New laws supporting children’s safety have come into force for tenants who are now allowed to fix furniture to the walls of their rental home and the landlord can only object in limited circumstances. Changes to the Residential Tenancies Act aim to prevent injuries and deaths caused by furniture and electronic equipment such as TVs falling on top of young children. On average since 2001, one...

Local governments are continuing to take action to address the number of overdue inspections of private pool safety barriers but there is still room for improvement, the Building Commissioner has reported. WA local governments are required to inspect the safety barriers of private pools in their districts at least every four years to ensure they are compliant and continue to be effective in...

A real estate sales agent who was showing a prospective tenant a rental property in Beeliar recently was surprised to discover that someone had changed the locks and had already moved in without the authority of the owner. The tenant moved in after responding to a rental accommodation advertisement on Gumtree which ended up being fake. He paid $2,000 to the scammers via a money transfer service...

With Commissioner for Consumer Protection David Hillyard Consumer Protection is aware that contamination or damage to homes from illegal drug activity is a worry for tenants, owners and property industry professionals. But how do you identify past production, or smoking, of meth, heroin or cannabis at a property and whether there are potential health risks as a result? We’ve been working with WA’...