Resources for tenants

Tips for Smarter Sharing: RLC's Share Housing Survival Guide

With university back in session for another year, it is a busy time for students looking for accommodation.

Share housing is a good option for many students, but finding a place to live can be daunting, especially for students moving out of home for the first time or studying interstate or overseas, far away from family and friends.

RLC's Share Housing Survival Guide is a great a starting point for anyone seeking advice on share house living in NSW.

This online resource is designed specifically with students in mind, and provides a mix of practical and legal information for people in share housing.

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Boarding Houses and the Law

RLC is excited to introduce our latest publication, Boarding Houses and the Law.

This legal guide for people living in boarding houses in NSW explains the ins and outs of the Boarding Houses Act 2012, as well as other laws that can apply to boarding houses. It covers things like:

• What places are and aren’t covered by the Boarding Houses Act
• The differences between being a tenant and a boarding house resident
• How consumer laws apply to Boarding Houses
• The Register of Boarding Houses
• The Occupancy Principles
• Taking disputes to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal
• Sample letters and a number of useful resources and contacts.

Boarding Houses and Law is intended to help residents navigate these issues and give them information about all of their legal options.

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Working For Change

Review of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW)

The five-year review of the Residential Tenancies Act is continuing with a new Bill expected to be introduced to NSW Parliament in April 2018.
 
RLC has participated in a number of government consultations during the review and has consistently called for:

• an end to “no reason” evictions
• more flexible provisions for tenants escaping domestic violence
• better protections for people living in share accommodation.

RLC has been particularly vocal in its calls for reform to Section 10 of the Residential Tenancies Act. Section 10 states that a sub-tenant who doesn’t have a written tenancy agreement with their head-tenant is excluded from the Act.

This leaves most sub-tenants with no effective rights. They are powerless to stop things like:

Image: Gavel and Lion (CC)

• being evicted without notice or with very little notice, or
• not being given their bond back when they leave, or
• living in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions.

So far during the review, the government has been reticent to address this gap in the law.

READ RLC’s SUBMISSION>

Section 10: Caroline’s story

Caroline* responded to an ad on Gumtree for a room in an apartment in Glebe. The room was being let by Jan* who was renting the apartment and occupied the main bedroom. Caroline got a receipt for the $1,200 bond that she paid, but didn’t think to ask for a written tenancy agreement from Jan.
 
Over the next two months, Jan became increasingly hostile and on one occasion this hostility turned to violence with Caroline having to call the police.

Caroline decided to leave for her own safety. Jan refused to pay Caroline any of her bond or the one week of rent that she had paid in advance.

Caroline applied to NCAT to get her bond and rent back but her case was thrown out under Section 10 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010.

Under this section, the Tribunal could only recognise Caroline as a tenant if she had a written agreement with Jan, which she did not have. Caroline never got her money back.

RLC has persistently been calling for changes to the Residential Tenancies Act so people in Caroline’s situation can have NCAT resolve their dispute
 
* Names have been changed

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017

RLC has raised a number of concerns about the Social Service Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017 (Cth). If passed, the Bill would give broad powers to Centrelink to deduct a portion (or the entirety) of a tenant's welfare payment and pay it to the tenant's social housing provider without the tenant having any effective choice.
 
In RLC'S submission to the the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, we said that the Bill should not proceed because it:

• goes too far in allowing tenants' welfare payments to be involuntarily deducted for a wide range of payments and debts, without caps on the amount that can be deducted.
   
• fails to provide procedural fairness to tenants. It provides no obligation to advise a tenant that their welfare payment will be deducted, no additional review mechanisms and no requirement that a tenant's circumstances be considered before their welfare payment is deducted.
   
• unreasonably limits tenants' financial flexibility, discourages financial independence and may increase tenants' financial hardship.

• relies on a social housing provider's assessment of how much a tenant owes when, in practice, RLC frequently encounters cases where social housing providers claim amounts that are unfair, incorrect or are not lawfully able to be claimed from tenants.

In February 2018, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that elements of the Bill may be incompatible to the right to social security, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to protection of the family and the rights of children.

The Committee also raised concerns about the Bill's impact on the right to equality and non-discrimination, given that it will disproportionately impact women, people with a disability and aboriginal people.

READ RLC’s SUBMISSION>

Make renting fair: It's time to end 'no grounds' evictions 

RLC is proud to support Make Renting Fair, a campaign calling for a better, fairer deal for renters in NSW.

Under sections 84 and 85 of the NSW Residential Tenancies Act 2010, people renting in NSW can currently be evicted by their landlord without being given a reason. 

"So many tenants we see at RLC are too scared to challenge unfair rental increases, or they avoid seeking urgently needed repairs for fear of losing their home," explains RLC Tenants' Advocate, Kimberley Mackenzie.

"While there are legal avenues available for tenants to argue that a 'no grounds' termination is not valid, this is generally too onerous for the tenant to pursue. Law reform is urgently needed," Kimberley says.

RLC's Acting Tenancy Coordinator Tom McDonald with Ned Cutcher from the Tenants' Union of NSW, promoting the Make Renting Fair Campaign.

Learn more about the Make Renting Fair campaign and sign the petition at www.rentingfair.org.au

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RLC in the Media

'You won’t graduate': Claims international students are being exploited by housing providers

Loopholes in the law for university-affiliated housing providers are leaving international students wide open to exploitation, says RLC International Student Solicitor, Sean Stimson.

SBS News speaks to a former client of RLC, whose university enrolment was put at risk because of a dispute about a fee owed to his housing provider.
 

Former international student Farhan Chowdhury was told leaving his university-owned accommodation early would cost him almost 10-times his weekly rent in outstanding fees.

RLC is calling for law reform to the ESOS Act to prevent university-based housing providers from linking student accommodation fees as education debts.

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'You just take it': the students at the sharp end of Sydney's housing nightmare

Despite a crackdown on illegal boarding houses, a lack of affordable housing continues to force many international students into exploitative, sometimes illegal living arrangements.

RLC's International Student Solicitor, Sean Stimson, and Leo Patterson Ross from Tenants' Union of NSW speak to The Guardian about trends they’re seeing in tenancy-related scams.

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Other News...

Introduction of Police Checks for public housing applicants in the Inner City

In early March, people on the public housing waiting list received letters from FACS Housing stating that they must consent to Police Checks before they are offered a property in Glebe, Waterloo, Redfern or Surry Hills.

Applicants found to have a conviction or charge “related to drug supply” in the past five years would be “ineligible” to live in those suburbs, effectively cutting them off from over three quarters of the public housing stock in Inner Sydney.

RLC is concerned that there was little to no consultation before such a significant policy was introduced and is seeking clarification from the Department on a number of its aspects.

We are also keen to hear from anyone who has been affected by this policy.

Proposed NSW debt recovery laws improved by amendments: CLCNSW and RLC

Earlier this month, Community Legal Centres NSW and RLC successfully lobbied to get key reforms introduced to the State Debt Recovery Bill 2017, offering additional protections for people experiencing hardship.

RLC welcomes the amendments, and will continue to advocate for changes to the Debt Recovery Guidelines so that the application of the new laws do not further disadvantage people already experiencing financial problems.
 

RLC's Credit and Debit Solicitor, Laura Bianchi said:

"Research from the Law and Justice Foundation shows that disadvantaged people are hit hardest by the impact of fines, because any inability to pay on time leads to escalating penalties and further financial strain. These new laws will impact our client's lives in the same way.

"The system needs to be designed to ensure that vulnerable people experiencing disadvantage do not fall through the cracks.”

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