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The NSW Government passed the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (‘2010 Act’) in June. The new legislation will commence after the Regulations have been finalised, expected to be at the end of this year.
The 2010 Act is the first
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PENSIONERS and other low income households have had a win this month, with the announcement that the NSW Energy Rebate will be indexed to energy prices and expanded to all holders of a Health Care Card.
CPSA and other community organisat
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PENSIONERS will face an even steeper electricity price jump than everyone else in NSW, with some facing an increase of between 47% and 66.42%, even though the highest increase announced was 62%.
Why?
Because the pensioner energ
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CPSA often explains to bureaucrats and ministers why pensioner and other low income households have trouble paying their electricity bills.
Each time, our concerns are met with a furrowed brow, and croons along the lines of, “it&rs
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PENSIONERS and other low income earners will be the big losers when energy smart meters are rolled out across the country.
NSW pensioners can expect another 30 per cent increase to their energy bills if smart meters are installed in thei
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EACH year, the NSW Government sets the rate at which Local Governments can increase their rates.
Minister for Local Government Barbara Perry recently announced that rate increases will be capped at 2.6%, a historically low amount becaus
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MINISTER for Fair Trading Virginia Judge released the draft Residential Tenancies Bill 2009 on 4 November 2009 and opened it to public consultation. Minister Judge announced that the Bill constitutes the most significant reform package of New Sout
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THE Henry Tax Review will address the current housing crisis by targeting the current $2.3 billion Rent Assistance program in the hope of improving housing affordability.
The Sydney Morning Herald says that the review will call for a cl
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SINGLE pensioners in NSW public and community housing still see their rents jump in September 2010, as Minister for Housing David Borger refuses to back-down on the state’s pension-grab.
Minister Borger wrote to CPSA stating that
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PEOPLE across NSW, particularly Sydneysiders, have been left out of the Australian Government’s affordable housing initiative because it favours areas with cheaper land and lower rents, a property developer and financier group says.
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MIRANDA is in her late 50s and had lived in her Eastern Suburbs flat for over 30 years.
Her landlord placed the flat for sale on the market and, unbeknown to Miranda, authorised a real estate agent to enter the flat and take photos of th
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SINGLE pensioners in NSW public and community housing will not have to pay a quarter of their pension increase in rents, at least for one year that is.
The NSW Government announced that it would give tenants a rent ‘holiday’
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MANY tenants have contacted Older Persons Tenants’ Service (OPTS) over the last 12 months to check if they are a ‘protected tenant’. Such tenants are covered by the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1948. These tenancies are a
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FEWER PUBLIC and community housing units will be built after a cost blowout to the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program of the Government’s $42 billion stimulus package.
Spending on the delivery of new school buildings a
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Q: What will happen with my public or community housing rent once the pension increase comes into effect?
A: The PM wrote to the heads of states and territories requesting that they quarantine t
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THE NSW Government is carrying out a review of water rebates and it’s now your chance to let them know what you want the water rebate to be.
Following pressure from lobby groups, the Minister for Water, The Hon. Phillip Costa, order
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THE Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has proposed that ‘good performing’ Councils should have rate pegging removed for up to four years. (Rate pegging is a cap on the amount of revenue a Council can acquire for the y
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THERE ARE many rebates and concessions available to NSW residents so that they can reduce their energy and water consumption and, therefore, their bills.
Many appliances are also very energy or water efficient, saving hundreds or even th
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THERE are a number of issues in the ‘big picture’ of residential tenancy law reform.
These include granting tenants increased security of tenure through the adoption of just-cause eviction provisions; rent increases that plac
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CONCERN about the pension increase going into the coffers of State Governments via public housing and aged care providers was tempered by the Australian Government in two ways.
Firstly, the Prime Minister wrote to all the States and Terr
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The July VOICE’s ‘Regional areas see rise in homelessness’ states that there are now only 73 long stay residential parks in NSW.
This figure is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Some of the par
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A WORRYING trend is developing amongst senior Australians, who are running to reverse mortgages in an effort to boost their income.
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THIRTY-SEVEN of the top 100 NSW local councils have been found to have unsustainable financial policies, a report has found.
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REGIONAL areas across NSW have seen a dramatic rise in the number of people seeking help from homelessness over the last two years, the author of a report has said. (more)
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IT’S not often that THE VOICE spruiks a government initiative, but this one’s not a bad one.
The NSW Government is piloting a scheme to assess energy eff
PENSIONERS living in the Heritage Manufactured Homes Estate, a residential park on the Central Coast, are taking on the park owner who amended a rent increase in the face of the budget rise for pensioners. TWENTY THOUSAND dwellings are set to hit the ground across Australia with around 75 per cent of them to be in place by 2010.
The move has been welcomed by community organisations and Governments alike, in a substantial effort to boost t BOARDING HOUSE tenants remain inadequately protected by legislation.
Barry, a tenant of a boarding house in Sydney, refused to pay a rent increase because he had not received proper notice.
He always insisted on his rights and
IN A BOOST to the public housing sector, the NSW Government has ordered 10 years' worth of renovations and upgrades to public housing to be conducted over the next two years.
Premier Rees has announced a ‘renovation rescue’ package worth $220 mil Middle income earners could find more affordable housing under a new scheme agreed to in Parliament before Christmas.
The National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAF) aims to provide 50,000 new rental dwellings over the next four years.
The sc IN 2005, the NSW Government announced a plan for Reshaping Public Housing.
This included changes to eligibility, tenure and initiatives such as the NSW Housing and Human Services Accord.
The Accord is a formal agreement between NSW Governm THE NSW Government reports that public housing tenants in NSW are the most water conscious, saving 2.5 billion litres of water each year.
According to Mr David Borger, Minister for Housing, since new measures to boost water efficiency were introd
OLDER PERSONS Tenants Service is an activity of CPSA. Recently it was funded for a further three years under the Tenants Advice and Advocacy Program.
Tenants services existed as early as 1910 when the NSW Rent Payers Association acted as ad IT WAS the early 1990s.
Tom was accompanied to the office of the Department of Housing in Sydney’s west by Anil, a tenant advocate.
Tom had just been approved for housing and he’d been asked to come to the office to sign a residential tenan Federal Government: Sell now, starve later!
EVERY PENSIONER who owns their home should be worried.
The same government that’s been telling you they understand that ‘pensioners are doing it tough’ funded research that says pensioners have t RETIREMENT villages are becoming an increasingly popular housing option. Hundreds of village operators in New South Wales currently provide accommodation for tens of thousands of retirees.
With the ageing of our population, unquestionably the reti IN the Letters section of THE VOICE July 2008, an anonymous reader outlined the problems and hardships associated with living in a residential park.
One of those hardships is the ever-present danger that the park owner will decide to sell the par THE Benevolent Society, Australia’s oldest charity, has plans for a new form of housing, care and support for older people.
It aims to put the model into practice in Ocean Street, Bondi in Sydney’s east.
Over the last fifteen years the Humanita ACTU President, Sharan Burrow, made strong calls for Australian super funds to support and invest in the emerging private sector shared equity market.
A shared equity loan allows people to buy a percentage of a house or apartment, with an investor IT’S now just over a year since five residents of the Broughton Hall nursing home in Melbourne died as a result of food poisoning.
A coronial inquest is yet to take place.
Usually a disaster with such loss of life gives cause for CHANNEL Nine’s Sunday program, presented by veteran journalist Laurie Oakes, recently interviewed Pensions Minister Jenny Macklin. Here’s a transcript of what the Minister had to say on pensions.
Oakes: Did the pensioner anger over the Budget surp NO, is the short answer.
There have been two attempts by developers to get the law changed, so that they would be able to force people to sell their home.
The first attempt was to change the rules on the sale of blocks of units.
The law sa COMMENTATORS in the housing industry have reported that the Commonwealth’s National Housing Affordability Rental Scheme will do little to help renters, buyers or investors.
The news is all bad.
Instead, such a scheme, in combination with the Social workers are pressured to push people into unsuitable aged care facilities, an inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Hospitals has found.
In order to free up beds, social workers are urged to place elderly patients requiring further car IT’S TRUE that lots of older people would welcome a magic fix which would rejuvenate them and revert back to their youth,
But, no one wants to run the risk of becoming a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" by unwittingly eating or drinking geneticall THERE are still tenants across New South Wales who are protected tenants. They are subject to the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1948 and not to the Residential Tenancies Act 1987.
To be a protected tenant, you must have rented your house f Older Persons Tenants’ Service (OPTS) will run tenancy rights sessions at Canterbury/Bankstown, Waverley, Gosford, Lismore and Lithgow. OPTS will target older tenants living in private rental, public housing and community housing. It will also includ CPSA runs the Older Persons Tenants’ Service (OPTS). If you are having problems with your landlord or real estate agent, why not ring OPTS? That’s what the people did whose stories are published here.
Helen (68) thinks she deserves a little bi THERE are currently over 60,000 older people living in public and community housing across New South Wales. And the media is trying to scare them.
In recent months there has been much hype in the newspapers about tenants of Housing NSW dying alone The NSW Government is reviewing residential tenancy law. One recommendation being canvassed is: “… if the former tenant cannot be contacted or does not collect goods within the permitted timeframe the landlord/agent should be able to give the uncolle CPSA has written to the NSW Transport Minister about the cancellation fee for travel covered by Pensioner Travel Vouchers.
As all VOICE readers know, free CountryLink travel attracts a booking fee of 15 per cent of the full fare.
But what some SCRIPTS for PBS drugs have gone up from $4.90 to $5.00.
The PBS safety net, which used to apply after 56 scripts, now applies after 58 scripts.
Meanwhile, the Pharmaceutical Allowance has not gone up a penny – it is still $2.90 per week. THE Older Persons Tenants’ Service (OPTS) was contacted by a Tenancy Advice and Advocacy Service in June 2007 for advice when an elderly Chinese couple living in an aged care facility were issued with a notice of termination.
The notice of term A RESIDENTIAL lease is binding on both landlord and tenant. If you want to end your lease early, then you should write to the landlord to see if they will agree.
If the landlord doesn’t agree to this, then a tenant facing hardship may apply to the
THE OLDER Persons Tenants’ Service (OPTS) was contacted by a 76 year old widow who has lived in her rented house since 1975 and thought she was a ‘protected tenant’.
She was given notice by her landlord, the Roads
AS A RESULT of the recent action by Village Life Ltd to terminate the Residential Tenancy Agreements and take possession of Tenants’ premises at four Village Life projects in New South Wa
VILLAGE Life, the company that loves seniors, last month gave notice of its intention to terminate leases over ‘retirement villages’ it owns in Ballarat, Bathurst, Dubbo, Launceston, Mandurah, AS A TENANT on a standard residential tenancy lease you can have your lease terminated for various reasons.
Most leases have a fixed term of six or twelve months and then continue. Landlords must give at least 14 days’ notice if they want to term MANY older tenants have contacted the Older Persons Tenants’ Service that their real estate agent is demanding they change the way they pay their rent.
Some real estate agents are adopting a new system to pay rent called RentPay, touted to these For more articles, please visit the older articles page To see older versions of THE VOICE (prior to 2007) please visit our archives.
PENSION INCREASE/HOUSING
Pension increase already taken in rent
SOCIAL HOUSING
Social housing? Would that be community or public?
BOARDING HOUSES
A law unto themselves
HOUSING
Pensioner homes safe?
SOME groups have been championing policies that could see pensioners being forced to leave their home or take out a costly reverse mortgage. The Brotherhood of Saint Laurence called for homes to be included in the pensi
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PUBLIC HOUSING
Opposition unimpressed by public housing stimulus
UNSURPRISINGLY, THE Opposition has criticised the Rudd Labor Government’s plans to boost public housing stock as part of its $42 billion stimulus package. In February, the Rudd
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COMMUNITY HOUSING
What a shemozzle: collecting community housing rents
PUBLIC HOUSING
Boost to public housing renovations
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Affordable Housing still not cheap
PUBLIC HOUSING
Reshaping what?
PUBLIC HOUSING
NSW public housing tenants saving water
HOUSING
Older Persons Tenants' Service refunded for another 3 years
TENANTS RIGHTS
Fudging it
PENSION, HOME
Federal Government: Sell Now Starve, Later
RETIREMENT VILLAGES
Retirement villages: regulation changes
RESIDENTIAL PARKS
Residential parks: Australian first!
SUPERANNUATION
A benevolent housing development
SUPERANNUATION
Super to the housing crisis rescue?
NURSING HOMES
THREE DIE
Welcome to the Hahndorf Residential Don’t Care Service
PENSIONS
What Macklin told Channel 9
ACCOMMODATION
Can Mr Sartor take your house?
ACCOMMODATION
National Rental Affordability scheme: viable or not
NURSING HOMES
Social workers pressured to place elderly in inappropriate aged care
GM FOOD
GM Food and teenage mutants
PRIVATE TENANCY
How protected is a protected tenant?
HOUSING
Tips for tenants: get educated about your rights
TIPS FOR TENANTS
A couple of tenancy stories
TENANCY
Tips for tenants, dead or alive
TENANCY
Op shops as dumping grounds
TRANSPORT
New: the CountryLink un-booking-fee
CONCESSIONS AND BENEFITS
The disappearing Pharmaceutical Allowance
SENIORS HOUSING
Seniors living NSW style
PRIVATE RENTALS
Tips for tenants:
ESSENTIAL GOOD AND SERVICES
How to kick out protected tenants if you’re the NSW Government
Tips for tenants
ACCOMMODATION
Tips for tenants and other housing news
TIPS FOR TENANTS
Village Life etc.
TENANCY
What a life!
Village Life crisis goes away … for now
TENANCY
TIPS FOR TENANTS: termination and eviction
HOUSING
RentPay: reasonable or rip-off?