What to expect when attending the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT).

These days, renting in NSW could be described as a series of unavoidable compromises. Low availability, high demand and ever-growing rental prices make for a tough market to navigate, even for those earning $100,000 a year or more,¹ and all the more so for renters on lower incomes. 

Consequently, you would be hard pressed to find a renter who’s happy with every aspect of their home. If the place is big enough, it’s likely either far from amenities or in need of long overdue repairs (or both). If the property is conveniently located, it’s often far more costly than the renter can actually afford. Many people are forced to accept exorbitant rents to live in the area of their need, to keep kids in their schools or have access to medical services they rely on. These are all well-recognised trade-offs renters make when they‘re looking for a home or considering whether to accept a rent increase or move out. 

When people’s living conditions leave a lot to be desired, or worse, fail to meet many of the minimal required standards, it’s no wonder renters feel taken advantage of. Paying the full price for any substandard service isn’t fair, and this includes housing.

With this sense of being ripped off as the baseline, each additional issue, like a cooktop that breaks immediately after moving in, or a big hike in rent on the property people have lived in for years without any maintenance or repairs being done, can feel like adding insult to injury.

So, where do you turn when you feel you are being treated unfairly and want the situation rectified? Within the structure of the Residential Tenancies Act, most of your legal options ultimately end up as an application in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT). 

The Tribunal’s residential disputes are funded by a combination of tenants' bonds and rents, and other money held in real estate agent trust accounts to the tune of more than $30million a year, which heavily subsidises the cost of applications made to the Tribunal – which are mostly made by landlords, usually seeking eviction. Our NCAT snapshot demonstrates the very different uses.

Matters that renters most commonly initiate at the Tribunal relate to bonds and repairs to the property – contentious spaces where the sense of being taken advantage of can be felt the strongest. For people who have made compromises from the start of their tenancy to be charged for damages they didn’t cause or have their bond withheld over a cleaning dispute, can be a straw that breaks the camel’s back, driving them to seek an order from the Tribunal they hope will vindicate them. Full vindication is rarely the outcome they will walk away with. 

Being unfairly treated and being able to prove wrongdoing by the other party within the scope of the tenancy law that NCAT operates in can be two very different things.

Take, for example, a hypothetical case of an international student who moved into a flat shared with another person. The parties didn’t sign any paperwork; their arrangement was mainly verbal and some lengthy text messages that made clear the length and key terms of their arrangement. After putting up with poor conditions, including a pest infestation and lack of promised wifi access, the student has moved out of the flat and wants their bond returned. The flatmate, however, refuses to pay back the money owed, claiming that this wasn’t a tenancy at all and that the student had caused the pests (despite acknowledging verbally that they were there previously). The trust between the parties has been broken, as they have accepted substandard conditions and now also had their bond denied, leaving one side feeling cheated by the other.

Our student friend needs to know a large amount of information in order to achieve a fair outcome – including that they can apply to the Tribunal at all, and that they can potentially use text messages to demonstrate that an agreement was made, and so they need to keep those messages in a way that can be shared later. 

At the Tribunal, the Member assessing the student’s application for the return of the bond will have to decide first what type of arrangement was made between the parties. If the student can’t prove they had a tenancy agreement to share the flat by having the written information about the arrangement on hand, the Tribunal will not be able to progress the matter. If NCAT decides it has no jurisdiction over the case at hand, then the application will be dismissed, no order to repay the bond will be made, and there will certainly be no sense of justice served. 

Renters’ confidence in their preparedness and a strong sense of being in the right don’t necessarily translate into success on the day.

A recent study by the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW investigated Tenancy Dispute Experience and Preparedness and found that among those engaging with NCAT for the first time, even those who felt "extremely prepared" found themselves struggling with the complexity of the Tribunal procedures and encountered uncertainty or confusion at some point during the process.

An online survey run by the Tenants’ Union of NSW at the end of 2024 also showed that the experience of attending  NCAT was coloured by stress and a sense of vulnerability for renters seeking justice for themselves. Many described feeling out of their depth and outperformed by landlords’ agents, much more experienced than they were in dealing with the Tribunal processes. One person recalled:

"Myself and my partner put as much time and effort into defending ourselves after naively being caught out by our private landlord's tricks. Despite gathering great evidence [the agent] had clearly been through the process before and was allowed to make false claims in person during the session that were not submitted in evidence prior."

The process of conciliation can also catch some renters off guard. Instead of a Tribunal Member deciding on the facts of the matter, people are asked to sit down at a table with the other party and negotiate a compromise, which can feel volatile and stressful to those who have already faced challenges in their renting experience and feel their trust has been betrayed by the landlord and/or real estate agent. 

"I felt like mediation focused on statistics to settle another matter rather than fairness or justness. it was also very rushed and i was left with real estate agent in the room to resolve the matter." – a person surveyed by the Tenants’ Union

This speaks to a common tactic to mediate the dispute of simply taking the average of the two parties' positions – not necessarily considering whether each position is equally justified to begin with!

According to NCAT users interviewed by the Law and Justice Foundation, the experience of conciliation was more manageable with a trained conciliator facilitating the negotiations, leading to a conclusion by the authors of the survey that: "(t)he presence of a neutral, skilled facilitator helps prevent intimidation and misunderstanding and promotes more constructive negotiation and greater user confidence in the process."

Taking a matter to NCAT is often a result of a 'final straw' moment during or immediately after a tenancy has ended.² Fed up emotionally, and often overextended financially, renters stand up for themselves while they hope to recover bond money or rely on compensation for lost possessions to move on with their lives. 

Coming from a place of such difficulty, dealing with an informal, but still often rushed and overwhelming, process of a group hearing at NCAT can feel like an impossible challenge. 

Although the official NCAT website states that "[m]ost people represent themselves at NCAT. You can conduct your own case without a lawyer or other representative," the Law and Justice Foundation study participants consistently reported feeling safer whenever a Tenant Advocate was present to assist them during the hearing or conciliation. The Advocate’s "involvement not only mitigated the emotional and procedural burden on tenants but also contributed to more informed and confident participation."³

In part, this might be because, in fact, most applicants in tenancy matters at the Tribunal are not self-represented – agents are generally there to represent their landlord clients. Previous Law and Justice Foundation research found that landlord applicants were more than 3 times more likely to be represented – but data quality may have even underestimated this rate.

Tenant Advocates are able to represent in some cases and attend the whole process – but Tenant Advocates are also sometimes available to assist renters at the Tribunal in an ad hoc manner through the Duty Advocate service. Through this service, renters can receive advice, have an advocate present to support them in conciliation, or have help when presenting arguments before the Tribunal Member during a formal hearing. In other instances, Advocates may be present to support a client they have been in contact with prior to the hearing, through the local Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service.

One renter surveyed by the Tenants’ Union also reflected on how much of a benefit it is to be supported by a trained professional through the process of NCAT proceedings:

"It would have been helpful to have an advocate or support from an agency and for the judges to be more understanding that we are not lawyers or necessarily the most familiar with legal proceedings and just doing our best."

Despite researchers, renters and housing advocates agreeing on the benefits of Tenant Advocates' work in supporting renters (including during their NCAT appearances), the government is failing to recognise those benefits through appropriate funding.

According to the Tenants' Union response to NSW Budget 2025-26:⁴

 "The Tenants Advice and Advocacy Program desperately needs an increase of nearly $10 million a year to catch up with the growth in the renting population and ensure people have the effective support that prevents homelessness, reduces and resolves conflict and educates the community."

Thankfully, the experience of NCAT is not always disappointing, with some people surveyed reporting successfully asserting their rights or reaching a satisfactory compromise in conciliation.

Understanding the legal processes guiding the Tribunal and being well prepared has made all the difference to some renters:

"I was only able to negotiate effectively because I was very well informed on the legal aspects. Most tenants would not be."

Some renters appreciated the opportunity to have an informal discussion with the other party in order to clarify questions and reach an agreement.

"Its a good way to reconcile disputes between parties that disagree without formal proceedings where you get a win win instead of a win lose outcome. I feel its a good opportunity for both sides to be heard and to ask questions that you may not have had the opportunity to ask and have answered before."

The legal process governing matters at the Tribunal is strictly dictated by the Residential Tenancies Act and, on some key aspects (such as considering whether a 'reasonable ground' eviction is actually reasonable in all the circumstances), offers little room for discretion from the Members. Placing the onus of regulatory enforcement on renters to pursue justice can be impractical or unachievable within the Tribunal setting.

As such, it can struggle to address issues of moral injury caused by unethical actors exploiting a volatile rental market. That’s why, depending on whether you are seeking full vindication or only hoping to get some of the money you are owed back, NCAT may or may not be a place to have your goals realised.

Either way, before applying to have your matter heard or you are responding to an application someone filed against you, make sure you read up on the process using the Tribunal resources on our website. And if you find yourself concerned about your prospects or worried about your ability to stay housed, call your local Tenancy Advice and Advocacy Service.

What next?

We are currently waiting to see the results of a departmental review of the NCAT’s approach to disputes in tenancy. Some of the issues we’ve touched on here, and many more, are expanded in our submission, but all of them will contribute to an improved experience for renters, who are, after all, heavily subsidising the Tribunal’s residential dispute resolution process.

¹ https://everybodyshome.com.au/resources/priced-out-priced-out-an-index-of-affordable-rentals-for-australian-voters/

² Applications about past tenancies can be filed only up to 3 months after the alleged breach. Or if the dispute is over the rental bond up to 6 months after bond has been claimed.

³ https://lawfoundation.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/STEP-Study_v8_-FINAL.pdf

⁴ https://www.tenants.org.au/reports/tenants-union-response-nsw-budget-2025