Page 1876 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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arising from that review. The Residential Tenancies Act commenced on 25 May 1998. The act regulates the relationship between landlords and tenants in the ACT and does not distinguish between public and private tenancy agreements. The act aims to achieve a fair and effective balance between the rights of both parties to any residential tenancy agreement in the ACT.
Alongside this bill I am also tabling the review report. While the review of the act is now complete, the report outlines a number of recommended amendments that require further engagement with the community. The Justice and Community Safety Directorate is having initial discussions with stakeholders around these issues. However, further consultation is still needed before implementing these reforms.
For this reason members will note the bill does not respond to every recommendation of the review report. Instead, the report outcomes not addressed by this bill will form the foundation for future reforms to the act that reflect strong engagement with the community and achieve a reasonable level of support.
The bill I am presenting today proposes first stage reforms comprising simple and immediate changes to the act and the Uncollected Goods Act. At its core, this bill will update and better preserve the appropriate balance of rights between tenant and landlord. Achieving this proper balance is very important. In 2011-12 the ABS recorded that approximately 23 per cent of ACT households are in private rental while 7½ per cent rent from a public housing authority. This means that more than 30 per cent of our population rent.
Most importantly, changes in the bill provide a means for tenants who experience domestic or family violence to change their living arrangements and secure the premises where they live. These amendments recognise that accommodation and the prospect of financial hardship can cause people to hesitate in choosing to leave an abusive relationship.
For this purpose, the bill expands an existing provision which allows a person to apply to the ACAT to vary their rental arrangements where they are the subject of a final domestic violence or personal protection order. Specifically the bill amends the act to allow a protected person to seek an ACAT order to terminate an existing residential tenancy agreement and potentially to require the lessor to enter a new agreement with them. Any new agreement will, however, be subject to the same rent term and frequency of rental payments.
This new facility is limited. For the ACAT to grant either the order terminating the existing agreement or the order requiring the lessor to enter into a new agreement, it must be satisfied that the order is reasonable in light of the length of the protection order, the remaining term of the lease and the interests of other tenants and take into account hardship the lessor would suffer as a result of the order and the protected person’s ability to comply with the terms of the lease.
The bill updates the provision that allows either a lessor or tenant to terminate the lease due to a posting to or away from Canberra. To give the other party more adequate time to arrange their affairs, the bill will require at least eight weeks’ written notice.
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