How quickly does a landlord have to fix things?

The law's phrase is "within a reasonable time", and what is reasonable scales with what broke. No water, no power, sewage backing up, a failed heater in winter, anything making the home unsafe or unlivable: these are urgent, and reasonable is measured in hours and days. A dripping tap, a broken fence paling, a sticking door: reasonable is measured in days and weeks. The judgment a Tribunal would later make is roughly the one common sense makes now.

The clock argument is really an evidence argument

Most disputes are not about whether nine days was too long, they are about whether the landlord knew on day one. A repair request that exists only as a half-remembered phone call protects nobody. A logged request with a photo and a timestamp, acknowledged the same day, with the tradie booking noted, is a defence for the landlord and reassurance for the tenant at the same time.

If repairs genuinely stall

• Tenants can put the request in writing formally, a notice to remedy, which starts a defined process.
• Unresolved, the Tenancy Tribunal can order repairs and award compensation where loss resulted.
• Tenants should not simply stop paying rent, withholding rent creates a separate breach on their side.

For landlords the working rule is simple: acknowledge every request fast even when the fix is slow, do urgent things urgently, and keep the whole trail in one place. Speed matters, but being seen to respond matters almost as much.