A word from our CEO

As restrictions ease in Victoria, tenants continue to have the protection of COVID-19 laws enhancing their rental rights until the end of March next year. 

Our advice for people renting their homes and facing financial hardship is to seek out a rent reduction under these laws. This could qualify them for a rent relief grant of up to $3000 from the Victorian Government. Next week, we start a public awareness campaign to spotlight these measures. As part our broad outreach, one focus is on renters from diverse communities.

I have been struck by how the health and broader social and economic impacts of the pandemic have affected some people from multicultural backgrounds especially hard. Tenants Victoria has been fortunate to receive funding for extra staff under the State Government’s Working for Victoria scheme. This has enabled us to employ new staff to strengthen our response to the crisis, including multilingual community engagement workers who have the cultural competence to help us break down barriers, and ensure we are - truly - ‘all in this together'.  

– Jennifer Beveridge

Restrictions – what has changed?

Now that Victoria is entering a new 'COVID normal', what does that mean for renters? What are your rights? We've updated our COVID-19 Guide based the new changes about:

• Inspections and auctions
• Time limits for inspections and residents having to leave their homes
• Traveling for inspections
• Repairs

For more information, visit our COVID-19 Guide for renters.

New real estate regulations

Tenants Victoria welcomes new regulations increasing the education requirements for the real estate industry. The Estate Agents (Education) Regulations 2020 commenced on 21 October 2020, prescribing the following courses:

• For estate agents, 18 study units for the award of a Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice, and 12 units for the award of a Diploma of Property (Agency Management) 
• For agents’ representatives, 18 study units for the award of a Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice.                                                                                      

Learn more about the regulations.

Meet our engagement officers

Tenants Victoria is putting more community engagement workers on the ground to share rental rights information and collect insights into challenges faced by renters who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Among the new staff who joined our team this month for the six-month community engagement project are Ali Nazari, Aguer Athian and Alan Loow.

Collectively, this talented group also speak the following languages: Dinka, Kiswahili, Dari, Mandarin, Cantonese and Malay. We will be shortly adding a worker with Arabic language proficiency to further enhance outreach into multicultural communities. 

Need a rent reduction?
 
We’re encouraging renters to apply for a rent reduction if they are experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19.
 
We’ve redesigned our rent reduction page, with steps on how go through the entire rent reduction process.
 
We’ve also ramped up our COVID Guide for renters on our website, and we encourage you to share this resource with other renters you know who are in need during the pandemic.