Some Of The Main Proposed Changes To Take Place:
1. Stricter laws in place when it comes to evicting tenants
2. Rent changes to be made annually
3. Increase in penalties for landlords not meeting standard criteria
4. Tenant can make changes to property with little or no say from the landlord
Lets take a closer look
1. Stricter laws in place when it comes to evicting tenants.
Periodic Tenancies
Currently to end a periodic tenancy the landlord provides the tenant with 90days notice and is not required to provide any reasoning for terminating the tenancy. This is called no-cause termination of tenancy. A landlord must provide the tenant 42days notice if they are looking to sell or move a family member into the property.
With the proposed new law in place landlords may not be able to terminate a tenancy without sufficient cause or reason, making it much harder to evict tenants. Some suitable reasons for evicting a tenant could be property renovation, change in use of the property, tenant shows anti-social behaviour or has been 5days late with rental payments on 3 separate occasions.
The landlord can still end the tenancy if they wish to sell the property however will now be required to provide 90days notice instead of 42days.
Fixed Term Tenancies
Now when its coming up to the end of a fixed-term tenancy the landlord and tenant must come to an agreement together as to what happens next. They may come to an agreement to extend or renew the tenancy instead of terminating it.
With the law change the tenant will have more say in the decision and could demand to stay.
2. Rent changes to be made annually
Currently rent changes can be made on a 6monthly basis. With the proposed law rent changes would only be allowed to be made once a year. This is to give the tenants more stability within their tenancy with less changes being made.
3. Increase in penalties for landlords not meeting standard criteria
At the moment the Tenancy Tribunal can charge fines of up to $50 000 against the landlord. With the law changes in place this figure is set to double to $100 000. This is to ensure housing health and safety standards are met.
4. Tenant can make changes to property with little or no say from the landlord
At present the landlord needs to give consent if the tenant wishes to make any changes to the fixtures in the property. The changes will give tenants more freedom to make minor changes to the property such as baby proofing, hanging pictures, installing brackets to secure furniture in turn making the property more safer and liveable.
What do these changes mean for landlords?
If these changes do go ahead, the law will shift strongly in favour of the tenants. The chances of these laws being approved depend on how firmly the landlord campaign oppose these changes. Depending on the outcome the proposed laws may be stopped or weakened in favour of the landlords.
Landlords have less of a say when it comes to certain issues regarding tenancy. Tenants will be given more rights which makes it more difficult for the landlord to make changes to tenancies on demand. These proposed changes will be discussed by the Government and due to be announced mid-2020.
