By Mary Ward
One in five animals received by the RSPCA in NSW has been surrendered due to owners’ concerns about rental applications, as the state lags Victoria and Queensland in protecting tenants with pets.
Animal welfare organisations are struggling amid delays to proposed rental reforms, which could see landlords unable to refuse pets in their properties without a prescribed reason or tribunal order.
NSW Labor’s long-waited rental reforms have been pushed back to next year. Credit: Peter Rae
Speaking at a state parliamentary inquiry into pounds last week, RSPCA senior manager of government relations Troy Wilkie said it had seen an increase in pets being abandoned because their owners did not think they could get a rental.
“About one in five [animals] are being brought in due to rental concerns – being unable to, or thinking they can’t, get a rental with that pet – and about half, 50 per cent, are due to cost-of-living pressures,” he said, noting services had seen a “huge uplift” in surrenders for these reasons compared to previous years.
Stephen Albin, CEO of the Animal Welfare League NSW, told the hearing it was seeing similar trends.
The NSW state government embarked on a consultation period for major reforms to renters’ rights in July. Ideas considered by an accompanying consultation paper included removing no-grounds evictions, implementing a portable bond scheme and making it easier for tenants to have pets.
A pet can currently only be kept by a tenant in a property if the landlord agrees, unless it is an assistance animal, such as a guide dog. It is legal to refuse a rental application because the prospective tenant has a pet.
The paper posits adopting rules similar to those introduced in Queensland last year, where tenants must submit a request to have a pet to their landlord, which can only be refused for a set of prescribed reasons or with a tribunal order. No response within 21 days indicates approval.
Landlords would be able to impose reasonable conditions on the tenant, such as paying for carpet cleaning or requiring the animal is kept outside if it is an animal usually kept outside, such as a chicken.
However, at an estimates hearing earlier this month, Minister for Better Regulation Anoulack Chanthivong said Rental Commissioner Trina Jones had asked for more time to consider the more than 16,000 submissions received in response to the consultation paper.
“What surprised me was what I thought [no-grounds eviction] would be the difficult one to really get across the line … but pets brought so much passion and interest,” Jones told the hearing, noting the plan was to agree on a rental reform package encompassing a number of changes in the first quarter of 2024.
Chanthivong told The Sun-Herald the scale of the proposed reform package necessitated the extra time.
“This is big reform and at [Jones’] request we’re taking the time to get it right but moving with urgency to get it done,” he said.
The delay will mean no change ahead of January, which is typically the busiest month for new leases and rental listings.
A previous smaller consultation by the former state government found support for the Victorian model of allowing pets in rentals, introduced in 2020.
In Victoria, a landlord must accept a pet request or otherwise apply through the state’s civil and administrative tribunal for a determination that their refusal is reasonable. Just one Victorian landlord successfully challenged a pet application in the system’s first year of operation, with only 18 cases making it to the tribunal.
Wilkie said the RSPCA mostly saw dog owners seeking to surrender their pet.
“It might be that they can’t find any listings that allow pets, or that they keep applying and being knocked back and they want to give themselves a better chance, particularly with the rental market the way it is,” he said.
“We welcome the state government’s commitment to looking at this. While we’d love to see it as soon as possible, we appreciate that they want to do the consultation.”
Anna Ludvik, founder of Lucy’s Project, which supports women to rehome animals after fleeing domestic violence, said there was a misconception that NSW had already implemented the protections after the consultation paper was announced.
“I think the general impression in the community is that it is sorted and it’s a surprise that it’s not,” she said.
“It is something that we see every day: people surrendering their animal or wanting to surrender their animal because they find themselves in a position where they’ve left a domestic violence situation but they can’t find a pet-friendly rental.”
Jones said she was working with the RSPCA and other stakeholders to ensure the reform would be the right model for NSW.
“This is a priority because we know with low vacancy rates renters are struggling to find suitable properties and many have had to surrender their pets to ensure they have a home,” she said.
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