A Melbourne family are feeling “ridiculously stressed” after heading to VCAT in an effort to evict their rental tenant, who is refusing to leave.
A mother says she is scared for her daughter’s future due to the actions of a tenant who owes their family about $10,000 in unpaid rent.
The woman, who asked not be named, said that she had inherited a house in Melbourne when her aunt died – along with her daughter, who was 16 at the time, and her brother.
They have since rented out the abode, which has been in their family for more than a century.
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But recently, they decided to sell the two-bedroom residence so the woman’s daughter, who is now aged 27, could put some of the money towards purchasing her own first home.
However, the woman said that their tenant had refused to vacate the house after being given notice they were planning to sell.
And for some months, the renter also stopped paying rent apart from covering one month’s rent.
The renter now owes roughly $10,000 in unpaid rent.
As a result, the family has launched two separate Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal cases, one regarding the unpaid rent and the other in an effort to get the renter out of the house.
More than 20,200 rental providers applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal seeking to enforce a notice to vacate their tenants, between May 2025 and April 2026.
The woman said they had given the tenant plenty of notice to vacate the property.
“She was on a periodic agreement and given 60 days, then 30 days’ extension and then another 90 days to vacate,” the woman said.
The real estate agent who manages the home has also offered to help find the tenant a new rental home, an offer she declined.
The first VCAT hearing found in their family’s favour and the renter was given 14 days’ notice to vacate, but she later appealed this decision.
This resulted in a series of follow-up VCAT hearings including one when the member adjourned the case as he was going on leave for six weeks.
The VCAT member also ordered the tenant to pay one month’s rent.
The Victorian government kicked off its rental reforms in 2021, when then-Premier Daniel Andrews was leading the state. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images.
The woman said that she and her family felt “ridiculously stressed” by the situation especially as they had no idea how many VCAT hearings they would have to go through, or when the legal process would wrap up.
“I’m definitely scared at how long this will take for my daughter’s benefit,” the woman said.
“The poor kid inherits a share of a house and is finally old enough and ready to move out and she can’t because of this freeloader (the renter).”
The woman said that in the mean time, her disappointed daughter had stopped looking to buy her first home.
There are more than 650,000 private rental properties in Victoria, according to Homes Victoria. Picture: Jake Nowakowski.
The worried mother said that the majority of the 150-plus rental reforms introduced by the Victorian government to boost renters’ rights, since 2021, were warranted.
However, she said they had “gone too far” when a tenant could endlessly appeal notices to vacate a property despite the owner having a legitimate reason for wanting to sell.
“It is actually outrageous to think that you follow all the rules set down and at the end of that long, drawn-out process you can’t even have control over your own home,” she added.
Premier Jacinta Allan’s government will introduce a Portable Rental Bond Scheme on July 1, 2026, giving tenants access to a scheme that will let them transfer their bond rather than have to pay for two. Picture: NewsWire/Josie Hayden.
The woman said her real estate agency had represented them at the VCAT hearings with a rough quote of the required fees totalling more than $1060 to cover maters such as preparing for the case and attending the tribunal.
“To date the hearings have been spent talking about the tenant’s point of view and run out of time to consider the second case re: possession for sale,” the woman said.
“Our invoice is growing with every hearing and every request for further information.”
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