No renter should have to risk facing homeless when their lease ends every year. Unfortunately this is what we are seeing with many renters, at the end of their fixed term (lease on their rental), they are being asked to leave.
Paul *(not his real name), his wife and their 3 school-aged children had been renting a 3 bedroom townhouse from January 2019 in the Brisbane suburbs with an initial weekly rent at $400 a week.
Then when a new lease started the rent increased from the end of 2022 to $430 a week and during this time, they continued to pay their rent on time. However at the end of this year, the rent spiked to $580 a week and it was changed to a six-month lease.
Although they paid their rent on time, they were given a notice to leave at the end of their six-month lease. They applied for over 40 properties where references were taken but they were never successful after the reference was given. Having never had such difficulty finding a place before, Paul was surpised how long it was taking and asked various estate agents why his rental application was not successful. They explained it was because his current reference had said he was due in court.
Rejection of a rental application because a tenant was due in court for rent arrears may be forgiven. However Paul was only due in court because he overstayed his notice to leave a property at the end of a fixed term only because he couldn’t find a new rental in the current housing crisis. As there followed a Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) hearing for warrant of possession, the family realised the only way to save themselves from homelessness was to be proactive and move all their belongings into a storage facility so they could squeeze into a small unit in the city to rent while they continued to find a home for their family.
Thankfully after searching, they did find a bigger place to rent only because they had rented from this real estate almost 10 years ago and they didn’t need to the current property manager’s reference. This home was also near to their children’s school but they will have to pay a fee for leaving the unit early as well as a second lot of removalist costs within 2 months plus the increase to $600 per week. Their income will be stretched for many months to come but at least they have a new rental and one they can hopefully call home for a while, that is until their lease expires, next year, then they may be issued another notice to leave.
This is why the Make Renting Fair in Queensland campaign continues to advocate for the removal of the ‘End of a Fixed Term’ as a ground to end a tenancy which will protect renters from arbitrary evictions by requiring a fair reason to end all tenancies whether they are fixed term or on-going.
*Name has been changed for privacy reasons