Leave the Residential Tenancies Act unchanged
Leave the Residential Tenancies Act unchanged
The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill has passed its first reading and the Government is calling for submissions before the 25th March 2020. A main concern for communities, whether the individuals are landlords or not, is the removal of the 90 day no cause termination.
This means that a landlord can no longer issue a 90-day notice for a tenant to vacate a property. Instead the landlord has to persuade neighbours to complain about a tenant’s disruptive and antisocial behaviour at least three times in writing before the landlord can apply to remove them. Then it will be another 90 days or so before the tenant vacates the property.
When a neighbour of a disruptive tenant complains to a landlord, the landlord has to advise the tenant who complained about them. In addition, the neighbour who complained may have to appear in the Tenancy Tribunal and explain the issues they had with the tenant in front of that tenant.
Currently the 90 day no-cause termination is only used in about 3% of all cases. However, if this is removed from the legislation it means that approximately 7,000 tenants could disrupt the lives of many.
A fixed term tenancy automatically changes to a Periodic Tenancy and the tenant can stay if they want, if as the landlord you don't want them to stay but they do, the tenant has the ultimate control. As a landlord you can only remove the tenants for the following reasons
- property being renovated,
- property being demolished
- property being sold
- a family member moving in
- a change of business
The notice for this must be at least 90 days. There are no other provisions in the new bill to move a tenant on. The tenant however can leave with 28 days notice at anytime.
Under this proposed bill landlords now have 60 unlawful acts, 24 criminal offences and pecuniary penalties of up to $50,000 added, and the addition of improvement notices and enforcement undertakings added. Whereas no penalties have been added for tenants.
Landlords don't have to be landlords so why make it harder for people to provide houses for others.
To make a submission before the 25th March, click here