Laws to provide support for commercial and residential landlords and tenants.

Legislation to support tenants and landlords of both commercial and residential tenancies are being introduced into State Parliament.

The Residential Tenancies (COVID-19 Response) Bill 2020 will introduce:

  • a moratorium on evictions for 6 months
  • a prohibition on rent increases during the emergency period
  • that any fixed term tenancy agreement due to expire during the emergency period will continue as a periodic agreement
  • relieving lessors of the obligation to conduct ordinary repairs if the reason they cannot do so is COVID-19 related financial hardship or a lawful restriction on movement
  • enabling a tenant to end a fixed term tenancy prior to its end date without incurring break lease fees (tenants will still be liable for damage and rent arrears).

Further details for residential tenancies

Further details for commercial tenancies

The West Australian Government has announced a range of support and initiatives designed to soften the economic impact of Coronavirus.

These include:

• One-off grants of $17,500 to small and medium businesses
• Small business support services
• Fast-track payroll tax relief for small businesses
• Waiver of 2019-20 payroll tax available to small and medium sized businesses
• Expenditure relief for the WA mining exploration industry
• $9 million relief package for on-demand transport industry

Full details are available here.