There are no guarantees that a deceptive and misleading conduct case against dodgy flooring sales people will get a run but at least we know that Fair Trading in NSW are fully aware of the issue . You can get their factsheet on the subject HERE.
In Queensland this Fair Trading factsheet outlines their criteria for misleading and deceptive conduct and says: ‘A promise, opinion or prediction can be misleading or deceptive if the business knew it was false, did not care if it was true or not, or had no reasonable grounds for making it.’
And they take the hard floors issue just as seriously there. This justice services factsheet mentions the nuisance laws as one avenue to take against noisy hard floors and cites this case where a couple had breached their building’s by-laws by installing tiles without acoustic underlay and were ordered to re-lay them, even though the tenant wasn’t particularly noisy.
The Fair Trading laws in Victoria are very similar and this factsheet on misleading conduct illustrates two areas where hard floor traders could fall foul of them – telling you that there won’t be a problem or hearing that you live in a unit but failing to mention that their product isn’t suitable. The latter could also fall under regulations relating to false or misleading representations.
You’ll find a guide to Fair Trading laws in SA HERE and a list of all the fair trading government sections across Australia HERE.