HOUSING SUPPORT
Changing the locks
Being placed on a tenancy ‘blacklist’
If you have an ADVO that stops the perpetrator of violence from living in the property, you can change the locks, but you need to provide copies of the keys to the landlord within seven days, unless the ADVO is against the landlord.
Your landlord or real estate agent cannot blacklist you by putting your name on a bad tenant database if you have ended your tenancy by giving a Domestic Violence Termination Notice.
There are safe places to stay and ways to prevent you (and your children) becoming homeless. Please reach out for help for through the contacts below.
Ending a tenancy because of domestic violence
Have You Already Left the Property?
Temporary Accommodation and Refuges
- If you have an interim ADVO, then you can apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal to end the perpetrator’s tenancy. The tenancy simply transfers to any remaining co-tenant(s) named on the agreement. A remaining occupant who is not named on the agreement can ask the landlord or agent to have the agreement put in their name.
You can end your tenancy immediately, without penalty, if you (or your dependent child) is experiencing domestic violence. To do so, you will need to give: the landlord, or the landlord’s agent, a domestic violence termination notice (available from the NSW Fair Trading website) and attach one of these for evidence: - certificate of conviction for the domestic violence offence - family law injunction - provisional, interim or final Domestic Violence Order (DVO) - declaration made by a medical practitioner (e.g. GP) in the prescribed form. each co-tenant a domestic violence termination notice. You do not need to attach the above evidence to the notice you give to the other co-tenants. You can give notice without seeing the abuser: for example, by leaving the notice addressed to the abuser in their letterbox or mailing it. © State of New South Wales (NSW Fair Trading) For current information and required forms go to fairtrading.nsw.gov.au
You can still end your lease in circumstances of domestic violence even after you have left the property. However, your name will stay on the lease and you will be responsible for the rent up until you give the Domestic Violence Termination Notice to your landlord and any other co-tenants. Damage to the property You will not be responsible for damage to your rental property if you can show it was caused by a perpetrator of violence during a domestic violence offence. You should write down when and how the damage was caused and take a photo of the damage, and ask police for the police event number for the reported damage. You will need this information to provide to your landlord or real estate agent.
Temporary or crisis accommodation can be
provided if you are escaping domestic and family violence through women and children’s refuges or safe accommodation providers. Refuges may support you with accommodation, meals, transport, case management, advocacy, and referral to personally identified needs such as counselling, legal, housing and health services. If you want to stay in your rented house, and the abusive person is a co- tenant: - If a final ADVO is granted that excludes the perpetrator from accessing the property, then the perpetrator’s co- tenancy will automatically end.
If the landlord or agent refuses, the remaining
occupant may apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an order to be recognised as a tenant under the original agreement.
"I didn’t realise my strength until I had to do it. It is incredibly empowering" ~ Survivor
Women's Legal Service NSW (2019)
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