Victoria’s specialist tenancy legal service and peak body for renters, Tenants Victoria, is calling for a stronger response from all levels of government to prevent and reduce homelessness and housing insecurity. Its submission to the Victorian Parliament’s Homelessness in Victoria inquiry highlighted the systematic issues causing homelessness to increase across the state. These included the diminishing availability of public housing, lack of alignment between public and community housing rules, lack of effective eviction prevention, lack

Thank you to everyone who made a submission on the draft Residential Tenancy Regulations 2020. Over 700 submissions were sent via our website – and many others were sent directly to the Victorian Government via Engage Victoria. We really appreciate your generosity and support, particularly at the busy end of year, to make positive submissions that we hope will benefit all Victorian renters. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season and hope we

Have you ever been asked to get your rented home professionally cleaned when it wasn’t needed? Under the new laws the Government is trying to prevent landlords from being able to ask renters for professional cleaning unless it’s really needed. But the way they’ve written it in the law, it’s still not clear when professional cleaning can be asked for. The government is proposing that the new standard rental agreement should include this: The landlord

We told you about some of the new laws that some renters will miss out on, such as minimum standards, which will only apply to people moving into a new property, and safety-related activities that will only apply to people signing a new lease after 1 July 2020. As well as those things, there are other areas where renters on periodic (e.g. month-to-month) leases will miss out. This includes those in public housing, community housing

Did you know some of the new laws don’t apply to all renters? They will only apply to some renters, for example those who move into a new property or sign a new lease after 1 July 2020. This means some renters will miss out on the benefits coming in next year, such as homes having to meet minimum standards or rental providers having to carry out safety related activities. Minimum standards will only apply