Rita Panahi: Inept Allan govt hurting landlords while making life harder for renters

You’d have to have rocks in your head to invest your hard earned in a broke state with a government that is openly hostile to landlords, while property prices go backwards in Melbourne.

The Victorian government’s war on mum and dad property investors is reaching new lows.

At this stage you’d have to have rocks in your head to invest your hard earned in a broke state with a government that is openly hostile to landlords, and at a time when property prices in Melbourne are going backwards while owners in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin saw their investment grow in the past 12 months.

Leading developer Tim Gurner summed it up when he said: “The strong consensus in other states is that Victoria is broke, it’s cold, and your property prices don’t go up.”

Not content with inflicting exorbitant land tax hikes that have seen many landlords sell up, the Jacinta Allan government has imposed a raft of conditions that strip property owners of their rights including the most fundamental right about who can reside in their property.

The Jacinta Allan government has imposed a raft of conditions that strip property owners of their rights. Picture: Ian Currie

The Dan Andrews government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Act in 2018 was bad enough with its long list of reforms that diminished owners’ rights and added significant red tape.

But since then state Labor has been on a rampage with ever more nonsensical, onerous and costly impositions that have pushed up rents and encouraged many investors to exit the market thereby diminishing the pool of rental properties and adding further upward pressure on rents.

The latest measures announced this week will see property owners prevented from evicting a tenant at the end of their lease unless they are in arrears or have deliberately damaged the property.

It is already difficult to evict a tenant if you plan to sell the property with vacant possession. These reforms include removing protections for landlords if a tenant breaks a fixed-term lease.

Renters will only pay one week’s rent for each remaining month of their contract, up to a maximum of four weeks.

That makes it highly unattractive for a landlord to offer a tenant any sort of a fixed term, given it gives the tenant full protection but is of little value to the property owner.

It should surprise no one that the thoroughly inept Victorian Labor government is implementing policies that not only hurt landlords but ultimately make life harder for renters.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist