NSW Fair Trading Minister, Linda Burney, today announced that following a three-month consultation process, an overwhelming response had been received on proposed changes to tenancy laws. 

Ms Burney said in September 2007 Fair Trading released a consultation paper outlining proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 and an enormous amount of feedback had been received in response. 

“The proposed reforms generated over 1000 responses from individuals and groups including renters, landlords and real estate agents,” Ms Burney said.

“Feedback was received in the form of written submissions, responses to an online survey, and comments via an online blog. In addition, 915 people attended face-to-face sessions conducted in regional and metropolitan areas which were an important way of gathering feedback directly from the community.”

Ms Burney said the responses consisted of approximately 300 written submissions, almost 850 online responses, and nearly 40 comments posted on the online blog.

“Around 40 per cent of the online responses came from landlords, 30 per cent from real estate agents and under 10 per cent from tenants. This is a very important finding because it shows how crucial using online technology is to reach some sectors of the community.

“Face-to-face sessions are still vital because they were successful in generating a number of responses from Aboriginal tenants. The same is true with the written responses: at least 25 per cent of written submissions were from tenants.”

An assessment of the submissions to date has shown that topics generating the greatest response included:

• the process of dealing with tenants in rent arrears 
• rights of tenants when a mortgagee seeks to recover possession
• ability of tenants to alter or add to the rented property
• dealing with disputes between co-tenants 
• how to handle goods left behind when a tenant vacates.

Ms Burney said it is expected that new laws, incorporating the views of landlords, agents, tenants and key interest groups, will be introduced to Parliament for debate later this year.

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