Yahoo Finance Queensland government urged to create ‘landlord register’ to help keep rogue owners honest
Renters’ advocates will call for the creation of a landlord register at Queensland’s upcoming housing crisis summit in an attempt to help remedy an imbalance of power between property owners and tenants.
Tenants Queensland’s chief executive, Penny Carr, said a register could help keep rogue landlords honest while providing information about owners, including how many properties they own and where they live. Information about whether owners are renting out their properties on a short- or long-term basis – or had been leaving them vacant – could also be captured.
The proposal has been backed as “reasonable and sensible” by some housing experts, but panned as an “unnecessary” invasion of privacy by the state’s real estate lobby.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s chief executive, Antonia Mercorella, said local, state and federal laws and regulation already governed residential tenancies and ensured owners were taxed appropriately.
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“The REIQ can’t see any rationale for the establishment of a ‘landlord register’ and how this could help the government address the housing crisis we’re facing in this state,” Mercorella said.
“Further, from a practical standpoint, publicly listing property owners’ personal details flies in the face of privacy laws.”
Carr and Mercorella will next week attend a summit on the housing crisis – announced by the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, last month. The summit will bring together stakeholders and experts in an attempt to find ways out of a crisis in which entire families are couch surfing and sleeping in cars and a growing class of working poor are struggling to keep a roof over their heads.
But despite a picture emerging of those locked out of the housing market, much less was known about those with a stake in it, Carr said.
“We don’t know very much about who owns properties at all,” Carr said.
That imbalance manifested in individual relations between landlords and tenants, she said.
“When renters are trying to secure a property, they provide a whole lot of information about themselves, usually to a real estate agent, sometimes before they even see a property. But [that renter] knows little if anything about the landlord.”
While acknowledging it would not be “a panacea”, Carr said the register could shine a light on property ownership and use.
“We want to know who we are benefiting when we make those policy decisions because, usually, policy has winners and losers,” she said.
Public information detailing the number of properties owned by interstate investors could have played a role in the debate that led to the Palaszczuk government backing down from its proposed land tax increases for interstate landlords.
The managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Michael Fotheringham, said a landlord register could help identify a “small minority” of “cowboy” landlords who dragged their feet or weren’t willing to do repairs.
“If [the register] was attached to a regulatory body … then that would actually be a sensible and reasonable thing to ensure that tenancies are managed appropriately.”
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But Fotheringham said the proposal should be considered as part of broader reform that championed housing as safe and appropriate shelter and not just a means of wealth generation for the owners.
“We need to balance the use of property as a nest egg for the investor with it being a nest for the person living in it,” he said. “At the moment, that balance still leans in favour of the investor.”
Emma Power, an associate professor of geography and urban studies at Western Sydney University, said a “well-designed landlord registration system” was a good idea.
“As an equal party to the rental contract, and paying potentially thousands or tens of thousands of dollars annually as part of the contract, tenants have a right to be assured that their landlord will also meet their responsibilities under the legislation, including maintaining the property.”
