The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the financial stability of a large number of  NSW renters, all at once, threatening a wave of potential evictions. In response, the NSW Government introduced a range of protections and supports for renting households, including at various times freezes on evictions and frameworks for rent reductions.

Moving is expensive, it all adds up.

We all know the pain of moving - the stress, anxiety, and high costs involved. Lots of us hold off from moving even when we want to because it just seems way too expensive.[1] Now put yourself in renters’ shoes. We move more often than our owner-occupier neighbours. Over 80% of private renters have moved in the last 5 years; a third have moved between 2 - 3 times; and 10% have moved 5 times or more.

Amanda has been a Tenant Advocate at the Northern Rivers Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service for 15 years. She is now taking a well-earned break and looking at other possibilities. We took the opportunity to catch up with her and ask her for some reflections on her experiences, and on the situation of renters in NSW. 

Premier Dominic Perrottet has today announced a new cabinet of Ministers for NSW. The line-up includes a number of revamped ministerial portfolios, so there may be some amendments to the below once the ‘machinery of government’ changes are released and we see exactly what all of the below means. For now here is an initial guide to the renting-related portfolios!

As part of our relaunch of the Make Renting Fair campaign, we're building a new website. For the site, we're collecting a range of renting stories from various renters across NSW, to put a human face to some of the policy issues we're campaigning on. Riki is a renter who was generous enough to share their renting story and photograph with us. If you're at all interested, please consider sharing your renting story with us - especially if you're happy for a photo of yourself to be included with that story.

On November 11 the NSW ban on evictions for impacted tenants ended. We’ve now moved into a period of transitional protections. This means if you are an 'impacted tenant' and built up rent arrears during the moratorium period (14 July – 11 November) there are still restrictions in place to protect you against eviction for arrears. A landlord can only evict you for arrears during the transitional period if the Tribunal determines it’s ‘fair and reasonable’ to do so.