THE CURRENT LAWS

WA renters have almost the least secure tenancies in Australia:

• Tenants can be evicted without any reason, at any point during a periodic tenancy provided 60 days’ notice is given by the landlord.
• Tenants can be evicted without any reason at the end of any fixed term tenancy provided with 30 days’ notice.
• The threat of eviction makes life extremely insecure for tenants, who are unlikely to assert their rights for repairs and maintenance, for fear of eviction.
• By contrast, in the ACT tenants must be given given 26 weeks’ notice at the end of a fixed term lease (and they are proposing to remove ‘without grounds’ evictions altogether!). In Victoria landlords are no longer allowed to give notice of termination without grounds during a periodic lease. 

How will this change? 

• Under the proposed reforms, landlords will still be able to end a tenancy at any time where tenants breach the agreement, or where they require the property back for another purpose, by following the correct process.
• Under the proposed reforms “no reason” evictions would be removed for periodic tenancies and limited to the first fixed term tenancy, after which landlords would need to give a reason, the tenant has breached the tenancy agreement.

WA renters have almost the weakest protections from unfair rent increases in the country.

• In WA, rents can be raised every six months, even on a fixed term lease, with no limit on the amount increased!
• Landlords only need to provide 60 days’ notice to increase the rent.
• In most other states rents can only be increased once a year, and tenants are given 8 weeks’ notice in the ACT! 
• In Perth rents have increased by 30 per cent since April 2020 (at July 2022, SQM Research)
• The regions have been hit particularly hard, with increases of 45 per cent in Busselton, 32 per cent in Geraldton, and 33 per cent in Port Hedland since April 2020 (at July 2022, SQM Research)

How would this change? 

• Under the proposed reforms rent increases would be restricted to once per year. 

The Make Renting Fair Alliance is calling for ten changes to the Residential Tenancies Act including: 

• The removal of “no reason” terminations
• Restricting rent increases to once per year and introducing a stabilisation mechanism