 If you are new to the rental market or seeking to reduce living costs, you may be considering subletting or share housing. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Mark Fiddler and I am a Senior Community Education Officer with the RTA. In this webinar, I'm going to talk you through the differences between a sharehouse and a sub-tenancy, some things you need to consider and some tips on how to step through the processes involved. I'll do this today with the help of a couple of case studies. Before I start, I would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this country and their continuing connection with the land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to all traditional owners past, present and emerging. Please note that today we cannot provide legal advice and you are encouraged to seek your own independent advice to make informed decisions. And if you are joining us live today, please use the chat function to ask any questions and we'll discuss these at the end. If you're watching the webinar recording on the RTA website, we'll provide some links to additional resources that can provide you with more information. So what are we talking about when we mention share houses and sub-tenancies? So looking at the graphic on the left, this shows a share house or a co-tenancy situation. Tenants have a direct relationship with the property manager or owner. Whereas on the right, we see a direct relationship between the property manager owner and a tenant, but then a second relationship between the tenant and their sub-tenant. In this situation, the sub-tenant has no relationship with the property manager owner outside of knowing that they have been approved to be there. So to look at these a little bit more in a little bit more depth. So a share house arrangement is a tenancy agreement between a property manager or a owner and two or more tenants. In this set up, the property manager or owner is responsible for managing all aspects of the tenancy. Tenants are referred to generally as co-tenants and they can either be jointly or individually liable for all of the rent and paying the bond. All parties are covered under the Act. Generally, this is agreed upon certainly from a tenant's point of view, prior to signing the tenancy agreement. And to ensure a smooth renting experience, co-tenants are encouraged to have had conversations and come to agreements on how things like rent and bond will be paid, how cleaning is done, set some ground rules around guests and those sorts of things. So in a sub-tenancy situation, there are generally a couple of ways that a sub-tenancy can start. Sometimes a tenant will rent a premises with the sole intent of subletting. Now, in these circumstances, the tenant must have sought permission from the property owner or manager before entering into any sub-tenancy arrangements. They then become the head tenant or the lessor. The other way is where a sole tenant starts a tenancy, then decides to bring another party into that tenancy. Again, permission must be sought and obtained for this to happen. In a sub-tenancy arrangement, the head tenant assumes the same responsibilities as a property manager or owner and is required to provide the sub-tenants with written tenancy agreements, entry condition reports, the RTA's pocket guide for tenants or the 17A, a receipt of any rental bond money is paid and a requirement to lodge it with the RTA. All parties are covered under the Act again in this situation. Another thing to note here is the head tenant is bound by a fixed term lease and their tenancy is ended. They must consider that they have appropriate time frame to end any sub-tenancies and we'll talk about that for a little moment. So to have a look and apply some of this information to some practical examples, let's have a look at a couple of case studies. So the first one, we have a sole tenancy situation where the tenant is living in a two bedroom place on her own and is looking to fill the second room. So what are the sorts of things that we need to consider and what are the responsibilities of the parties in these circumstances? So firstly, Katie must seek permission in writing. So the Residential Tenancies of Rooming Accommodation Act says that a tenant can transfer all or a part of their interest under the agreement or sublet only if the lessor agrees in writing to the transfer or sublet. It also says that the lessor must act reasonably in filing to agree to the request. So if Katie is one person in a two bedroom apartment and requests an additional tenant, it might be unreasonable not to allow it. The number of bedrooms is not the only thing that the lessor needs to take into consideration. And if the tenant does make a request and feels that the lessor is being unreasonable, they can come to the RTA for dispute resolution. So if approved, Katie then needs to decide how the new tenant will come into the arrangement. Taylor could be added to the lease agreement, thus becoming a co-tenant and therefore a share house situation. Taylor may pay half the bond and Katie would need to take steps to change her share of the bond over with us here at the RTA. And we'd also encourage them to have a conversation about the things we discussed earlier. Things like how to pay the rent, cleaning guests and those sorts of things. Now if Katie didn't want to add Taylor to her agreement, she could create a subtenancy. She'd need to get Taylor to sign an agreement. She'd take a bond and lodge it with us. Katie continues to be solely responsible to the agent for the agreement that the she signed and therefore responsible for all of Taylor's actions, including any damage that she may call. Katie could then claim from Taylor's bond if she needed to. And Katie would also, as I mentioned earlier, be conscious of her requirements if her tenancy unit is ended. She needs to end Taylor's tenancy by using correct time frames. So now we'll have a look at a situation where we've got multiple tenants in a tenancy agreement and they want to make some changes. So in this example, Adam and Chris agree and accept Elton's decision to complete a world tour. But to make this happen, let's discuss what they need to do next and what their options are. So Adam and Chris can continue the tenancy in Elton's absence as long as they pay the rent in full on time and continue to meet any other responsibilities. It would be recommended in this situation that they put something in writing to the property manager, advising that Elton is seeking agreement to transfer his interest to Ed and Chris. And they should also consider the bond situation. They can pay Elton his share and arrange to transfer the bond into Ed and Chris's names. This would then leave the bond and the lease in Ed and Chris's names to continue. If they choose to replace Elton, they'd still be required to seek permission to transfer Elton's interest in the tenancy. Except this time, they're not transferring Elton's interest back to Chris and Ed, but to another tenant. If approved, it's more likely that that new person, let's call it Sting, will be added to the agreement and become a co-tenant. Elton's share of the bond can be paid by Sting to Elton and a form six can be processed to change the details that the RTA hold. It's encouraged that these steps are taken prior to a tenant leaving. That way the bond can be sorted and signatures can be obtained. We do understand and see situations, however, where co-tenancy relationships break down and one tenant leaves without taking any of the steps that we've talked about. These can get very messy in trying to sort matters out. Now, just remember, if you do have any questions regarding Sting's information, please use the chat and drop them in and we will address it a little bit later on. So what are our top tips for share houses and subletting? So remember that if you do need to make changes to your existing agreement, it's important to understand the difference between a share house situation or co-tenancy and a sublet. Make the decision that works best for you. The act is clear. The tenant or tenants must seek permission to transfer their interest or sublet and the property owner or manager must be reasonable in their decision making in agreeing to the request. Open communication from all parties is the key here. It is a breach of an agreement for a tenant to have more occupants than the agreement allows. So using the case study or looking at the case study we looked at before, if Katie allowed Taylor to take the second room without permission, she can be considered to be in breach of the agreement and issued a breach notice. If permission is provided to transfer your interest or sublet, then the tenant needs to decide on how they're going to proceed. Are they going to bring the new person in as a co-tenant or start them off as a subtenant? And please, as I've mentioned, don't forget the bond. We see too many instances of a share house changing tenants across the course of a tenancy but not sorting the bond out. Sometimes the tenants left at the end of the tenancy are not the tenants named on the bond and this can make it difficult if a claim is made on the bond because A, payments may not be made to those that are there but those that are named on the bond record and also the tenants left at the end may not get an opportunity to participate in the dispute process. We do encourage all parties to discuss changes to the bond and seek agreement on what will happen with the bond. Changes can be made to the bond using the RTA's web services and tenants can initiate and complete this process without involvement from the property manager or LSO. Property manager or LSO will receive notification of the changes when the process is complete but it's also important to remember that changes to the bond are not changes to the lease agreement and all parties need to agree and sign to make any changes to a lease. A paper form six is still an option so if it's easier to collect signatures and submit the form to the RTA, we would encourage you to follow that process. If you're looking for more information about anything that we have discussed here today, I encourage you to access the resources that are shown here on your screen. So we do have a couple of pages both on share houses and on subtenancies on our website. We also have an article from our recent E news and a podcast that does discuss this in a little bit more detail. And as I mentioned, there is a lot of information on our website but also if you do have any questions, please reach out to us through our contact centre if you need help with your specific circumstances. So the RTA Contact Centre is available Monday to Friday and we have free access to interpreters.