Page 572 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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declaration stating the reasons they are terminating the tenancy if their grounds are that a family member will be moving to the property or they are conducting major renovations or the house is to be sold; and require lessors to allow tenants to pay their rent directly into a bank account nominated by a lessor.
Before going any further, I will talk about human rights. The scrutiny committee made comments on my amendments, in particular proposed new section 11AA. This amendment requires that any advertisement for the lease of a residential property include notice of either a term that is inconsistent with standard residential tenancy agreements that had been endorsed by ACAT or a term requiring the lessor’s consent to keep an animal at the property and any conditions regarding the keeping of animals at that property that had been endorsed by ACAT.
The report draws attention to the fact that this amendment may limit the freedom of expression protected by section 16 of the Human Rights Act 2004. If passed, this amendment will allow prospective tenants to avoid inspecting or applying for a particular rental property if it does not meet their requirements; for example, if there is a term prohibiting the keeping of certain animals.
Sadly, it is not common for tenants to see a lease, and any non-standard terms that may be in it, before they have been advised that they are the successful applicant for a rental property and are sitting down to sign that lease. Questioning the landlord or agent about lease conditions prior to this point may be problematical. Firstly, the person who is actually opening the property for inspection may not be aware of the existence or nature of any non-standard terms. Secondly, a prospective tenant may be concerned that asking such questions will endanger their prospects of being offered a lease.
You normally only actually see the lease and sign it when you pick up the keys, which quite possibly—generally, in fact—will be after you have already given notice where you were renting before. In fact, it may be on your moving day. In my most recent renting experience, I only saw the non-standard agreements at that stage, when it was far too late for me to disagree with some of the things which could well have been regarded as problematical. The outcome could be different if, when people were offered a lease, they were able to find out about any non-standard terms beforehand rather than being presented with the dilemma of accepting terms that are less than ideal or making a very difficult decision to reject.
In terms of human rights compliance, I believe that this amendment places a quite reasonable requirement on lessors and their agents. It places a similar requirement as section 11A of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, which requires lessors to publish information about the energy efficiency rating of a rental dwelling, although it is worth noting that the compliance of real estate agents with this in particular is, very sadly, very lacking. Both the requirement for energy efficiency ratings and my proposed requirements serve to provide information that assists prospective tenants to make informed decisions.
Section 28 of the Human Rights Act allows for human rights to be limited if that limit is reasonable. The right that my proposed amendments may affect—the right of
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