Fixing the “column does not exist” error in Sequelize + PostgreSQL

I woke to a slack message that an endpoint was hitting 500, an my check it was traced to Sequelize / PostgreSQL error, which I was conversant with while using PgAdmin but missed while using literal in Sequelize

This error:

column "isavailable" does not exist

If you are facing same issue, you’re not alone — and the fix is surprisingly simple.

💡 The cause

When you write raw SQL or Sequelize literals like this:

Sequelize.literal('CASE WHEN isAvailable THEN 1 ELSE 0 END')

Postgres interprets isAvailable as a lowercase identifier (isavailable) — which doesn’t exist.

✅ The fix

Wrap the column name in double quotes to make it case-sensitive:

Sequelize.literal('CASE WHEN "isAvailable" THEN 1 ELSE 0 END')

Now Postgres understands that you’re referring to the actual column name exactly as defined.

⚙️ Bonus Tip

To verify what columns really exist in your table, run this in pgAdmin or psql:

SELECT column_name 
FROM information_schema.columns 
WHERE table_name = 'property';

✨ Takeaway

Always remember:

• PostgreSQL lowercases unquoted identifiers.
• Wrapping column names in "" makes them exact and avoids this error.

Simple quotes, powerful fix. 💪