Updates

The joint statement calling for further rental reforms in South Australia has garnered significant support. Initially backed by 5 organisations, the statement now has the endorsement of 43 organisations across the state. 

The statement outlines key areas for action:

• Abolishing no-cause evictions
• Limiting rent increases to CPI
• Introducing minimum energy efficiency standards
• Ensuring landlords cannot unreasonably refuse a pet

The growing number of signatories reflects the broad consensus on the need for these reforms. We encourage you to read the full statement and to email it to your MP today.

NSW recently sought submissions in response to a consultation paper on improving rental laws. Our submission provided feedback on removing 'no grounds' terminations, making it easier for renters to have pets, protecting renters' privacy, the issue of excessive rent increases, and the need for minimum energy efficiency standards for rental homes. The submission is available for download here.

We're looking for a Communications Officer to help build the Better Renting brand and community reach. While you’ll primarily support our communications work around energy justice for renters, including the 'Healthy Homes for Renters' campaign for minimum energy efficiency standards, you’ll also contribute to strengthening traditional media and digital engagement for Better Renting more generally.

In essence, we've created this role because we want to expand the comms capacity across the organisation. There is potential for us to do more with email and social media, but we need more staff capacity (and skills!) to help make this happen. There's so much powerful stuff we hear from renters, and we want to do more to get those stories out there. Ultimately, of course, 'exposure' isn't our end goal: we want to be turning this into power, and turning that into outcomes. Due to lots of incoming media requests we also want someone who can help field those, and someone who can be more pro-active about pitching out stories, but we do also have quite good skills in this area, and so this is a little less crucial. 

Better Renting and South Australian community sector organisations have co-authored a joint statement  calling for fair rental laws in South Australia. The statement emphasises the urgent need to update rental laws to ensure affordable, safe, and secure housing for renters. With an increasing number of renters facing a rental affordability and availability crisis, the letter highlights the critical opportunity to enact lasting and positive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1995. The reforms proposed in the statement aim to abolish no-cause evictions, limit rent increases to CPI, introduce minimum energy efficiency standards, and prevent landlords from unreasonably refusing pets. It's a crucial call for the state government to prioritise fair renting in South Australia.

In 2023 we celebrate five years since Better Renting started. As part of this, we're proud to share an Impact Report on 2021-2022, covering the last two years of operation. Through this time we've seen continued progress on rental reform and a national conversation around housing growing in ambition and urgency. 

You can download a PDF copy of the report here. Our 2018-2020 report is available here.

The latest ATO taxation statistics for 2020-21 provide an objective view on the position of those taxpayers with an interest in a rental property, with data going back to 1999-2000. We analysed the data to better understand the position of landlords and how this has changed over time. A brief paper on our findings is available here.

In part three of the rent control series, we’ll be taking a look at how San Francisco regulates rents with a view to informing rental policy reform in Australia. 

We’ve previously discussed the various rent control schemes in place across Australian jurisdictions. In this next series, we will take a look at how some international jurisdictions have implemented rent control. When we broaden our horizons it helps us to understand that there are many paths towards protecting the dignity and security of renters in this country.

This is the first post in a new series looking at rent control. In this post we will look at rent control in Australia. We will give an overview of what rent regulation is, what currently exists in each jurisdiction, and our reflections on what is needed. 

Next year the ACT government will begin implementing a minimum ceiling insulation standard for rental homes. We know that renters are suffering due to rental rate increases and cost of living pressures, including hugely inflated energy prices. Renters live in homes that are generally of a lower standard than owner-occupiers and our research shows that renters are vulnerable to the health effects of an excessively hot or cold property. At the same time, landlords have little incentive to improve the energy efficiency of a rental home, as they don’t pay the bills. Up to 40% of the heat in a home is lost through the roof, so it makes sense that the government has decided to focus first on ceiling insulation by introducing minimum ceiling insulation requirements for rental homes beginning on 1 April 2023.

With the Victorian state election coming up on 26 November 2022, we wrote to representatives from Labor, the Liberals and the Greens to ask their position on a range of key rental issues:

• ending no cause terminations,
• tackling excessive rent increases, and
• expanding energy efficiency minimum standards.

For each question we provided some context about why this issue matters and the response that Better Renting would want to see. We have reproduced this below, along with responses from the relevant party spokespeople. 

We received quite different responses, and we have not scored them or evaluated them against one another. However, we hope that by obtaining and presenting this information we can help you to take the responses into account as election day draws nearer.

I remember going to inspect rentals and being stoked to find a gas cooktop in the kitchen. Like many of us, I've had bad experiences of old electric stovetops that take an age to heat up and cool down. It's also sometimes unclear when they are even on, and I've burnt many a teatowel this way. Gas is what I (and my housemates, unhappy about burnt teatowels) wanted. 

I never want to see one of these again.

But in coming years, this isn't going to be so true. Gas is a fossil fuel and we need to stop burning it in our homes (it's also often more expensive, and it causes indoor air pollution which causes asthma). So it's becoming much more common for homes to be all-electric. Reverse-cycle AC is replacing gas heaters and gas stoves are being replaced by electric induction stoves which, thank heavens, do not have the many disadvantages of old-school electric cookers.

This is an exciting opportunity for people renting. No gas connection fees! Less childhood asthma! Being able to cool your home in summer! But there are also risks. In this little post I want to outline some risks and how Better Renting is thinking about this issue.

This fact sheet will deal with the requirements for a termination notice to be valid under ACT tenancy law. Both tenants and landlords can issue termination notices, but this overview focuses on those issued by landlords. Further, this fact sheet will not deal with terminations that are based on a breach of the agreement by either tenants or landlords. Our focus is on ‘no fault’ terminations. You can read more about how this category of termination functions around Australia here.

A notice is basically a formal communication relating to the tenancy agreement. A landlord may give you notice for a whole number of things, such as a notice to conduct an inspection. This fact sheet will deal with the specific requirements of a notice to increase the rent in the ACT. This information only applies if you are in a periodic tenancy agreement and not if you are starting or renewing a fixed term lease. 

This fact sheet will clarify the idea of "fair wear and tear" and help you to get your bond back. Many tenants can feel anxious near the end of your lease because your landlord may try to make a claim on your bond. Actually, the law in the ACT says that certain damage is okay - as long as it is "fair wear and tear", and your landlord cannot make a bond claim for this sort of damage. But the legislation is not super helpful when trying to figure out what this really means! This is where we come in.

How do you sleep at night?

With rental homes so cold, it's a reasonable question. We're joining with Healthy Homes for Renters to support people who rent to share our stories of what we have to do to cope with our crappy cold homes. 

You can learn more about the project and share your own story on the Healthy Homes for Renters website: https://www.healthyhomes.org.au/howdoyousleepatnight

It seems like every time anyone proposes doing anything to make things the slightest bit for renters, the real estate lobby comes out opposing the proposal — not because it would reduce landlord profits, no, but because it would lead to higher rents. For example:

"So, every time you take away a right that a property owner has...well, then all that will simply mean is fewer investors in the market and rents are going to go up, it's simple maths."

This is an absurd argument. In this post we'll try to take it down once and for all. In turn, we'll discuss:

• Why the fear-mongering about high rents is disguised self-interest,
• Why 'cost pass through' is not a real threat,
• The evidence that rental reform doesn't discourage investment, &
• The evidence that divestment won't reduce housing supply.

We are looking forward to the release of the 2021 Census results, which should be happening next week. In anticipation of those results, we thought we'd take a bit of a look at some data from the most recent census. When the latest census data comes out, it will be interesting to see what changes have happened. Key areas we are interested in are mobility in rental households, and changes in household composition.

We hear from lots of people interested in renting with pets. And it's no surprise: most Australian households have pets, and with more people renting long-term, more of us want the opportunity to have pets in a rental home.

If you rent in Queensland, here are answers to some common questions about renting with pets.

Better Renting was officially registered on 5 April 2018. Over the last three years, we're proud to have worked with renters to take a stand on the issues that affect us and contribute to changing the conversation and the laws around renting, across Australia. Our 2018-2020 Impact Report commemorates and celebrates everything our community has achieved over this time.

A recent national statement by community organisations from across Australia called for urgent action from Australian governments to protect renters during this crisis, proposing five measures for state and territory governments to implement. This report evaluates the ACT Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic against those measures. Despite some positive steps, the ACT Government is failing to provide renters with secure homes during a worldwide pandemic in which housing is a primary defence against the spread of infection.

By Joel Dignam, Executive Director, Better Renting.

Coronavirus has changed everything for renters and landlords. In a matter of weeks, a huge number of people have lost work. Renters were particularly affected, as they were more likely to be in insecure employment. Property investors had to face the possibility that their reliable income stream, derived from the waged labour of renters, might be drying up. 

In a number of blog posts, I hope to consider the immediate government response but also what we need to see in the medium and longer-term. But as context, this post is a foreword of sorts, considering where renters and the property market stood before the onset of coronavirus.