The WA state government will introduce urgent new laws to protect tenants and landlords impacted by COVID-19 to parliament this week. <\/p>\n
Premier Mark McGowan has emphasised that the legislation is part of a range of measures designed to minimise the financial impact of COVID-19.<\/p>\n
“What we’re introducing are sensible amendments to help landlords and tenants to work together during these challenging and uncertain times\u201d, he said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He stressed that while a tenant who cannot pay rent due to the impact of the pandemic will have protection under the law, there will be a requirement for the rent to be repaid when the economic crisis lessens. <\/p>\n
“It is important for residential tenants to understand that what we’re introducing is a moratorium on eviction, not a moratorium on rent\u201d, he said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Under the proposed reforms, tenants must continue to pay rent. If a tenant can’t pay their rent they will still have to pay it later, so continuing to pay rent will increase your chances of keeping debt to a manageable level.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Commerce Minister John Quigley acknowledged there will likely be an inevitable spike in residential tenancy-related disputes, and that the government was preparing for this with the introduction of a mandatory conciliation step in the dispute resolution process. <\/p>\n
“This will act as a buffer between complainants and the Magistrates Court and the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) protecting the Magistrates Court and SAT from being flooded by residential tenancy dispute applications\u201d, he said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Residential Tenancies (COVID-19 Response) Bill 2020 will introduce:<\/p>\n
a moratorium on eviction for six months except in limited circumstances including, for example: if a tenant is causing serious damage to the property or injury to the landlord or a person in adjacent premises; the landlord or tenant is experiencing undue hardship; a tenant is experiencing family violence and the perpetrator needs to be evicted; the tenant abandons the premises; or the agreement is frustrated;<\/li>\n a prohibition on rent increases during the emergency period;<\/li>\n that any fixed term tenancy agreement due to expire during the emergency period will continue as a periodic agreement;<\/li>\n relieving lessors of the obligation to conduct ordinary repairs if the reason they cannot do so is COVID-19 related financial hardship or a lawful restriction on movement; and<\/li>\n enabling a tenant to end a fixed term tenancy prior to its end date without incurring break lease fees (tenants will still be liable for damage and rent arrears).<\/li>\n The Commercial Tenancies (COVID-19 Response) Bill 2020 has also bee prepared to introduce a moratorium on evictions for small commercial tenancies and provide a range of other measures to offer support for tenants in response to COVID-19, including the introduction of a code of conduct for landlords and tenants.<\/p>\n
“The code of conduct is consistent with the principles announced by the Prime Minister following the National Cabinet meeting earlier this month and creates a framework for good-faith negotiations between landlords and tenants to encourage rent relief and other cost-sharing arrangements”, Minister Quigley said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Updated information relating to the changes is available on the Consumer Protection website:
\nResidential Tenancy
\nhttps:\/\/www.commerce.wa.gov.au\/consumer-protection\/covid-19-coronavirus-consumer-protection-faq#Tenancy<\/a>
\nCommercial Tenancy
\nhttps:\/\/www.commerce.wa.gov.au\/consumer-protection\/covid-19-coronavirus-consumer-protection-faq#CommercialTenancy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WA state government will introduce urgent new laws to protect tenants and landlords impacted by COVID-19 to parliament this week. Premier Mark McGowan has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wcpt.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}