Authors: Alan Morris, Professor, University of Technology Sydney; Emma Mitchell, Assistant researcher, University of Technology Sydney, and Gaby Ramia, Associate professor,

We heard this week of a landlord calling a local Tenants’ Advice and Advocacy Service complaining that the service had advised tenants to attempt to negotiate the rent. Despite this being the Prime Minister’s advice, this landlord was shocked at the concept. Of course tenants and landlords are always able to negotiate the rent - there is no barrier to negotiating the rent down, and there are some instances where the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 where the rent is reduced because of a reduction in use or services.

There’s a lot of phrases being used at the moment to describe some kind of change to the way we’ve gotten used to renting happening in Australia. People are discussing all sorts of ways for government to step in. Some of these phrases though, might not mean what people think they do.

So, since we’re stuck at home, waiting for government announcements, here’s a brief explainer of some of the different terms.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. 

Today is the start of the new renting with pets laws in Victoria. While the ACT was able to implement their equivalent laws faster, Victoria was the first state to take this stand. They will make a difference to many humans and animals.

Over the mid-2000s we saw mortgagee repossessions causing all sorts of issues for tenants. We drew attention to it and the experience gave rise to a serious rethink of the process. It lead to some pretty decent reforms including a 30 day rent free period following repossession. However, it may be time to rethink the broader response to failed mortgages in a falling property market. Our Principal Solicitor, Grant Arbuthnot has been thinking about an approach that would result in better outcomes than what we currently might expect!

We know that more than half of international students organise their accommodation before coming to Australia. And many of those caught up in the travel ban due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 are returning to courses that they have already commenced. They are likely to have existing accommodation arrangements.

Some twenty to thirty years ago I wrote two theses on the private rental market in New South Wales. They both documented and analysed residential tenancy law reform at that time. In a two-part series, I revisit these theses. Catch up on Part 1 here.

Some twenty to thirty years ago I wrote two theses on the private rental market in New South Wales. They both documented residential tenancy law reform and followed the report on ‘Law and Poverty’ by the Commonwealth Government’s Commission of Inquiry into Poverty, released in October 1975. This Inquiry was a major fillip for residential tenancy law reform across Australia. It argued (p 59) that landlord and tenant legislation across Australia was in many respects unfair, particularly for low-income and disadvantaged tenants.

Guest blogger Hayley Stone, Co-ordinator of the Eastern Area Tenants' Service and volunteer with the Rural Fire Service in the Blue Mountains, gives us some general guidance on getting your rental property prepared for bushfires.