Karhani v New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation

1. The Registrar advises us that efforts were made to have the tenant attend the appeal hearing by AVL but that this could not be arranged, due to a lack of available facilities at the prison.
2. By an email timed at 3:17pm on Tuesday 12 August 2025 (less than 23 hours before the appeal was scheduled to commence) the landlord applied for leave to be legally represented at the appeal hearing. The Registry sought the tenant's response by 11am on 13 December 2025, the day of the hearing.
3. This was followed by Registry receiving an email (timed at 4:28pm on 12 August 2025) from a person purporting to be the tenant's daughter. She explained that her mother was currently in custody on remand, was without any papers relating to the appeal, and sought an adjournment of the appeal. Registry then sought the landlord's view with respect to the adjournment request.
4. With respect to each issue on which the parties' views were sought, they were advised that we might determine the issue on the papers and asked for their views as to whether we should do so.
5. On the morning of the hearing we received:

(1) The Landlord's submissions in support of it being allowed legal representation with attachments.

(2) Those attachments included the Tenant's earlier refusal to consent to legal representation.

(3) An email from the landlord consenting to a short adjournment to no later than 18 August 2025.

1. We then made the following orders on the papers.

1 The adjournment request will be considered at the commencement of the hearing.

2 The respondent's request for legal representation is refused with reasons reserved.

1. We made order 2 in an effort to spare the landlord the expenses of having a legal representative attend the hearing, when we were of the concluded view that we would not grant leave for legal representation.
2. In the event, notice of that decision did not reach the landlord in time and the only person with authority to represent the landlord at the hearing was Ms Nair, a solicitor. We did give her leave to appear in order to represent the landlord on the adjournment application only, and determined to adjourn the appeal to a date and time to be fixed when the tenant can appear by AVL.
3. These are our reasons for refusing the landlord leave to be legally represented.

1. The landlord and the tenant were not legally represented in the proceedings which are appealed. The landlord was represented by one of its authorised employees. Neither party had a right to legal representation without leave of the Tribunal: see s 45(1) of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013 (NSW) (the NCAT Act).
2. The landlord now seeks leave to be legally represented on the appeal and has indicated that it consents to the Appeal Panel determining the issue of legal representation without a hearing on the papers. The tenant is silent on that issue.
3. Having reviewed all the materials we are satisfied that this is a matter that can be determined in the absence of the parties by considering the materials lodged by them. We therefore dispense with a hearing on the issue of whether the landlord should be granted leave to be legally represented.
4. Central to the appeal is the tenant's challenge to whether or not she is in arrears of rent as a result of the retrospective cancellation of her rental rebate, and whether she was denied procedural fairness by the Tribunal when it made its orders.
5. The landlord submits that it being legally represented would "greatly" assist us in considering the appeal. This includes the claim that a legal representative would be able to provide us with a "fulsome consideration" of relevant legislation and of the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Attached to the landlord's submissions is a refusal to consent to legal representation from the tenant dated 30 June 2025, in which she says, in summary, that the issues are not complex and that the landlord's case is weak.
6. In our view this appeal does not involve new, novel or complex issues of law. Neither party was entitled to legal representation below, nor are they on appeal without leave.
7. The landlord is a statutory corporation with numerous employees, who are not lawyers, who regularly appear on its behalf in the Tribunal and who satisfy the requirements of a representative set out rule 32(1) of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal Rules 2014. The tenant is an individual who is representing herself in the appeal. She objects to the landlord being legally represented. Should we grant leave there would be an obvious inequality in both knowledge and Tribunal experience between the tenant and the landlord.
8. In all the circumstances we think that the usual rule expressed in rule 45(1)(a) of the NCAT Act should prevail, as far as possible, and that the landlord should be refused leave to be legally represented.

(1) A hearing on the issue of the whether the New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation should be given leave to be legally represented is dispensed with.

(2) Leave for the New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation to be legally represented is refused.

I hereby certify that this is a true and accurate record of the reasons for decision of the Civil and Administrative Tribunal of New South Wales.