QLD Queensland COVID-19 residential tenancy legislation

Well I thought this was what the QLD government was saying wouldn't happen after their backdown... landlord being required to give rent reduction with no ability to recover the unpaid rent at a later stage. And based on % of tenant income too so making landlord into social housing provider. So exactly what landlords feared in the first place?

Regardless of whether or not the landlord was being reasonable in this particular case, it sets a precedent that future cases will apply the same rules.

So landlords and REIQ have been lied to... assuming thatbum understands the legislation, perhaps the QLD government just intend to let the local tribunals do as they will regardless with the intent of passing the blame?

Edit: I also think they snuck in this bit about landlord being required to provide financials into the second proposal as part of the negotiation process and according to this it seems that this means that landlord may be *required* to give rent reduction unless landlord can prove hardship. So in this case the second proposal is actually in practice worse than the first which had no mention of the landlord being required to provide financial information (I wonder if landlord has to also provide bank statements etc that the tenant isn't required to).

 

The government doesn't control the tribunals - separation of powers and all that.

I wouldn't be surprised if the article was wrong or misleading on what actually happened. I'll wait to see what legal basis there was from a published decision or something like that.

 

Yes, but surely they are *supposed* to follow the law though... the government can leave the law rather open to interpretation by the tribunals I suppose and we all know which side the tribunal will rule on if that is what has occurred. But yes perhaps we have to wait for something a bit more reliable than that article.

 

This Warana case is really frustrating. I don't disagree with the premise of the guidelines, but this is a great example of the framework being abused and biased against Investors.

Assuming the details have been reported correctly, their household income is $1,150wk during the COVID crisis ($345 is 30% of total). At the original rent of $400wk, rent is 34.8% of total income.

I'd guess that over the years at least a third of my tenants have applied with affordability between 30-40%, and thats usually on a lower rent too- which means remaining income is smaller as well. (i.e. Rent $300wk, Income $750wk, living off $450wk). As far as I'm concerned, if you have the least bit of financial savviness, this is perfectly affordable.

We're really having to guess here too, but we can assume the Man is receiving $550wk Jobseeker OR has been paid a substantial enough redundancy to be forced into the waiting period, then he'll be entitled to it anyway, so lets assume that's his income. That means she's on $600wk, which is half of what she was receiving before. I think we can safely say his income was also at least twice the Jobkeeper amount, so lets adopt a "pre-pregnancy-and-covid" income of $2,300wk+ net. I really don't have all the details of their financial situation here (they might have old debts and new cars?) but surely if you had $1,900wk clear after rent every week... you might save some?

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To answer an earlier question from @TomC , there's no specific definition of reasonable. Like many things in our legislation, it's up to interpretation.

In the case of the gentleman who claims his cleaning business has been affected and substantiated only with a zero BAS statement, you could easily make the following requests of the tenant:
- Based on the documentation provided, it appears that the cleaning business has been effectively inactive well before COVID hit, so it would be in his best interests to show you any prior financials (i.e. FY19 onward) to show otherwise.
- If the business hasn't been earning any money, how has the rent been paid? This person is clearly able to service the rent from another source (savings, centrelink, other?) and needs to substantiate that.
- As we know there is a subletter, something stating how much they pay should be added to income. Ideally a bank statement, but he'll claim it gets paid cash, so you'll probably need some sort of declaration from the sub-letter.

Realistically though, there are plenty of ways someone could hide alternative streams of cashflow from you.
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I'm not sure if the tenant is already in arrears, but I just thought I'd clarify the process as well.

Instead of issuing a F11 Notice to Remedy Breach when the tenant is 7 clear days in arrears, we now issue a COVID Show Cause Notice. The tenant has 14 days to respond and substantiate appropriately for your approval. If he fails to respond in time, we issue the Form 11 and proceed as normal. If he does respond (sounds like he has/will) then you attempt to negotiate a solution. Failure to do so pushes the dispute to the RTA's conciliation process, and from there a continued stalemate is referred to QCAT.

It's in his best interests to provide whatever documentation you need to make an informed decision if he's in genuine need. Your Property Manager should be able to get a feeling of whether he's playing you OR is in genuine need. From the limited information we have, he sounds like he's clearly hiding income.

 

It should be noted that the landlord does have to provide evidence such as bank statements but so does the tenant, and the documentation is not provided to the other party but to QCAT/RTA. The one part of the precedent you should actually be encouraged by, assuming the reporting is correct, is that QCAT has effectively ruled that if making a ruling would put the landlord into hardship - one of the things many landlords here were complaining about - then they do take that into account. This isn't in my opinion a bad ruling.

 

I'm assuming that this 6 open month season on landlords ends later this year and won't be extended?

Thoughts on how long landlords will have to keep on subsidising tenants?


Thanks

 

‘Don’t wait’: sober warning on rental properties to tenants and landlords - realestate.com.au

according to this article, overall late payments have reduced,

doesnt make sense to me but a good sign

 

Scary isn't it.

 

Issue "show cause" notice (just an extra step the [Qld Labor Gov.] RTA has added to buy the tenant more time and delay the inevitable QCAT backlog) then try and evict, let QCAT decide whether their hardship claim stacks up. I personally would rather no tenant than a squatter tenant just on principal, it also gives the opportunity to find a new tenant, even if a lower rate - respect goes both ways and a tenant expecting or 'playing the system' to get a rent reduction or reduced rent "just because" is not acceptable in my book (I have one at the moment - nearly 50 days in arrears, we're lucky this isn't an episode of Ray Donovan and the Owner is ok with things running their course as I've explained what's involved), and on a personal note - as I seldom like to give advice unless I'd follow it myself, I have personally applied for and got the JobKeeper payments and drawn from my Super and borrowed credit to survive etc, we're adults, people need to stop looking for others to look after them. As Peter said above in previous post, nobody goes into the super market and expects a 30% reduction on their grocery bill, or fuel bill, yet somehow it is expected private landlords should cop it. ********.

 

I agree. I've spoken to the PM again today and they will follow up next week to see if he has escalated to the RTA. I advised them that our offer is still on the table of the rent reduction to give him a chance to deescalate the situation and save face.
As previously mentioned, if its a legitimate claim we are happy to help him out, and we are also in a financial position to do so. However, I find his attitude concerning and we won't just bend to his will of a reduction without some evidence that it is indeed legitimate.

 

It actually says this is until end December in QLD, which I had read somewhere else too, so longer than the 6 months intended by the federal government and longer than what we had been told by QLD government

COVID-19 Changes | Residential Tenancies Authority

However the hub isn't clear, it mentions six months without an actual date, and says leases must be extended until 30 Sep.

For renters

You'd think they could at least get their information consistent and factual. It was a disgrace how they published the hub before the law was passed without any disclaimer that it wasn't law yet.

 

Meh, I'm sure the impact may increase as jobkeeper/seeker is wound back but to date its had zero impact on my business.

 

A few things come to mind when reading this:
Why is it a Federal responsibility? Thought this is a state matter?
Next is that we need an "Owner Association" to be funded by the Government, just like the Tenant Assoc.
And we need a Dislike button.

As much as I sympathise with Tenants who face difficulty, but it's so hard to know who is more genuine than the others.
There are Tenants who are struggling but due to pride havent asked for reductions.
And then there are those who have 3 dogs and 2 cats, plus caravan, who are the first to ask for reduction..... And ask people not to be judgemental....

Interesting year for us all, not!