When Lyell Lamborn’s new rental contract arrived, it came with an $80 weekly increase, and a notice to leave the property.
Key points:
- Brisbane man Dale Billett was recovering from leg amputation surgery when he received a notice to leave his West End rental
- The Real Estate Institute of Queensland says the move protects landlords from “lifelong” periodic tenancies
- The tenants union says the new practice is causing undue anxiety to renters who already face a crushing housing market
The Form 12 notice explained that her landlord had the right to end her Brisbane tenancy when her lease was up.
The notice came after the peak body for Queensland’s real estate industry recommended all agents implement the “best-practice” strategy in a bid to protect landlords from “lifelong” renters who might automatically roll from fixed-term to periodic agreements, like month-to-month contracts.
Ms Lamborn’s rental property is a near 100-year-old worker’s cottage in Manly with a long list of outstanding repairs.
Last year, a friend of Ms Lamborn’s fell through the worn front steps of the run-down rental.
“I felt that the [rent] increase, which amounted to $80 a week, which is actually a 23 per cent increase in my rent, that was a huge increase for what I consider to be a very dilapidated house,” Ms Lamborn said.
She said she calculated her options in the current market, and felt forced to agree to the increase and, therefore, the notice to leave.
“I’m being told that if I don’t sign and that, there’s no negotiating on the rent increase, then I’m out,” Ms Lamborn said.
“In this market, I can’t. I’m going to struggle to find something.
“It leaves you on a knife edge, wondering what you’re going to be doing every year … it keeps me up at night.”
Laws coming into effect in October will make it difficult for landlords to end periodic agreements.
‘Are we going to have somewhere to go?’
This weekend Dale Billett and Katie Havelberg are packing up their West End home of four and a half years.
It is also the first week Mr Billet has been out of hospital in four months, after an accident caused the amputation of his lower right leg.
While he was rehabilitating in hospital, the couple found out their home was being sold, and realised they would need to find a new disability-accessible home.
When they did, an unusual contract arrived.
“I was going through the lease and preparing to sign it and at the end was a notice to leave attached,” Ms Havelberg said.
The couple signed the lease contract, but the process of property hunting took a toll.
“It just added an extra burden on top of the burden that was already here,” Ms Havelberg said.
“Sleepless nights, days, where you’re just constantly worrying about, ‘Are we going to have somewhere to go?’”
The couple are now navigating the move, with Mr Billett limited in what he can lift and carry.
‘Like a guillotine over tenants’ heads’
Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr criticised the industry body over the new practice, which she said was causing undue anxiety for renters already facing a crushing housing market.
“Every Queensland renter would be living with like a guillotine over their head the whole time they live in their home,” she said.
“And if they are good or lucky at the end of that, they might be offered a new fixed term.
“It’s extraordinary to call it best practice.”
But the peak body for Queensland’s real estate industry has stood by its recommendation.
Real Estate Institute of Queensland CEO Antonia Mercorella said the institute considered sending the forms best practice ahead of new tenancy laws coming into effect in October.
“It doesn’t evict the tenant or threaten the tenant in any way, as Tenants Queensland is suggesting,” she said.
“What it’s simply doing is confirming that that fixed-term tenancy will end on that date.
“Unfortunately, from the first of October here in Queensland, if you don’t do that, and you miss the crucial notice period, that fixed term tenancy will actually default and become a periodic agreement.
“Effectively, it will be a tenancy for life unless they can establish one of the limited prescribed grounds that will become available from the first of October.”
Ms Mercorella conceded that the recommendation came at a difficult time for renters.
“I agree that the timing of these new laws is incredibly unfortunate, and I would also say that we very reluctantly issued this best-practice recommendation because we’re acutely conscious of how tight the rental market is,” she said.