• A free legal advice service says it will offer assistance to Victorian renters served eviction notices for unpaid rent, as the state’s yearlong eviction ban comes to an end.
• Anika Legal “expects the need for legal assistance to skyrocket when the COVID-19 renter protections come to an end on March 28,” said CEO and co-founder Noel Lim.
  
• The not-for-profit, which pairs applicants with law students under the supervision of a practicing lawyer, says it will provide advice within two days.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

A free legal advice service is gearing up to assist Victorian tenants served eviction notices over unpaid rent, as the end of the state’s eviction ban, and the winding down of JobKeeper and JobSeeker, threatens financially vulnerable renters.

Anika Legal, a not-for-profit supported by a Victorian Government grant, says it will provide legal guidance to renters served with notices to vacate when tenancy protections come to an end on March 28.

The state’s eviction moratorium, instituted in March 2020 to protect tenants through the COVID-19 pandemic, barred landlords from evicting tenants facing financial hardship.

The protections also called for impacted tenants and landlords to negotiate rent agreements, with many renters attaining temporary rent reductions through the crisis.

Those reductions may have allowed to tenants to pay back unpaid rent at a later date.

Financially vulnerable Victorians could also access $3,000 in rent support through a State Government support scheme, which also ends in the coming days.

Tenants’ advocates now fear renters, whose financial circumstances are yet to improve, will be hit with arrears they can’t afford — and could be evicted because of it.

Anika Legal “expects the need for legal assistance to skyrocket when the COVID-19 renter protections come to an end on March 28,” CEO and co-founder Noel Lim told Business Insider Australia.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), the state’s de facto tenancy dispute resolution system, hears “about 20,000 cases of tenants being evicted for rent arrears” in a normal year, Lim said.

The Age reports that VCAT eviction applications have already started to rise, despite the overarching eviction ban.

“Because of the yearlong ban on evictions and the severe financial hardship caused by the effects of the pandemic, we expect the number of evictions to be significantly higher in the year ahead when the renter protections end,” Lim added.

A ban on Victorian landlords raising rents will also expire on March 28.

Combined with the end of the JobKeeper wage subsidy, and the JobSeeker payment’s effective reversion to pre-pandemic levels, advocates like Tenants Victoria CEO Jennifer Beveridge fear a “perfect storm” will meet at-risk renters.

“When the ban lifts, we expect to see a mass eviction of tenants,” Lim said.

“Many of whom have been most impacted by the effects of the pandemic and are likely still experiencing financial hardship – leaving them with nowhere else to go and possibly having to face homelessness.”

Anika Legal asks eligible applicants to fill out a questionnaire detailing their situation. The organisation says advice is prepared by a law student, and signed off by a practicing lawyer, before being provided to the client.

The organisation says applicants can expect to hear back within two days, with more than 230 tenants assisted in the past year.

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