Property investors in the Aussie state have been united in their frustration and calls for reform.
Landlords in Victoria are calling for property owners to be handed back more power in the case of disputes as stories of non-paying tenants continue to emerge in the state. Victoria has some of the strongest rights and protections for renters, but some landlords say they can be left out of pocket and with little recourse.
Mikaela Cowan, a 31-year-old nurse, is among those who have spent months trying to regain possession of her house from tenants who keep falling behind on paying the bills. “They’ve been put on four payment plans which they continue to fail to pay,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“We gave them a notice to vacate back in December and yet according to VCAT that means absolutely nothing.”
Mikaela purchased the townhouse in the outer northeast suburb of Mill Park prior to the pandemic. But after a break-up in 2022, she soon decided to rent it out and moved into a one bedroom unit.
Tenants moved into the property in May 2023, and first fell behind on rent payments in December that year, she said.
Since then Mikaela, and her property manager, have had to accord with the decisions of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which critics say can take an overly accomodating approach to renters in arrears.
Mikaela would like her sister to be able to move into the property and issued a 60-day notice to vacate in October last year. When that was challenged, VCAT sided with the renters, who recently had a second child, due to reasons including the timing being close to Christmas and efforts to adhere to a payment plan.
“They’re currently around $8,000 in arrears. Meanwhile I’m a single, 31 year old nurse on one income and paying two mortgages – which just keeps increasing with every rate rise we have been having,” Mikaela said.
“We just received a new hearing date which isn’t until the 19th of May, which is incredibly frustrating,” she added.
“We have also given the tenants another notice to vacate, citing I want to move back into the property due to financial hardship.”
But if that does prove successful, it still won’t be until mid June, some eight months after first requesting her property back.
“The whole system needs to be overhauled and common sense needs to prevail which VCAT do not seem to have,” she said.
Landlords like her have been united in their frustration and calls for reform to the framework that guides VCAT’s decisions in cases like this.
Father of two Dan Yeats endured a similar “nightmare” after purchasing an investment property through his self-managed superannuation fund in South Morang, in the far northern suburbs of Melbourne, a few years ago.
His tenants stopped paying rent and refused to vacate for months. When he did finally get access to the three bedroom home late last year, he was left with a massive and ‘disgusting’ clean up job.
When Yahoo Finance reported on his ordeal, other landlords came forward with similar stories.
“I have a tenant who hasn’t paid rent since January 2026. The VCAT process and legal proceedings definitely lean towards renters,” one complained. “I’m very frustrated with the current situation and just want my asset back in my hands.”
Another said they were exiting the rental market after similarly frustrating experiences.
“Our experience was so bad that we sold one rental and have our heritage house in Bendigo off the market and won’t rent it again. We have a third one and will sell it as soon as possible,” he said.
MP backs calls for change in rental disputes
MP Tim McCurdy, the state’s Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs (and a real estate agent), has sponsored a parliamentary petition launched by Dan in the state parliament calling for an improvement to the fairness and efficiency of resolutions in residential tenancy disputes.
The MP said in the worst cases he’s seen, landlords were effectively being “held ransom by renters” who weren’t paying rent but using the system to stay in the property.
“It is important to keep a balanced view between renters and rental providers. The Allan Government continues to change the rules and laws to support renters but usually at the expense of rental providers. This is unacceptable and Victoria will not have any rental providers left if the balance is not fair,” McCurdy told Yahoo Finance.
The petition currently has 1,648 signatures. Well short of the threshold needed to trigger debate in parliament.
The current “reasonable and proportionate” framework in place for tenancy disputes forces VCAT to ensure that evictions are not arbitrary, but rather justified and balanced. But it means even if a landlord has a technical legal grounds to evict a renter, authorities must evaluate if it is fair to do so and weigh the impact on both parties.
According to VCAT Deputy President Lindsay Warren, the agency’s Residential Tenancies Division is one of the tribunal’s busiest divisions, hearing approximately 45,000 matters each year, he said last year.
In 2025, the state government introduced Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria (RDRV) to help more quickly resolve disputes about many rental issues, including rent increases, repairs and bonds. However if the RDRV can’t resolve the issue, it will help applicants apply to VCAT.
This story first appeared in Yahoo Finance.
