Tenants will no longer be able to be evicted from their rental home without cause under new rental reforms proposed by the State Government. Submissions received in response to our review of the Residential Tenancies Act – to be released today – reveal that 68 per cent of the 5,565 South Australians surveyed support ending ‘no cause’ evictions. While 82 per cent are in favour of tenants being provided 60 days’ notice if a fixed term lease is not to be renewed. Under proposed reforms, landlords would only be able to end a periodic tenancy or to not renew a fixed term lease for a prescribed reason including any breaches by the tenant, wanting to sell, renovate or occupy the property. The government would also increase the minimum notice to end a tenancy from 28 days to 60 days so tenants will have more time to secure a new home and make the necessary arrangements to move. These reforms are in response to South Australia’s record low vacancy rate of less than 1 per cent. Recent data published by Shelter SA reveals that nearly 40 per cent of tenancies were terminated by the landlord with the end of a fixed lease being the most common reason given. 50 per cent of periodic tenancies ended with no reason given at all. Currently, this cannot be legally contested and combined with only 28 days to vacate causes considerable anxiety and housing insecurity for tenants. These reforms follow our earlier moves to address rental affordability including banning rent bidding - which passed Parliament last month - as well as raising the bond threshold and making more people eligible for the Private Rental Assistance Scheme, which saves people on low-incomes thousands of dollars by avoiding the upfront costs including bond and rent in advance by providing bond guarantees and rent payments. For the first time, tenants would also be allowed to keep pets in rental properties in South Australia with reasonable conditions to be set by their landlord such as keeping the animal outside. The government will soon begin targeted stakeholder engagement on these reforms with a bill to be introduced to Parliament later this year.
