THE ACT government has enacted a 12-week moratorium on evictions for rent arrears for tenants who are in financial distress due to a loss of income as a result of the COVID-19.

The moratorium is part of a new tenancy COVID-19 emergency response declaration, which sees the government commit $5.25 million in emergency support measures to help residential and commercial renters and landlords impacted by the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Residential landlords who offer rent relief will be eligible for a credit on their residential land tax of up to $100 per week to share the cost of passing rent relief on to tenants who have lost income due to COVID-19.

This rebate will operate in the same way as the land tax credit that was offered by the government last year.

There will also be new measures to prevent those who are required to quarantine or self-isolate in response to a public health direction, from being required to leave their rental property during their quarantine or self-isolation period.

The government is also reinstating measures, which require commercial landlords to engage in good faith negotiations with local business tenants hardest hit by COVID-19 during the current ACT lockdown.

The new temporary commercial leases declaration will prevent commercial landlords from taking prescribed actions against tenants impacted by COVID-19 such as terminating their lease without first discussing lease arrangements. The declaration will apply from August 12 when the ACT was placed into lockdown.

Commercial landlords who offer rent relief may be eligible for a commercial rates credit of up to $5000.

A credit is available for owner-operators who meet the eligibility criteria.

The ACT government will also waive rent payments for the month of September for any business and community sector tenants of government-owned properties who have experienced a 30 per cent reduction in turnover in August.

However, following the announcement, Better Renting executive director Joel Dignam said the support for residential tenants is “disappointing”.

“At a time when our entire community is dealing with the difficulty and stress of a twice-extended lockdown, this declaration is not worth much,” he said.

“Instead of offering protection to all renters against all evictions, it defines a narrow group of renters and protects them against only a narrow range of potential evictions.

“There are renting families out there in lockdown, dealing with the challenges of learning-from-home and the stress of the game-changing delta variant. Now they’ve got to live with the added worry that they could get a notice to vacate and be forced to leave their home in a matter of weeks.”