Tenants told to accept a $400-a-week rent increase or get out

Marin Peplinksi felt physically unwell when she was told how much her rent would be increased.

Marin Peplinski and her fiance will be forced to move after their landlord came to them with a 44 per cent rental increase, from $900 a week to $1300. Picture: Britta Campion

Marin Peplinski and her fiance felt sick to their stomachs.

They’d just been told the rent on their two-bedroom Redfern apartment was going up a whopping $400 a week – a 44 per cent increase – just as they were planning their wedding.

Surely there was room for some compromise, they pleaded by email that night.

Early the next morning the property manager came back with the news that the landlord was “under their own financial and personal constraints” and would not negotiate.

The rent would be increasing from $900 to $1300; they could take it or leave it.

Tenants across Australia are being forced to choose between weekly rent hikes of up to 45 per cent or climbing back into one of the tightest rental markets on record, where they risk not securing a home at all.

In 12 months, rents across Australia’s capital cities have gone up on average $60 per week and $40 in regional markets.

“What’s upsetting is there’s absolutely nothing to mitigate this,” said Ms Peplinski.

“Even if we go to the tribunal, maybe they’ll be forced to negotiate but they can just terminate the (fixed-term) agreement … It’s just an abuse of the tenant-landlord relationship.”

On Friday, the Perrottet government announced it would implement “reasonable-grounds” requirements for evictions for periodic or month-to-month leases to bring NSW closer in line with Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. Labor has already promised to end no-grounds evictions.

While each state has regulations around how many times a year a landlord can raise the rent and how much notice they need to give, the ACT is the only jurisdiction that has a cap on rental increases. Tenants associations have called for the model to be extended nationwide.

The new rules won’t help people like Ms Peplinski and her fiance, as there will be no cap on rental increases. They’ll have no choice but to move.

“Our personal financial circumstances have not changed,” Ms Peplinski said.

“We’re being hit with inflation for everyday costs.

“And we’re not getting anything besides $20,000 more (a year) in rent. It doesn’t make any sense why we would stay, unless we literally have nowhere else to go.

“It should not be legal to increase rent by 45 per cent per week.”

University student Theo Mangos, 21, had the rent for his three-bedroom Maroubra home, close to the University of NSW, increase by 42 per cent last month following brief negotiations. But he and his two roommates, none of whom are from Sydney, chose to stay over fears they would become homeless.

University student Theo Mangos, centre, with his two flatmates.

The $230 increase, from $550 to $780, means Mr Mangos pays $100 more a week, which is 60 per cent of his part-time income.

“We tried looking for other places to move to but they were out of our budget. The only affordable places were a two-hour commute from our university. All the rentals had 30 people waiting out the front; we were competing with families and adults with full-time jobs.

“We didn’t like our chances and we didn’t want to become homeless so we were forced into accepting it,” he said.

Mr Mangos and many other students have been angered into joining the National Students Union’s Get a Room campaign, protesting for action on the rental crisis.

Made Curkovic, a 21-year-old Monash University student, was forced to move from the Melbourne CBD to the southeastern suburbs with her three roommates after her rent was increased by 30 per cent.

“Students are angry because people at the top of society are profiting, but housing is a basic necessity, a human right,” she said.

Mr Mangos and Ms Curkovic want to see a rental freeze, while the NUS campaign is calling for a rent cap.