Residential Tenancies Legislation Amendment Bill 2016

The Australian Capital Territory Parliament has passed the Residential Tenancies Legislation Amendment Bill 2016. The Bill was a response to a review of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 and aims to amend the Act to make it easier for a tenant who is impacted by domestic violence to change their living arrangements if necessary. The Bill attempts to give effect to a number of recommendations arising from the review to address this concern.

The Report

In his second reading speech, Attorney General, Simon Corbell, explained that the report made a number of recommendations would that would require further community consultation. For this reason, the current Bill proposes only first stage amendments to the Act. Other recommendations from the report will form the foundation for future reforms and bills. The current Bill will tackle matters pertaining to tenants who experience domestic or family violence to allow them to change their living arrangements.

Overview of Amendments

The key amendments as highlighted in the summary to the Bill will be:

• Allowing for a person protected (they do not need to have a final protection order) to apply to the ACT Administrative Tribunal for orders to vary their tenancy arrangement in circumstances where they may be suffering domestic violence. Specifically, it would allow the protect person to see an order to terminate the existing tenancy agreement and potentially require the lessor to enter a new agreement with them;
• Providing better clarification to section 44 of the Act (the significant hardship provision) to allow termination of a tenancy agreement where a protected person is living on the premises with the respondent to the protection order; and
• Amending the Act to explicitly include as an item that the lessor may deduct from the bond the reasonable costs of re-securing a property where a tenant has failed to return keys to the lessor at the conclusion of the tenancy.

Mr Corbell stressed that:

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 Residential Tenancies Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, Bill, Second Reading Speech and Explanatory Memorandum as published on LawOne