The Prime Minister has just announced a 6 month moratorium on termination of commercial and residential tenancies for non-payment of rent.
The term commercial, presumably, also includes retail leases.
The Age website has reported this:
Mr Morrison has also announced a moratorium on evictions from commercial and residential rental properties.
He says states and territories will be implementing a six-month ban on evictions of people as a “result of financial distress if they are unable to meet their commitments”.
Mr Morrison says he wants landlords and tenants to work with each other and banks while the policy is worked on.
“We want people to sit down and work this out … There is no rule book for this,” he says.
The Herald-Sun reports that ‘more work will be done on commercial tenancies’.
It is not clear at this stage when the moratorium will start, but 1 April 2020 is as good a guess as any.
It is also unclear how ‘financial distress’ or a tenants ability to ‘meet their commitments’ will be defined or assessed.
Sam Hopper Barrister 
March 29, 2020
Uncategorized