet. “I couldn’t have girls over,” he says. “We had to put wads of paper over the crack, it was a pain. It wasn’t a life-or-death problem, but when you’re paying good rent, it gets to you.” A replacement seat fitted after more than a dozen emails and a complaint to Consumer Affairs Victoria offered no ­relief: it was too small for the designer porcelain bowl.



So Mr Nottingham launched a tribunal action. VCAT member Jessica Klingender found in his favour, noting the problems “made the daily requirement of sitting on the toilet inconvenient, uncomfortable, potentially painful and unhygienic”. She wrote in her decision: “A toilet is a necessity. While I accept that the landlords did make some efforts ... the tenant was without a properly functioning toilet seat for a period of some months.”


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VCAT ordered Malaysian landlords Kim Wah Yong and Heng Lai Liu to pay $933.57. However, Mr Nottingham is unable to register the debt with the Magistrates’ Court because he can’t find an Australian ­address for the landlords. “I’ve got the order, but I can’t enforce it. It seems ridiculous,” he said. Mr Nottingham has since moved in with a friend in Yarraville and is yet to receive the payout.