Burst pipes and leaks
across Bondi

Turn it off. You do not need anyone's permission to close a stop tap, and every minute it runs adds to damage that somebody will have to pay to repair. Find the isolation valve under the sink or behind the toilet, or the main tap for your flat if there is one. Then ring the agent or landlord and note the time you tried. Then, if nobody is reachable and it is genuinely urgent, call a licensed plumber. A burst water service is expressly listed as an urgent repair in the Residential Tenancies Act 2010.

Usually one of three places, and it is worth finding yours on a calm afternoon rather than at midnight. There is often an isolation valve directly under the sink and another behind or beside the toilet cistern. Many flats also have a main valve for the unit, commonly in the laundry, in a hallway cupboard, or in the meter cupboard on the landing. If none of those exist, the building's main is usually in a common area, and turning that off affects everybody, so it is a last resort.

For an urgent repair, potentially, up to $1,000 and within 14 days of written notice. The conditions matter: the damage must not be the result of you breaching the agreement, you must have given notice or genuinely attempted to, you must have allowed a reasonable opportunity to fix it, you must have tried any tradesperson your agreement names, and the work must be done by a licensed or properly qualified person. We cannot promise an outcome because that is between you and your landlord. The Tenants' Union of NSW and NSW Fair Trading can advise on your circumstances.

Tell them straight away, which is unpleasant but far better than them discovering it. Then make sure what happened is recorded properly while it is still visible, because within days everything dries out and it becomes an argument. We photograph and note the failed component before replacing it, and write down what failed and where, in a form a landlord, an agent or an owners corporation can act on. That document is frequently worth more than the plumbing.

Generally not in the legal sense, and it is worth being honest about that. Urgent repairs are things like a burst service, a gas leak, a blocked or broken toilet, serious water damage or loss of an essential service. A dripping tap is a normal repair, so the right path is a written request to the agent rather than arranging it yourself and hoping to be repaid. That said, a drip that has started staining a ceiling has stopped being a drip.

They are one of the most common causes of serious water damage in Australian homes, with a service life of about five to ten years. In a block of flats it is worse than in a house, because a hose letting go on an upper floor at mains pressure while nobody is home sends water through every dwelling beneath it. Replacing them is cheap and it is one of the few genuinely preventable versions of this.

An emergency make-safe is $250 to $500. Leak detection is $300 to $600. Repair once located is $400 to $1,200 for most jobs. A flexible hose replacement is $150 to $350. We agree a fixed figure before starting, which matters when a capped reimbursement is in play, and the written findings are included.