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Tenants' News
News from the Tenants' Union ACT
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Welcome to the Autumn edition of Tenants' News!
As the leaves start to fall and the Canberra chill sets in, it's a good time to reflect on the fact that we are lucky to have a warm bed to sleep in. April 13 was Youth Homelessness Matters Day, a National Youth Housing Coalition campaign aiming to break stereotypes, engage with government and business and increase access to services. 26,000 Australians aged between 12 and 25 are homeless. You can read about how to take action here.
The Tenants' Union has been gearing up for the 2016 International Tenants' Day festivities, kickstarting our Tuesday Night Tenants' Advice Service with the help of some fantastic volunteers, and eating lots of chocolate ready to hibernate for the winter*. Read on for some tips on keeping your rental property warm while your utilities bills stay chilled, and some recent ACAT decisions that have the TU cheering.
*Just kidding. The Tenants' Advice Service will be operating all winter.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to colleagues or anyone else who might be interested to receive it. A sign up form for this newsletter is available here.
What you'll find in this newsletter:
- TU News
- Housing and Tenancy News
- News from the Community Sector
- Renting in Autumn
- Significant cases in the ACAT
- Tenants' Advice Service
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What's on at TU
Tuesday Night Tenants' Advice Service
The Tenants' Union is now running a drop-in and late call-back service from 6-8pm on Tuesday nights. Clients must arrive by 6pm in order to be seen on the night. A huge thank you to our incredible volunteers! We are looking for more legally trained volunteers to help out on with TNTAS. Volunteers will be fully inducted and supervised by our Principal Solicitor. Please call 6247 1026 or email info@tenantsact.org.au if you are interested in volunteering.
Staffing changes
In January we said farewell to beloved part-time advice worker Kate, who has graduated University and is sinking her teeth into the graduate program at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. We are grateful to Kate for her years of service to TU as a volunteer and staff member and wish her the best of luck in her new role!
Saving the day once again is longtime TU rock star Nicola, who has been our office manager since 2014. Nicola has started working full time, combining her office manager role with new duties as the part-time advice worker. She constitutes to be the admin guru and is now also dazzling clients of the Tenants' Advice Service with her sage advice four days a week.
Community Legal Education
Tenancy law can be confusing, especially with people like Pearl the Landlord giving you the wrong information. Over the last year we have delivered education and information sessions to community workers at organisations such as the Supportive Tenancy Service, MARSS, Northside Community Service, and the One Human Services Gateway.
If you would like to organise an information session at your workplace or community group please get in touch by calling 6247 1026. We offer a wide range of sessions from basic information about our service and how to do referrals to in depth customised training for tenants and community workers.
New website
The TU's website gets more traffic than Northbourne Avenue at 5:30pm so it's very important to us that it is in tip-top shape and accessible when tenants need it most. We are upgrading to a smoother and more flexible web platform and are looking forward to updating our fact sheets and FAQs soon. If there is anything you would like to see more of on our website please email info@tenantsact.org.au and let us know!
Submissions on the review of the Residential Tenancies Act, introduction of a tort of privacy in the ACT & review of ACAT
TU recently responded to a list of amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act proposed by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate. The proposals related to endorsement of inconsistent terms, breakdowns in tenant relationships including domestic violence, share housing, minimum housing standards, end of tenancy issues and occupancy principles. TU is awaiting a draft bill to be released for comments.
TU recently made submissions to the Justice and Community Safety Directorate advocating for introduction of a tort of privacy in the ACT and for changes to ACAT. Tenants are particularly vulnerable to serious invasions of privacy and introduction of the tort would benefit tenants by deterring lessors and real estate agents from disregarding tenants' right to privacy. You can download our submissions from our website here.
International Tenants' Day
International Tenants' Day is celebrated on the first Monday of October and planning has started for this year's ITD festivities. The theme for the ITD Art Competition is 'It feels like home', and we will be continuing the portraiture project started in 2015. Check out http://www.itd-tuact.com/ for more information on what's coming up.
Vahini & Murali
2015 ITD Portraiture Project 'We Rent'
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Housing and Tenancy News
Changes to negative gearing rules
The ALP has announced their election policy of limiting negative gearing to new properties from July 2017 and cutting the capital gains tax concession to 25%.The Tenants' Union welcomes any initiatives by all political parties that aim to improve rental and housing affordability. You can read more about negative gearing here and here.
My Vote For Housing
No one should sleep rough in Canberra, but many people do. The ACT Council of Social Services and ACT Shelter have teamed up to make housing and homelessness the heart of the upcoming ACT election. You can help the campaign by telling your housing story here.
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News from the community sector
Legal Aid migration clinic and cultural liaisons
Legal Aid is now offering three one-hour appointments per week at the ANU Migration Clinic. The focus is to provide assistance to people with migration law issues who do not have the resources to access a private migration agent. Legal Aid have also engaged two Cultural Liaison Officers to assist different cultural groups in the ACT, particularly Muslim communities, to access legal services. For more information call 1800 654 314.
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Renting in autumn - fluffy socks, door snakes and gathering your acorns for the winter
Hot tips for cool tenants
- Reduce heat loss by sealing any cracks, use removable draught sealing tape around doors and windows and invest in some door snakes. This will keep heat in a room and prevent the outside draught coming in.
- Lower your heater’s thermostat by at least 1 degree to reduce your energy use by up to 10%. Ideal temperature for a thermostat during winter is 17-19 degrees.
- Close off the areas of the house that you are aren’t heating.
- Close blinds to trap the heat into the room and prevent it escaping through the windows.
- Switch off any appliances not in use at the wall – the cost of appliances not switched on that use standby power can add over $100 to your annual bill.
- Make sure you’re wearing layers when you’re at home. Break out the fluffy socks, jumpers, thermals and slippers to stop you feeling as cold. You can also stock up on blankets to keep around the house and rugs to insulate the floor.
- Instead of heating the entire bedroom, try heating just the bed with an electric blanket just before you go to sleep, but remember to turn it off before going to sleep.
- Hot water bottles can be great to keep yourself warm. Just remember to be careful not to burn yourself.
- Make sure you’ve cleaned or replaced furnace filters once a month. Dirty filters can restrict airflow and increase energy demand.
- Invest in an energy monitor. This device indicates household electrical usage and can indicate how much your bill is likely to be.
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Recent tenancy cases in the ACAT
BOAG v BURDON (Residential Tenancies) [2016] ACAT 6 (8 February 2016)
26 weeks no cause notice of termination - retaliatory notice - use of the word 'must' in the Act
The tenant issued two notices to remedy to the lessor regarding outstanding urgent and non-urgent repairs. The lessor failed to repair the issues. 8 months after issuing the second notice to remedy, the tenant received a 26 week notice to vacate. The tenant then took the lessor to ACAT and was awarded compensation for the repairs issues. When the lessor filed applied for a termination and possession order pursuant to the 26 week notice, the tenant argued it was retaliatory. The tenant had been unable to obtain another rental property because the lessor's agents had given poor references without explaining the situation fully.
Senior Member Lennard dismissed the application for termination. The agents indicated that they believed the tenant was a difficult tenant and SM Lennard said that the agent had a 'personal vendetta' against the tenant. SM Lennard held that 'the Act does not require that retaliation be the only motivation of the lessor for seeking to terminate a tenancy' and retaliation was a clear motivation for the termination that was not outweighed by the lessor's personal and financial circumstances.
SM Lennard commented:
"It is a matter of some concern to hear that real estate agents regard any tenant who asserts their rights under a residential tenancy agreement, or who makes an application to ACAT for orders requiring repairs (with the consequence that lessors are required to comply with their obligations under that agreement) to be undesirable. The evidence before the Tribunal revealed an unfortunate culture placing the desire of agents to have an easy working life above their obligations to the principal lessor, to the tenant, and the requirements that they act in accordance with the rules of conduct."
 Bond dispute – compensation – inoperative shower, dishwasher and heating – unusable deck – early vacating of premises by agreement
The lessor claimed $1595 damage to a gate. The tenant counter-claimed for repairs issues during the tenancy and the lessor's failure to honour an agreement to pay the tenant's removal costs due to early vacation for the lessor to move in.
Presidential Member McCarthy held that the photos of the gate provided by the lessor were insufficient to prove damage to the gate and dismissed the lessor's claim.
In relation to the tenant's claim, PM McCarthy noted that it is not a defence to the lessor to plead that reasonable steps were taken to rectify defects or that the lessor is relying on a third party to undertake repairs - the lessor is still in breach if non-urgent repairs are not carried out within 4 weeks or urgent repairs as soon as necessary. PM McCarthy accepted that loss of use of a large deck, one of three showers, ducted heating and dishwasher significantly interfered with the tenants' enjoyment of the property and awarded $2167.45 compensation. The lessor was ordered to uphold their agreement to pay compensation for early vacation and to pay the tenant's filing fee.
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Tenants' Advice Service
We understand the difficulties that people have in trying to access the TAS, and the frustration that people can experience with delays with reaching the service. Below we have outlined how we operate the TAS line in order to try and assist as many people as possible.
Our process:
- The advice line is a message bank only and is open between 10 and 11.30am Mon – Fri. People are asked to leave a message giving their full name; contact number, name of other party (agent, landlord, housing provider or co-tenant) and a brief overview of the problem. The message refers them to our website, www.tenantsact.act.org.au, where they can check our factsheets, FAQS and other publications
- TAS messages are checked daily, on some days when we are down from 2 to 1 (or no) advice workers, or demand has been too high we may not open the advice line and we will have a message that asks people to try again the following day.
- There is a triage system for call-backs based on urgency, this is why it is important for people to provide details
- Advice workers will make 3 attempts to contact a caller, always from a private number. After each unsuccessful attempt they will leave a voicemail message or send an SMS. Once 3 attempts have been made the caller will be advised to try to call the advice line again if they still need advice.
If a person can only be contacted at specific times it is important that they make this clear in their message.
Community organisations can make warm referrals by emailing advice@tenantsact.org.au.
If you would like to know when the TAS is open/closed, notices are listed each day at
https://twitter.com/tuact
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