Rental Tenancy Certainty !

In Sydney, the number of  rental properties available falls far short of the people looking for a place to call " home ".  For every listed vacancy, a horde of applicants apply and when someone is successful it results in many disappointed people being rejected.  Unfortunately, once the period of the lease expires, tenants have no certainty that their tenancy is secure.

A case in point recently made newspaper headlines.  A family with two small children lived in a two bedroom rented apartment and when the marriage fell apart the husband moved out and obtained his own flat across the road.  Both the husband and wife held jobs and the split was amicable because of the needs of the children.

The original rental was taken out in the husbands name and the fact that his wife was now the tenant imposed certain legal difficulties.   The wife complained to the landlord about a fifty dollar rent increase because her rent had increased four times - from $ 290 in May 2014 to $ 750 on June 2016.  She was given the option of applying for a new lease -  at a market rental rate of $840.

She was then served with a " No grounds eviction order " requiring her to vacate the premises within ninety days.  Such orders do not require any reason to be stated but the agency told her it was because she was not named on the property lease.  She also claims she was told she " shouldn't bother " to apply for other properties managed by that rental company.

This tends to illustrate the " low profile " dictum that most tenants now believe is necessary to avoid bringing themselves to the attention of landlords.  Complaints about rent increases or demands for repairs now often bring eviction and replacement with more docile customers.  Where an individual agency has a big share of the rentals in a district it has the power to virtually blacklist an evicted person from living in that suburb.

In this instance, the rental agency does have a point that once a lease expires it is the duty of its management role to adjust the rental rate to market value.  The price of property and the scarcity of available rentals has sent rents soaring in the past few years.  This is an obvious hazard for those intending a lifetime of rental tenancy.

The law does require landlords to maintain rental properties in good working order. Utilities that form part of the property must be replaced or repaired if they cease to function and in todays competitive world many tenants are reluctant to demand their rights because of fear of eviction.  That " no cause " eviction order is a catch-all option that can be deployed without the need to state a reason for the eviction.

Of course, in the combative nature of politics the party not in power will promise all sorts of remedies that they may abandon should they ever win office, but there does seem room for the government to introduce a degree of fairness by way of legislation.

Perhaps that " no cause " eviction notice may have passed its use-by-date and should be rescinded.  It would not be unreasonable for tenants to expect to hear why they are being asked to leave rather than just being served an unstated eviction order and perhaps rent increases should be limited to half yearly intervals.   Constant rent changes can be oppressive and impossible to budget and market changes rarely occur with such necessity.

We would do well to remember the draconian imposition of "rent control " imposed at the start of the second world war.  Decades later, we had " protected tenants "  paying rentals that failed to even meet the outgoing for council rates on the properties they occupied.   This is an area to be legislated with great caution.