Eviction costs the average renter more than $4,000 and up to 30% of renters in New South Wales will experience it – often through no fault of their own – according to a new report from the NSW Tenants’ Union.
The report, titled Eviction, Hardship, and the Housing Crisis, calculated the costs of eviction to the renter, the landlord and the public more broadly. It found that the average cost of a move ranges from $3,215 for a single-person household in greater Sydney through to $5,400 for a family household in regional NSW.
The Tenants’ Union is calling for the NSW state government to abolish “no-grounds” eviction, bolster hardship provisions for renters, and provide landlord insurance, compensation or similar schemes to prevent the need for unnecessary eviction.
The call comes as the state’s renters embark on a renewed period of precariousness, with 12 February marking the end of the final phase of the 2021 eviction moratorium, which protected NSW renters from being kicked out of their homes during last year’s lockdown.
Moving house was “a significant, traumatic and costly event” that needed to be taken seriously, said the NSW Tenants’ Union chief executive, Leo Patterson Ross.
Between 20% and 30% of renters in NSW move due to eviction – that is, because a landlord has terminated the lease agreement, and the renter does not have a choice about whether or not to move out. In many cases, these are no-grounds evictions in which the landlord is not required to provide a reason.
Sally, a renter in a regional NSW town who requested a pseudonym as she fears repercussions from her landlord, experienced the trauma of no-grounds eviction first-hand. Her landlord told her in June last year that her lease would not be renewed.
Sally departed Sydney four years ago after family court matters meant she had to leave her successful career in the public service. She moved into a three-bedroom house with her three school-age children, with the rent at $500 a week.
Despite a substantially reduced income, and the rent taking up between 50% and 75% of her weekly income, she still managed to regularly pay on time.
Sally was told over the phone by the real estate agent that they would not be renewing her lease after four years in the property because the landlord wanted to move in. She initially tried to appeal against the decision, fearing it would make her homeless, which would affect the decisions being considered in family court.
“They said, ‘there’s nothing we can do’ and they sent me the official termination notice,” Sally said.
Sally spent a month frantically searching for properties – “a month or so of utter, utter stress, because there was literally nothing” – until she heard through a friend about a vacancy with the same real estate agent that had not yet been advertised. It cost more, but it was nearby and she was desperate, so she applied for it and was accepted.
“That night after I’d paid a deposit – I hadn’t even packed anything for the move yet – and looked on my phone, and there’s the house I’m leaving advertised for $50 more a week. I nearly vomited,” Sally said.
Sally estimated her moving costs at about $3,000, not including the bond for the new house or the amounts she agreed to pay to fix minor damage in the house that did not fall under reasonable wear and tear provisions – “exorbitant rates for everything, because I was so worried about getting things sorted so I wasn’t homeless”.
The costs were exacerbated by the forced move during NSW’s hard lockdown, which meant her children were at home from school and her friends couldn’t come and help.
The risks of eviction, particularly into homelessness, are especially high for people who are experiencing personal crisis, the NSW Tenants’ Union report found.
The report argues that in cases where the landlord has terminated the lease for anything other than a breach of agreement – that is, a “no fault” or no-grounds eviction – the landlord should pay the renter’s moving costs.
“No-grounds eviction has such a big impact on renters, particularly when it’s so competitive to find a home, and it has a particularly pervasive effect on the way landlords and tenants relate to each other,” said Patterson Ross.
He said eviction had become the default tool for landlords and real estate agents to use to manage a property, even when it wasn’t necessarily in anyone’s best interests to do so.
“It doesn’t matter if a no-grounds notice is served; it’s the relationship it creates between tenant and landlord,” Patterson Ross said.
