Victoria’s rental task force has issued a fine a week to dodgy agents and landlords in its first year on the job, and it’s had more than a complaint a day.
But the state’s peak rental assistance body, Tenants Victoria, has warned they believed there were far more renters with problems than those coming forward with grievances.
The taskforce has issued 70 fines worth a combined $620,000 since it ramped up enforcement activity in the second half of last year. It was established just over 12 months ago in March.
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An ongoing crackdown yesterday had inspectors on the streets of Melbourne’s CBD, as well as inner suburbs from Fitzroy North and West Melbourne to Footscray, Carlton, St Kilda and Elsternwick.
In regional Victoria they were active in Bendigo and Geelong.
They were particularly seeking out advertised rentals that were not advertised at a fixed price, or that breached minimum liveability standards that came into effect in 2023 including the need for energy efficient heaters as well as curtains and blinds in bedrooms.
They are also seeking out instances of rental bidding, where a tenant offers money above what a home is advertised at for rent. Property managers are currently banned from soliciting rental bidding, but later this year it will become an offence to accept a rental bid whether it was solicited or not.
Online complaints to the taskforce have topped 500 since it was formed, almost 1.3 a day, with the Consumer Affairs Victoria department also issuing orders to remedy homes that breached the standards in addition to fines.
Consumer Affairs rental task force inspectors were out on the streets of inner Melbourne yesterday.
Agents and owners caught doing the wrong thing face warnings, fines and potentially court action for more serious breaches.
Consumer Affairs minister Nick Staikos said they were seeking to enforce the more than 130 reforms the state government has implemented to “protect renters”.
“The renting task force will be out across the state inspecting rentals to ensure they meet Victoria’s minimum standards,” Mr Staikos said.
“Renters in Victoria deserve to have a comfortable place to call home – a home that meets the rental minimum standards and is advertised correctly.”
In October last year Consumer Affairs released figures indicating 40 fines had been issued worth a combined $450,000.
Latest rental bonds data shows there were 652,766 active leases in Victoria in September last year, with the figure dropping by 24,000 in the past year.
Dodgy rental operators have been hit with hefty fines.
Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Kelly Ryan said with the number of fines effectively relating to 0.01 per cent of all rentals in the state, it showed that many landlords were doing the right thing.
And with the higher number of complaints indicating that most were being resolved as warnings, Ms Ryan added that this reflected the government was giving landlords a fair chance to resolve issues after significant changes and increases in the cost of compliance in recent years.
“I would like to see these numbers sustained, or less,” Ms Ryan said.
“We don’t want any fines to be issued, that’s the ultimate goal.”
Rental homes must now have curtains or blinds for privacy on bedroom windows in order to be advertised for rent.
Tenants Victoria acting chief executive Cameron Bloye said they knew “many more than 500 renters had problems” last year.
“Over that same period, Tenants Victoria supported over 10,000 renters and almost 650,000 people visited our website,” Mr Bloye said.
“We are pleased that the spotlight is now on renters rights. Real estate standards can be deeply inconsistent, and renters often suffer.
“The recent improvements to renters rights will make a big difference. We encourage renters whose rights aren’t being respected to contact the taskforce.”
He added that ongoing enforcement would be key to improving standards for renters and should be “upheld for every renter”.
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