In 2009, Mrs Liu’s son and his wife and children moved to Australia on a carer’s visa to take care of Mrs Liu. Mrs Liu's son was dependent on the disability support pension and he and his wife struggled to support their family financially. The family moved into Mrs Liu’s property to care for her, but the property was too small to accommodate them all.
Mrs Liu asked that her family be added to Housing NSW’s records as members of the household, and applied for a transfer to a larger property.
Housing NSW rejected the application to add members to the household on the basis that it would cause overcrowding in her current property. Housing NSW simultaneously rejected Mrs Liu’s application for a transfer to a larger property, because their records showed she was the only occupant of her household.
Mrs Liu and her family tried to appeal both the decisions made against them. Their first appeals were unsuccessful for the same reasons – the family could not be added to Housing NSW’s records because it would cause overcrowding; the transfer could not be approved because the household was recorded as one person. Mrs Liu appealed again and waited over a year for the same response.
In 2014 Mrs Liu lodged an appeal with the Housing Appeals Committee (HAC) and was successful – HAC found that Housing NSW was applying two policies to her situation that were at odds with each other, and recommended that Housing NSW change their decisions.
While Housing NSW agreed to uphold the recommendation, they also decided that the family should pay back rent to 2009. RLC wrote to Housing NSW seeking the exercise of discretion to waive the back-payments, which could have been tens of thousands of dollars.
RLC told Housing NSW that Mrs Liu and her family had done everything possible to comply with policy. Ultimately Housing NSW decided not to raise a debt against the family. It had taken five months from the HAC decision for Housing NSW to decide not to raise a debt against Mrs Liu, and to tell the family what rent they should pay.
As a result of Housing NSW’s conduct, Mrs Liu and her family had spent over four years living in uncertainty, in an overcrowded house, with no transfer on foot and unclear of the rent they had to pay.
