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FACT SHEET
THE RESIDENTIAL TENANCY AMENDMENT BILL 2009
The Residential Tenancy Amendment Act 2005, which establishes the Rental
Deposit Authority, will commence by proclamation on 1 July 2009.
Clause 2 of Schedule 3 of the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act 2005
currently provides that where a property owner holds a security deposit
for a residential tenancy agreement entered into before the Act comes into
force, the owner must deposit that security deposit with the Authority
within 6 months of the Act commencing. This provision would require the
establishment of separate processes to collect existing bonds from
property owners. As many of these bonds are for tenancies that have
been in existence for some time, they would be held for only a short
period before being claimed. This would result in a net cost to the Rental
Deposit Authority for collecting these bonds.
The total cost of establishing a separate system for this one off collection of
existing bonds would add between $250,000 and $500,000 to the cost of
establishing the system in the first 12 months of operation.
In addition to the financial burden associated with this Clause, it has
become apparent that Clause 2 would be difficult to enforce as there is no
way of identifying those residential tenancy agreements that are in force
prior to commencement. To identify property owners required to make a
deposit, and take enforcement action would be time consuming and costly.
Further, there may well be a number of owners who will inadvertently
breach the Act due to ignorance of the change in the law and its application
to existing rental deposits.
For these reasons, the Residential Tenancy Amendment Bill 2009 amends the
Residential Tenancy Amendment Act 2005 so that only bonds for residential
tenancy agreements entered into on or after 1 July 2009 are required to be
paid to the Authority.
The Residential Tenancy Amendment Bill 2009 also provides that for pre-
existing tenancy agreements any disputes in relation to the amount of the
security deposit to be returned to the tenant by the owner after
termination of the agreement will by dealt with by the Commissioner
pursuant to the existing legislation.