OPINION
The cold, template letter from our property managers declaring that the rent was rising by $250 a week made me burst into tears.
My husband had picked up the innocent looking envelope from our mailbox on a Saturday morning but little did we know the horror it contained.
In the middle of a rental crisis, we were going to have to either move from our Sydney apartment we had lived in for two years or cough up more than $1000 a month to stay.
A place we had made our home and where we had always paid our rent on time, kept the place in excellent condition and rarely raised issues – but none of that mattered.
The previous year we had agreed to a $20 a week increase, which we thought was fair.
But the bombshell rent rise the following year was going to see our rent skyrocket from $570 a week to $820 – a whopping 43 per cent increase.
I remember telling family and friends and they said that surely this couldn’t be legal – but sadly there was nothing unlawful about it.
The ACT is the only place in Australia that limits rental increases and NSW Premier Chris Minns has ruled out introducing them in the most expensive state in the country.
For us, our impending rent rise sent me into ...
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