ABOUT

Tenants' Union news

Also check out our blogTenant News archivemedia appearances, and Housing News Digest.
For factsheets and sample letters, please see Tenancy info.


 

Healthy Homes for Renters at NSW Parliament

Group photo at briefing Healthy Homes for Renters
Yesterday the Tenants' Union of NSW alongside Better Renting and Sweltering Cities provided a briefing on Healthy Homes for Renters to a diverse, cross section of Members of the NSW Parliament. The briefing focused on the need for energy efficiency standards in rental  homes and renters’ current experience of unhealthy homes in NSW.
Read more

Who is using the Tribunal and why?

Heat map re evictions
We are always trying to better understand what is happening for NSW renters. We want to make sure we can identify the problems and pressures renters are experiencing, as well as whether the policies and laws in place to support them are working. In this blog we use data from NCAT about the lodgements of their tenancy and social housing lists over the past financial year, that is July 2021 - June 2022 and ask who is taking action, and about what?
Read more

Evicted! Comedy about renting in Sydney

Group of housemates
Evicted! is a new comedy about renting in Sydney. The film won the audience award for best feature at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival. It follows a ragtag bunch of millennial housemates who get evicted and have to navigate the hellish rental market in search of a new place to call home, all on top of job hunting, side hustling and dating.
Read more

Outasite - land lease community magazine

Outasite logo
The Tenants' Union has just published issue 8 of Outasite – our annual printed publication for land lease communities! It has been delivered to mailboxes in communities all over NSW.
Read more

Devastating impact of the floods in the Tweed Chinderah Area

Flooded land lease community
Residential land lease communities in the Northern Rivers region of NSW were severely impacted by floods in early 2022. Many land lease communities are located on low lying, flood-prone land which means that flooding events like the one earlier this year can cause severe destruction and devastation to the community.
Read more

Fixed method site fee increases becoming the trend

Charles
The Tenants’ Union have noticed a trend towards operators preferring to use the fixed method for site fee increases. This trend has many implications for home owners and will ultimately lead to higher site fee increases, well above actual costs incurred in operating and maintaining residential land lease communities by the operator.
Read more

Fair Market Value – A win in one case and an anomaly uncovered in another

the N Cat
An anomaly has been exposed in the safeguards for fair market value when setting site fees in new site agreements, when the operator owns the home that is being sold.
Read more

The non-compliant mediation form

Outasite logo
An NCAT matter began as a collective application disputing a site fee increase at Milton Valley Holiday Park. At formal hearing the Member decided the Tribunal did not have jurisdiction on a collective application challenging a site fee as excessive because the mediation application was not accompanied by a schedule of at least 25% of home owners. The Fair Trading compulsory mediation application form doesn’t have a place for this schedule and does not provide any information that this is a requirement.
Read more

Residents battle for clean water

specimen jars showing dirty water
Residents of a land lease community in western metropolitan Sydney have been forced to do battle over the quality of their drinking water. They have been concerned for a considerable period of time about the quality of the water supplied by their community operator. 
Read more

Emergency services vehicle access

the entrance to sweetwater grove
This article highlights the importance of operator compliance with all requirements under the Residential Land Lease Communities Act 2013 (RLLC Act). Operators are required under the RLLC Act to ensure that there is 24 hour unimpeded emergency vehicle access to the community. An operator is required to consult with residents and all relevant emergency and home care services regarding access arrangements in the community.
Read more