No-grounds evictions have been outlawed in New South Wales with the passing of new laws designed to rebalance power between the state’s 2.2 million renters and their landlords.
While the changes, promised before the 2023 election, did not go as far as some had hoped, advocates described the reforms as some of the biggest in the state’s history.
They make it harder for renters to be evicted, easier to rent with a pet and cap rent increases to once yearly.
The premier, Chris Minns, said renters had been “the forgotten people in NSW for too long and that ends now”.
“This brings the rental market into the 21st century,” he said on Friday.
The changes bring an end to no-grounds evictions, meaning landlords will be required to give reasonable and sensible reasons to end a fixed-term or periodic lease.
Additionally, the laws – which passed parliament on Thursday night – are designed to make it harder for landlords to decline tenants’ requests to keep a pet in a rental property.
However, the burden will fall on the renter to go to the NSW civil and administrative tribunal to appeal any decision against them about pets, which domestic violence advocates have argued puts the onus on the wrong person.
Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst successfully moved an amendment to ensure that, once an animal has been approved, it could continue to live with its owner at the property even if the landlord, agent, or lease changed.
Despite the reforms, she said she did not support the bill and described it as an “enormous disappointment” for doing “nothing to help” people trying to leave a domestic violence situation with their animal.
“It will mean that victims of domestic violence will continue to be prevented from leaving violent situations, simply because they cannot find rental housing for them and their animal companions,” she said.
“Ending no-grounds evictions will also not help the 70% of the population who have animals, because it is still going to remain virtually impossible for them to find rental housing with animals in the first place.”
Renters will also be protected from having to pay for background checks when applying for a property.
The Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive, Leo Patterson Ross, said the end to no-grounds evictions was the “single most significant change” to be made to residential tenancy law.
“Millions of renters have felt the impact of no grounds evictions in their lives – whether it was hesitating to ask for repairs or negotiate a rent increase, or having to find a new home without justification,” he said.
He said he would be celebrating the work of “generations” of advocates and activists who fought for change.
The NSW Greens housing spokesperson, Jenny Leong, said the state’s “totally cooked rental system” would be improved by the reforms.
“With more and more people set to rent for life these changes start to correct the power imbalance between landlords and renters by giving tenants the security and stability they need to plan their lives and set down roots in a community,” she said.
“Credit for what just happened in parliament belongs to all the organisations and activists who’ve dragged the government kicking and screaming to these reforms.”
The Homelessness NSW CEO, Dominique Rowe, said the changes would help ease the homelessness crisis.
“One of the main causes of homelessness is eviction from private rentals, so anything we can do to reduce evictions will keep people in housing and take pressure off our homelessness services,” she said.
