As rents go up and the average incomes remain relatively low, more and more people are choosing to share houses and flats in order to keep costs down. At the time of the 2001 census, around 195,000 persons lived in share housing in NSW. Unfortunately, the increasing popularity of share housing has not been matched by developments in the law. While tenants' rights are protected (to a certain extent) by the Residential Tenancies Act 1987, the situation between flatmates in share households remains a grey area of the law.
Not all share houses are the same. Sometimes one flatmate will clearly control the house, taking charge of collecting the rent and organising repairs; or all the flatmates could be on an equal footing, sharing the job of taking the rent to the real estate agency or landlord, paying the bills and cleaning the house; or sometimes it might be a combination of the two. Depending on the type of arrangements in the house, you will have a different 'legal status' that is, you may be a co-tenant, head tenant, subtenant or boarder/lodger. Your household status is very important as it determines your legal rights and responsibilities, for example, whether you can be evicted by another tenant or whether you are legally responsible to the landlord.
For this reason, if you are thinking about moving into a share house, whether it is your first or just another in a long line of houses or flats, it's vital that you are aware of the legal stuff as well as how to deal with problems common in share housing. These problems range from legal wrangles with flatmates and landlords, to arguments about the washing-up, and relationships within the house. This book is designed to give you some ideas about how to handle these problems before they cause the break-up of your house.
This guide gives a very broad outline of tenancy rights, but is not intended as a comprehensive manual on tenancy. For more information on tenancy issues, contact the Tenants' Union Hotline or your local Tenants' Advice and Advocacy Service (see Contact Points). All landlords and real estate agents are also obliged to give new tenants a copy of The Renting Guide, which is published by the Office of Fair Trading and provides basic information about tenancy rights and obligations. If you don't have a copy, ask your real estate agent for one or contact the Tenancy Service in the Office of Fair Trading
