Rental commish has pet bans, evictions in sights

Nothing succeeds like success and if the newly minted rentals commissioner is anything like as productive as Building Commissioner David Chandler, then the whole rentals scene in the state can expect a major shake-up.

It’s not hard to see on which side of the landlord/tenant divide Trina Jones will sit, having stated that she has the task of pushing through changes to legislation that will end no-fault evictions and pet bans in rental properties. 

All of that is very much in her wheelhouse, as they say. As CEO of Homelessness NSW, she was solidly behind the less fortunate members of society.

And however much some landlords may claim that renters hold all the trump cards, owning multiple properties with “difficult” tenants hardly puts you in the same category as people who have to sleep in their cars.

“Everyone should have a decent, safe, affordable home,” Ms Jones wrote in social media on the morning she was presented to the public by NSW Premier Chris Minns. “This is something I have been working towards my entire career. It’s a core value I hold and I am deeply motivated to continue this work as the inaugural NSW Rental Commissioner.

“My focus will be on quality, fairness and affordability for the two million renters in NSW. To be a be a voice with and for renters working with industry, government and advocates to shape policy, regulation and law for a fairer renting system.”

She added that she looked forward to strengthening “existing and new partnerships to drive solutions to our housing challenges to make renting fairer in NSW.”

All said and done, there’s no need for landlords to panic. This will not happen overnight but, as the TV hair product ads used to say, it will happen.

And this is of specific interest to apartment owners and residents as half of the population of NSW’s apartment blocks are tenants.

When it comes to rental reforms, Ms Jones has been given a head start with the recent passage of the Rental Fairness Bill which the Minns Government says has closed existing loopholes and extended the ban on soliciting rental bids so that it applies to third-party platforms and owners, not just real estate agents.

It also empowered the NSW Rental Commissioner to gather pricing data from agents, allowing her to provide informed and accurate advice to government.

And it established the powers needed to create and implement a portable bond scheme that will make sure renters don’t have tie up twice as much money when they transition from one rental to another.

Closing loopholes and providing the NSW Rental Commissioner with the powers needed to find solutions across government will pave the way for further action, Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading Anoulack Chanthivong said of the Bill’s passage.

That includes making it easier for tenants to have pets in rentals and to curb “no fault” evictions.

The latter will probably set the loudest alarm bells ringing among investors. Ending tenancies has long been a way of avoiding Tribunal conflicts over “excessive” rent rises, with the trade-off being that perfectly good tenants were sent packing so that their replacements could be charged more.

A real estate agent in Sydney’s East even advised their clients to evict all their tenants in order to take full advantage of rampant post-Covid rent rises.

No-fault evictions were banned in Victoria a couple of years ago.  There tenants can challenge a claimed exemption – such as the owner wanting to move themselves or their family into the property, or sell it – but the owner faces severe penalties if they subsequently turn out to have lied.

The next phase of the housing reforms will see a strata commissioner join Ms Jones, Building Commissioner David Chandler and Property Services Commissioner John Minns.

They’re not quite the Four Horsepersons of the Property Apocalypse – unless you are a dodgy developer, rotten real estate agent, lowlife landlord or, one assumes, a  corrupt and/or incompetent strata committee member.

A version of this column first appeared in the Australian Financial Review.