Isn’t it hard to believe that just a few short months ago, we thought that the bushfires in our local area would dominate our thoughts this year…  How things have changed!  I wanted to give you an update on what has been going on for our office during this pandemic and what some of our office policies have been.

Lets start with the big stuff!  Remember back to 23rd March 2020?  It was a bit of a momentous day in property management in NSW, when new laws were introduced, seeing major changes to the way that we do our job and the way that you as landlords can behave with regard to your tenanted properties.  This is the biggest change that I thought we would see this year… how wrong I was!  I have done a number of blog posts on these changes and I will put a list of them here for you to go and take a read of them here so that I do not go over the same ground that I have already written about.  Break Lease  Minor Changes  Water Efficiency  Smoke Alarms  General Updates  If you have any questions after reading these specific blogs, please make sure to let me know.  If you were really interested, you can always take a look at the new laws online using this link

I am sure that you have all heard about the changes to the Residential Tenancies Act around Covid 19, with the biggest and most notable change, being the no eviction moratorium being implemented.  There are some very stringent requirements around this moratorium and it is not a blanket rule.  We found that prior to the announcement from the state government about the framework that they were introducing, that we had a lot more confusion surrounding this issue.  Now that the framework has been released and the requirements have been provided, we are in a much better place to be able to work out if this rule does in fact apply to each individual situation.  To see the flow chart that we are using from Fair Trading, you can click this link.  There have also been changes to the time frames around other notices, with many of them being extended to 90 days.  If you have a situation where you need your tenant to be terminated, you will speak directly with our office and we will guide you through what is required and what you are legally allowed to do.

Just to make things interesting, if you happen to be a commercial landlord, then none of what I have written above applies to you.  You are instead governed by the new Commercial Tenancies Code of Conduct.  Each case will be looked at individually and is determined by whether your tenant is able to be open (gyms, beauticians, pubs cannot be open and restaurants are only allowed to do take away) and then it is dependent on the amount of income that has been lost by the tenant in comparison to the past financial year.  I have a link to the new regulations here.

Our office front door is locked to the public at present, so that we are able to comply with the new social distancing laws and keep our staff safe.  If you do need to come into our office, you need to call us ahead of time, to inform us what you are needing.  In most cases, we are able to help you without opening the front door, using email or one of our document services.  Rod and I have an obligation to our staff to ensure that we keep them as safe as we can at this time.

You would be aware that we are not able to conduct open homes for our rental properties, this has seen our office make changes to the way that we do things.  We have introduced 360 tours to ensure that we can still allow people to see the premises and are asking for interested parties to fill in an application prior to us making them an appointment to see the property in person individually.  We have also stopped doing routine inspections for the present moment, so that we are keeping to the required social distancing laws and that we do not expose ourselves or our tenants to any unnecessary risk at this time.  We have been asking our tenants to provide photos to our office for their routine inspections, along with any repairs that they need us to address for them.  Our trades people are also working on reduced access at this time, so we are trying to put off any repairs that are not urgent, until restrictions are lifted and life goes back to normal.  If your properties routine inspection falls at this time, you may see photos sent that your tenant has provided, rather than our normal attendance at the premises.

Many of our landlords have already provided either payment plans or rent rebates to their tenants at this time.  Our office will be continuing to speak with all parties involved to ensure that circumstances have not changed and that things are still meeting the criteria that is needed.  If you are at all concerned, please make sure that you contact our office and chat with me directly about the situation.

It has been a huge start to the year and I feel that we all will remember 2020 as a huge blip on our lives.  We are lucky in Lithgow to have only had 4 confirmed cases, with 3 of those directly coming from international holidays or the Ruby Princess.  This means that as long as we are continuing to practise social distancing and putting measures in place to keep us healthy, we should get through this time with as low an impact on our lives as possible.

I wish you and your family safety and health at this crazy time.