Know your renter rights: how to claw back your bond

Lawyers have compiled a handy list of tenants’ rights for Tassie renters attempting to claw back their bonds from their landlords. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW >>

Lawyers have compiled a handy list of tenants’ rights for Tassie renters attempting to claw back their bonds from their landlords.

The 13 fact sheets were compiled by the Tenants’ Union of Tasmania and funded by the Law Society.

The union’s principal solicitor Ben Bartl said many tenants were not aware of their renter rights and ended up having their bonds taken from them unnecessarily.

“A lot of tenants just throw their hands up in the air and think it’s not worth fighting, but the tenants’ union is a free service so if there is a dispute please contact us,” Mr Bartl said.

“There’s more than 2000 bond disputes in Tasmania each year, so the idea behind this project is to potentially reduce the numbers of disputes.”

While compiling the list Mr Bartl said he personally learnt quite a bit about tenant rights, much of which is buried deep within obscure case law.

Bond

For example, contrary to popular belief, tenants are not required to steam clean their carpets after ending a lease, provided that the carpets are in “reasonable” condition.

Additionally the landlord cannot charge the full price for a carpet replacement unless the carpet is new or near-new, since the useful lifespan of carpet is deemed to be 10 years old.

A tenant is entitled to a full bond refund provided that the house has been cleaned to a “reasonable” standard, the criteria for which is on the Tenants Union website.

Bond

If tenants believe that their landlord is trying to withhold more of their bond than they’re legally entitled to, they can appeal to the Tenancy Commission.

Once the Tenancy Commissioner has made their decision, landlords or tenants can contest it further by taking it to the Magistrate’s Court - although disputes seldom go that far.

Law Foundation secretary Luke Rheinberger said these fact sheets seemed like a worthy cause.

“The Tenants Union’ put up a really compelling grant application case that this information in this project would do a lot of good, so therefore it was funded,” Mr Rheinberger said.

A list of the fact sheets can be found on the Tenants’ Union website at tutas.org.au/factsheets/

Originally published as Know your renter rights: how to claw back your bond