The Victorian Government has announced it will extend a ban on evictions and rental increases until the end of the year, increase assistance and ensure tenant turnover is taken into account in rental negotiations.
Evictions will continue to be banned for commercial tenancies until 31 December 2020, except in specific circumstances.
Rental increases will be banned until 31 December 2020 as well.
Additional measures will be introduced to the support services already in place. Support services currently offered include the dispute resolution for commercial tenants via the Victorian Small Business Commission (VSBC). These additional support measures are summarised below:
- the VSBC will have greater capacity to make an order for rent relief if a landlord refuses to respond to rent relief requests;
- commercial tenants and landlords will have access to further land tax reductions of up to 50 per cent – with eligible small businesses that own their own commercial premises being able to also benefit from land tax relief;
- eligible small commercial landlords will have access to increased grant funding, which will provide up to $3,000 per tenancy;
- advocacy groups such as Financial Counselling Victoria will have access to a new $600,000 package to ensure they can provide more training and resources to help tenancy and community sector workers support vulnerable tenants in resolving disputes with their landlords.
See the Government’s media release from earlier today, here.
Full details of the proposed changes are not yet available. We will provide another update once we have reviewed the amendments to the existing Victorian leasing regulations.
