Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2011

There is a Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill currently before the NSW State Parliament, and it relates in part to residential tenancies legislation.

The Tenants' Union has made the following comment on the Bill, on its own behalf and that of the network of Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.

The TU has no concerns about the proposed amendments, with the exception of those to s 41(1) and (2) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW). The proposed amendments go mostly to clarifying the operation of, and fixing potential problems in, existing provisions of that Act.

We note that the proposed amendments to s 41(1) and (2) would expose tenants under existing agreements for a term of exactly two years to the prospect of a rent increase, where otherwise their rent could not be increased. We submit that the Bill should be amended to include a transitional provision in relation to existing agreements to prevent this happening.

We note that proposed new s 89(6) does not fix technical problems identified in the operation of s 89(5), but it does not create any additional problems.

We have identified a number of other technical problems in the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW); had we been consulted prior to the introduction of the Bill we are confident that they might have been fixed too.