Minns government determined to fulfill campaign promise amid criticism from property investors
The Minns Labor government has announced new laws to end no-grounds evictions in New South Wales, fulfilling an election promise.
One of the most significant changes to the rental market in a decade, the reform aims to balance the interests of renters and homeowners.
Currently, around 33% of NSW residents are renting, a 17.6% increase since 2016. The state’s rental market faces challenges with low vacancy rates and rising median rents, increasing by about 7% over the last year. Under existing laws, property owners can end a residential periodic lease at any time without reason, creating insecurity for renters.
The proposed reforms will require property owners to provide a valid reason to terminate a tenancy, whether periodic or fixed-term. Acceptable reasons include tenant breaches, property sales, significant repairs or renovations, change of property use, owner or family moving in, and renters’ ineligibility for affordable housing or student accommodation. Homeowners must provide evidence with termination notices, with penalties for non-genuine reasons.
For fixed-term agreements of less than six months, the termination notice period will increase from 30 to 60 days, and for agreements longer than six months, from 60 to 90 days. Notice periods for periodic agreements remain unchanged.
These changes align NSW with other states like the ACT, South Australia, and Victoria, which have already ended no-grounds evictions. The reforms follow a consultation process involving over 16,000 public submissions and sector-based roundtables.
The Minns government said it will engage stakeholders on these reforms and plans to introduce the new legislation in the September parliamentary sittings, aiming for implementation early next year.
“Bad tenants will still be able to be evicted,” said Chris Minns (pictured above left), premier of New South Wales. “We don’t want homeowners to have to put up with bad behaviour. But anyone who rents in NSW knows just how anxious and challenging renting can be at the moment. This reform gets the balance right, giving both homeowners and renters more certainty.”
However, Ben Kingsley (pictured above right), chair of the Property Investors Council of Australia (PICA), has criticised the government’s decision, arguing that the reforms to current tenancy laws jeopardise tens of billions of dollars in annual investment in the private rental sector.
Kingsley said that this investment is crucial for creating initial and ongoing jobs and adding much-needed supply to the rental market.
“Put simply, small business private rental accommodation providers have a choice on whether they invest at all in this sector and, if they do, where they invest in Australia,” he said. “Public servants of the day shouldn’t underestimate how much their market interventions can inform these investment decisions.
“The irony here is that the existing 2.3 million private rental accommodation providers – who have done the heavy lifting for decades in providing the essential rental accommodation needed to help with human capital mobility, economic advancement and society building – get nothing. No such perks for us.
“And we are only in this political position because of the lack of investment into social and public housing over the past 30 years by previous governments.”
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