News

What is an empty homes levy?   Countries and cities around the world including Vancouver, France, Ireland, Scotland and Melbourne encourage investors to make their residential properties available to long-term tenants by imposing an empty homes levy. The levy is charged if the investor chooses to keep the property empty without a good reason. How much is […]

The latest Tasmanian Rents data has been released. It shows increases in most parts of the island both, in relation to the last quarter as well as the last year. Long term data shows that rent prices continue to rise much faster than they used to prior to approximately 2016/17. Traditionally, rent increases are most […]

Our offices will be closed from Thursday, 22.12.2022 COB to Tuesday, 3.1.2023. The advice line will be open until midday Thursday, 22.12.2021 and will re-open at 9:30 am on 3.1.2022. Our drop-ins will resume on Tuesday, 10.1.2023. However, appointments can be made for 3.1.-9.1.2023. We wish everyone happy holidays!

The Tenants’ Union of Tasmania’s AGM will be held on Thursday, 17 November 2022 at 12:30pm in 166 Macquarie Street. Find our Annual Report for the financial year 2021/22 here.

Following an ABC report today that 160 real estate agencies around Australia, including Tasmania, are using an online platform which appears to ask that prospective tenants pay for a background check we wrote to the Residential Tenancy Commissioner to Determine the legality of the request that prospective tenants pay for background blacklist checks; and Inform […]

In the quarter to June 2022 Tasmania recorded relatively moderate changes in rent prices compared to the last quarter, which is quite normal for this time of the year. Tasmanian weighted median rent remained steady with $420 in March 2022 and $421 this quarter. This resembles the seasonal drop we used to see in June […]

We have written to the Attorney-General welcoming her commitment to reform the Act to allow residential tenants to have pets but asking that there be no additional pet bond required. We have also asked for an end to no ground evictions so that tenants who get pets during their tenancy are unable to be evicted at the end […]

The first release of data from the 2021 Census was published yesterday. We had a look for you to see what the data so far tells us about housing in Tasmania. Since the last Census in 2016, the Tasmanian population has grown by 9.3%, while the number of private dwellings has increased by only 7%. […]