Aussie father of two Dan Yeats thought buying an investment property would help set him up for retirement. But purchasing an interstate home through his self-managed superannuation fund turned into a months-long nightmare and a very expensive lesson.
When his tenants stopped paying rent and refused to vacate they managed to stay in the property by delaying tribunal hearings and taking advantage of Victoria’s tenancy laws which have increasingly emphasised the rights of renters. And when he finally got his hands back on the property late last year, he was left with a massive and ugly clean up job.
“I never in my life dreamed that they could get to this point,” he told Yahoo Finance.
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Dan is not alone in complaining that landlords can be left with little recourse to get their properties back when tenants fall into arrears but challenge a notice to vacate at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
Now, he’s got backing from a member of parliament to re-examine the balance between landlords and renters in the state.
MP Tim McCurdy, the state’s Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs (and a former farmer and real estate agent), has sponsored a petition in the Victorian parliament calling for change.
“It is important to keep a balanced view between renters and rental providers. The Allan Government continues to change the rules and laws to support renters but usually at the expense of rental providers. This is unacceptable and Victoria will not have any rental providers left if the balance is not fair,” McCurdy told Yahoo Finance.
He said the issue had been raised to him by many rental providers over many years.
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With a state election looming towards the end of the year, the shadow minister said he wants to ensure that renters “are fully accountable for their actions” and is calling for tribunal and court proceedings to be expedited where necessary “to ensure rental providers are not held to ransom by renters.”
The petition, which currently has 313 signatures after launching this month, points to current inefficiencies in the tribunal system such as repeated reviews and adjournments in cases with multiple tenants on a lease – which was the case in Dan’s elongated drama.