Family violence and tenancies

ANALYSIS

A summary of the VCOSS Renters’ Rights Rundown: Renting and family violence, 3 May 2023.

On Wednesday 3 May 2023, people around Australia lit a candle to remember those who have been killed by domestic and family violence.

The Candlelight vigil aims to honor victims memories and bring light to this national crisis.

Family violence causes serious social, economic and health consequences.

Homelessness is one such consequence – domestic and family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children in Victoria. Nearly half of all requests for assistance from specialist homelessness services are related to family violence.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria highlighted the complex link between victim-survivor’s safety, the ability to recover from family violence and access to long-term housing.

Since the Royal Commission, significant progress has been made towards keeping women and children safe and establishing better responses to domestic and family violence.

To coincide with the Candlelight Vigil, VCOSS hosted an event in our Renters’ Rights Rundown series, focused on some of these responses, as well as tenancy rights under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 available to victim survivors to prevent the risk of homelessness.

Kim Hay and Courtney Wamala from Safe and Equal talked us through the Safe at Home response, where victim survivors are supported to safely remain at home, while the perpetrator is removed. This response includes a variety of risk- and safety informed interventions across the service system that work together to keep victim-survivors safe, including:

• Interventions with perpetrators
• Justice responses
• Case management support
• Safety modifications and technologies (e.g. security doors, home alarms)

Recognising the significant costs associated with staying safe at home, a key intervention is brokerage, which can help cover costs including but not limited to: safety and security items, education costs, housing costs, furniture, removal costs and legal fees.  

There are a range of brokerage options throughout the service system, as outlined below.

The Personal Safety Initiative is a program that helps victim survivors remain safely in their homes, through the identification and installation of safety and security items on a victim survivor’s home.

Sally Kenyon from Justice Connect Homeless Law talked us through new renter rights around making safety modifications in rental homes that complement these safe at home programs.

Other new provisions under the RTA include rights that allow renters to:

• Change locks
• Prevent open house inspections
• Object to advertising photos or videos
• Terminate a rental agreement
• Reduce the term of a rental agreement 
• Terminate a rental agreement and create a new one 
• Allow access for the removal of belongings
• VCAT can make orders about distribution of bond and liability for rent, damage/maintenance and/or utilities
• Defend a possession order application
• Protect bond
• Remove a renter or amend a database listing / blacklisting

Sally talked us through an example of how this would work in practice with a case study about Chris:

Chris’ ex-partner is excluded from their property via IVO and Chris finds out the rent has not been paid in over a month. They want to stay. 

Chris can change the locks and make other some modifications to help keep them safe – like installing non-hard-wired security cameras and lights.

Chris can apply to VCAT to terminate the tenancy agreement and have a new tenancy created in their name. Chris can also ask VCAT to make orders that the ex-partner is responsible for the outstanding rent and about how the utility bills should be dealt with.

To learn more about renters rights and supports available in family violence circumstances, you can watch the whole event and download the resources.

VCOSS will be hosting more Renters’ Rights Rundown sessions throughout 2023, including:

• Healthy homes – minimum standards, modifications, repairs and more
• Making sense of evictions

Keep an eye on https://vcoss.org.au/projects/rentersrights/ to find out more about these sessions and for other helpful resources for supporting renters.  

Please let us know if there are other renters’ rights topics you’d like to know more about by emailing Karen Taranto at karen.taranto@vcoss.org.au.

▇ VCOSS thanks our colleagues at Safe and Equal and Justice Connect Homeless Law for their participation in this event.

VCOSS thanks Consumer Affairs Victoria for their support of VCOSS’s rental fairness sector capacity building work and acknowledges this work is undertaken thanks to a grant from the Victorian Property Fund.