I’m struggling to see how joint tenancies are supposed to work practically under the new rules.
Under the old system, if you were in a fixed-term contract, you usually needed everyone’s consent to leave early. One person couldn’t just pull the rug out from under the rest of the flat mid-contract. Now that everything is moving to rolling/periodic tenancies, my understanding is that any single tenant can hand in a 2-month notice and end the entire tenancy for everyone, whether the other housemates like it or not.
Doesn't this create a huge amount of uncertainty for shared households? One person gets a job in another city or decides to move in with a partner, and suddenly the other three people are essentially evicted with 60 days to find a new home.
The other thing that's bothering me is the rent increase situation. The Act says landlords can only increase rent once per year. However, our landlord had said that if one person leaves and you want to replace them (a tenancy transfer), we must end the old contract and signing a brand-new one.
If a "new" contract is signed every time a housemate rotates out, does that mean the "once a year" rule is bypassed? If people move in and out every few months, the landlord could technically hike the rent for the remaining tenants with every new agreement with multiple hikes a year if there are multiple leaving throughout the year?
Is anyone else worried that the Act basically kills the stability of joint tenancies, or am I missing some specific protections that address this?