Create a Landlord Non-compliance Register
Petitioner:
Mrs Rachel Black
| Member:
Leong, Jenny
| No. of Signatories:
2,938
| Date closed:
30/04/2021
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,
In NSW, a tenant enters a lease with no indication of what the landlord has been like in the past. Tenants don’t have access to maintenance records, ex-tenant references or any tribunal dealings the landlord has been involved in.
By the time a tenant finds out there are maintenance or landlord issues, they have already spent the time and money moving in.
If tenants breach their contract, they may be put onto a privately-run tenancy database (the ‘tenant’s blacklist’). Landlords can gain access to this, and often remind tenants that if they breach their contract they will be put on the list.
If there is a tenancy database, it is only fair that there is an equivalent for landlords.
The Victorian government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2018 includes provisions for a ‘Rental non-compliance register’ that will list a rental providers name, the rental property address and the offence, compensation and/or compliance order.
We ask the Legislative Assembly to:
1. Create a Register of NCAT rulings against landlords. The government already has a ‘name and shame’ site for food safety penalty notices. If a landlord gets an NCAT ruling against them, they should be listed on a similar government site which is accessible to potential tenants.
2. Review the Tribunal’s power to impose and monitor orders on landlords. The tribunals need to start taking landlord breaches and fraud seriously and penalise them accordingly by giving orders.
