As many of you are aware the New Residential Tenancies Act is now not likely to be introduced until next year.

Below are a summary of benefits of key reforms for the Residential Tenancies Act 1986

The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill will:

• Extend the protection of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (including access to advice, information and dispute resolution services) to more people involved in renting, such as tenants in retirement villages, through:
• Repealling section 5(I) of the Act, which exempts tenancies where the cost or value of meals or services provided by the landlord forms more than 20 per cent of the rent.

Protects Tenants from substantial liability for damage to the premises by limiting a tenant's liability for damage to four times the weekly rent, if the Tenancy Tribunual or a court is satisfied the tenant neither:

• Caused the damage intentionally or recklessly;nor
• intentionally or recklessly encouraged or permitted another person to damage the premises.

Clarify responsibility for outgoings, such as rates and electricity charges, by introducing overarching principles under which:

• Landlords are responsible for charges incurred regardless of whether the premises are occupied and charges for common facilities.
• Tenants responsible for charges which can be exclusively attributed to their occupation of the premises or their use of facilities.

Introduce clearer and fairer processes for terminating and renewing tenancies, in order to provide an appropriate balance between flexibility and certainty of tenure, including:

• Requiring landlords to state a reason if ending a periodic tenancy on less than 90 days notice, in order to ensure that the grounds for termination are valid.

Providing for fixed term tenancies of more than 90 days duration to automatically become periodic upon expiry, unless:

• The parties enter into a new agreement, or
• One of the parties gives written notice to the other of their intention not to enter into another tenancy, at least 21 days (but no more than 90 days) before the expiry of the term.

Allowing a party to give short notice to end a tenancy where the premises are destroyed or so seriously damaged as to be uninhabitable due to a breach fo the tenancy agreement by the other party, and where the party in breach is the landlord, allow the tenant to stop paying rent.

Allowing the Tribunual to end a fixed term tenancy early if:

• Body corporate rules materially change during the course of a tenancy, and in the view of the Tribunual, it would be unreasonable to require the tenant to continue with the tenancy.
• A tenant has recieved notice of substantial rent increase and the amount of the increase was unforseen and will cause severe hardship.

Encourage Landlords and tenants to comply with their obligations  under the Act through:

• Increasing the the value of fines and exemplary damages that can be awarded for breaches of the Act, to ensure that the sanctions are meaningful and provide sufficient deterrent value.
• Providing for some tenant breaches to attract exemplary damages as an alternative sanction to eviction.
• Introducing sanctions for landlords who fail to comply with building health and safety regulations.

Provide for the majority of tenancy disputes to be resolved quickly, fairly and cost effectively as a result :

• Increasing the Tribunuals monetary jurisdiction form $12,000.00 to $50,000.00
• Increasing the monetary threshold on the automatic right to use legal representation from $3000.00 to $6000.00, to ensure that legal representation is only used when justified
• Removing the current restriction on the use of lay representatives that have been regularly engaged in advocacy work before other tribunuals, which limits the ability for existing tenant advocacy groups to provide assistance to tenants.
• Requiring the Tribunual to order the other party to a dispute to compensate the applicant for their filling fee, if the applicants claim was: Upheld in full by the Tribunal, or partially upheld by the Tribunal, and in the the opinion of the Tribunal it would be reasonable to make such an order.

Improve the enforceability of Tribunal orders by:

• Giving the Tribunal jurisdiction to make an order against and guarantor of a party to a tenancy agreement.
• Allowing a party to recover reasonable private debt collection costs associated with enforcing a Tribunal order.
• Assisting Tribunal creditors to locate debtors, by facilitating the release of address information held by government agencies to the District Court.