The Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 (Act) is available on the Parliamentary website and a copy of it is available here: And, yes, I accidentally wrote “now” instead of “not” in my last post. I have now fixed it. Grrrrrrrr – autocorrect!!!!!!!! No news on the Regulations yet.

I am reliably informed that the Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 (Vic) has passed through both houses of Parliament and has now received Royal Assent, although the Act is not yet on the Parliamentary website. No news yet on when the new Regulations will be passed. I will post as soon as I hear anything.

OK – so this is one with a bit of a history to it. Since about 2015, it became clear that s 251 of the Building Act 1991 (Vic) prevented landlords from recovering from their tenants the cost of essential safety measures and other costs of complying with that Act (see https://samhopperbarrister.com/2015/05/01/landlords-ability-to-recover-outgoings-curtailed/). Amendments were made […]

I trust that most of you have read the new Bill and are ready to sit an exam on its contents. For those up who are waiting on my summary … the new Bill is enabling legislation, largely based on the Omnibus Act that was passed in 2020. We will need to wait to see […]

The Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 (Vic) is now available here: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/1rXfCyojmxUE7glDUZNKnz?domain=content.legislation.vic.gov.au I will post a summary shortly.

The Victorian Government has just released another press release about the new CTRS, a copy of which is here: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/rent-relief-way-commercial-tenants Highlights include the following: new legislation will be introduced today (there is nothing on the Parliamentary website yet); landlords and tenants are encouraged to start negotiating as soon as possible; rent relief for eligible tenants […]

The Victorian Government today announced a new/extended rent relief scheme for small to medium sized tenants in Victoria. A copy of the press release is available here: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/commercial-tenancy-relief-victorian-businesses At this stage, there are more ‘unknowns‘ than ‘knowns‘, particularly as the previous scheme was tied to Jobkeeper, which is no longer in operation. Here are a […]

In another recent development, this time under the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) (RLA 2003),[1] Senior Member Forde at VCAT has held that a head lease is not a lease of retail premises under that Act. In Izett St Pty Ltd v Applgold Pty Ltd (Building and Property) [2021] VCAT 174, Senior Member Forde at VCAT heard as a preliminary […]

VCAT has recently handed down another decision about the CTRS that readers should be aware of. The first thing to note is that the decision was on an application for an interlocutory injunction.  That means that the applicant (in this case, the tenant) needs to show an arguable case (also known as a serious question to be […]

… for those interested in the PS Market decision referred to in my last post, you can see another detailed discussion here: https://www.easternbridge.com.au/post/update-11-effects-of-covid-19-on-commercial-tenancies … and for those interested in the C B Buffet decision from late last year, you can see another detailed discussion here: http://melbournepropertylaw.blogspot.com/2021/01/are-there-any-cases-about-victorian.html As usual, I will try to forward copies of […]