Delaying Victorian RTA changes labelled a great outcome

REIV President Leah Calnan has welcomed the Victorian Government’s decision to hold off on introducing changes to rental laws until next year, allowing the state to deal with Coronavirus. 

Earlier this month the REIV wrote to the Victorian Government, calling for a delay to changes to the Residential Tenancy Act due to the outbreak of Covid-19. 

Rental reforms were due to take effect on 1 July, which would have been difficult to implement while the real estate industry was dealing with the fallout of Coronavirus. 

This week the Victorian Government announced that it agreed that now was not the best time for rental reforms and announced they would hold off for the time being. 

REIV President Leah Calnan said this was a sensible decision. 

“The State Government’s decision to delay the introduction of rental law changes is a huge relief to everybody in the Victorian real estate sector and allows us to focus our full attention on dealing with Covid-19,” Ms Calnan said. 

“Dealing with drastic changes to rental laws would have been impossible to manage when the industry is already dealing with significant increase in workload with reduced resources and income. The financial viability of real estate businesses is also heavily impacted at this time . 

“Everybody has enough on their plate at the moment, delaying rental law changes was the right call. 

“Delaying changes to the RTA will help protect VCAT from being further flooded with residential cases, creating an unnecessary backlog during the pandemic.

Ms Calnan went on to congratulate the Victorian Government on listening to the industry by making the bold decision to delay rental changes and concentrate all resources into tackling the impact of the Coronavirus.