Have your say on South Australia’s rental laws

The state government of South Australia is kicking off an extensive review of the Residential Tenancies Act 1995 (RTA).  

Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs Andrea Michaels says the review starts with consultation with tenants, landlords, and housing organisations, ensuring that the eventual tenancy laws would be more timely and apt for the current market.

“As Australia continues to face a widespread rental crisis with lack of stock and affordability issues, it’s been one of my priorities to ensure we have contemporary, effective residential tenancies laws in this state,” she said.

“With cost-of-living pressures putting a real strain on household budgets across the board, now is the right time to look at how the rental property market has evolved, what people expect and how we can make our laws modern and fair for both tenants and landlords.”

The RTA and Residential Tenancies Regulation 2010 are the two main policies regulating the relationship between landlords and tenants in South Australia, but the former is the main source of consumer protections of renters.

The last substantive review of the RTA was undertaken in 2014. Since then, rental reforms have been initiated in all Australian jurisdictions.

South Australia’s Consumer and Business Services (CBS) has released a discussion paper exploring the areas of the RTA that could be up for revision and changes amid the review. Here are some of the areas mentioned and the questions CBS wanted to consult with stakeholders:

Longer Tenancies

• Should the RTA include a requirement for landlords to provide a prescribed reason for the termination of a periodic lease or the non-renewal of a fixed term tenancy agreement, and if so, what should these prescribed reasons be?
• Should the RTA be amended to accommodate longer fixed term tenancy agreements?
• Should the minimum notice period required prior to the non-renewal of a fixed term tenancy agreement be extended to 60-days?

Residential Bonds

• Should the relevant limit be increased to $800 to allow most tenants in SA to pay a bond of no more than the equivalent of 4 weeks’ rent?
• Should the RBO be made mandatory and require additional tenant contact details upon registration to minimise unclaimed bonds?

Rent bidding

• Should landlords and land agents be prohibited from advertising a property within a rent range, putting a property up for rent auction and soliciting offers to pay an amount of rent above the advertised price?

Rooming houses and shared accommodation

• Should the definition of a rooming house be amended to include rooming houses that accommodate 2 or more residents?
• Should the RTA establish a registration scheme for rooming houses that have 5 or more residents and require ‘fit and proper’ person checks for proprietors?

Renting with pets

• Should the RTA include the presumption that a tenant who applies to keep a pet in a rental property cannot have their request unreasonably refused, provided the tenant agrees to comply with any reasonable conditions imposed by the landlord?
• Should a pet bond scheme be introduced in SA?

Safety modifications and minor changes

• Should the RTA be amended to prevent the unreasonable refusal of safety modifications and minor changes including the installation of wall anchors, child safety gates, childproof latches, wireless outdoor cameras, showerheads, and internal window coverings?

Start of tenancy requirements

• Should the RTA require prospective tenants to use a standardised application form in any application for a rental property that has questions that restrict the amount of personal information a landlord or land agent can gather about a prospective tenant?
• Should the RTA be amended to prohibit landlords, land agents and database operators from charging a fee to a person who requests a copy of the personal information about themselves that is listed on a residential tenancy database?

Domestic violence provisions

• Are further amendments required to strengthen financial protections for victims of DV who are renting?

Water Billing

• Should the RTA require landlords to provide tenants with a copy of any water bill the tenant is required to pay within 30 days of receiving the water bill?
• Should responsibility for the payment of the water supply fee be paid by the landlord, as is the standard practice in other jurisdictions?
• Should landlords have a full or partial obligation to pay the excess water charges resulting from a reported water leak that remains unrepaired, noting this would require the RTA to define how excess water charges are identified?

Illegal drug activity

• Should landlords who know or suspect that illicit drugs have been manufactured or regularly smoked in their property be required to undertake necessary remediation before leasing the property and provide evidence of this to prospective tenants?

Third party payments

• Should the RTA prohibit landlords or land agents charging tenants an additional fee to make rental payments, whether this is directly or indirectly by passing on costs from third parties engaged by the landlord or land agent to facilitate payment?

Modernisation of Language

• Should terms within the RTA be updated? If so, which terms should be revised and what should they be replaced with?

How to lodge submissions to the review

The South Australian government invites all interested parties to submit their responses to the discussion paper or even suggest changes that the paper was not able to address.

Submissions can be sent electronically or by post, and will be accepted until 16 December 2022, 5pm.

Here are the submission channels:

CBS will consider all feedback from stakeholders and provide a report to the Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs in the first quarter of 2023.

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Photo by Tourism Australia on Canva.