Key Points
- A tenant renting a property from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been issued with an eviction notice.
- The tenant, Jim Flanagan, told the Daily Telegraph he did not want to leave, and said it would be “crippling”.
- Albanese said the eviction was due to changing circumstances and plans to sell the property ahead of his wedding.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his decision to evict a tenant from a rental property he owns, saying the move was due to “changing circumstances”.
Jim Flanagan, a small business owner who has lived in the property in the Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill for four years, said he had been issued with a rental termination letter on 8 May but was pleading to stay.
He told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper it was “a crippling blow”.
“He has every right to seek to sell his assets … but it just doesn’t sit well when, on one hand, he’s trying to be sympathetic with the majority of Australians who are, like me, finding the current climate extremely challenging,” Flanagan told the Daily Telegraph.
Flanagan described the prime minister had been a “great landlord”, and said the rent had been dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic and not raised since.
He said there are limited options in the area, and said available properties were “horrifically and terrifyingly expensive”.
Albanese told ABC radio on Thursday he was selling the property to partner Jodie Haydon.
“I’ve had changes in my life and because of that decided to sell the property,” he said.
He said he believed he had been a “more than fair” landlord, and had charged his tenant well below market rates.
“I have been a more than fair owner of that property; he has lived there for four years,” Albanese said.
“I have had him in the property with the rent being about half what is the market rent.”
When asked whether he would be prepared to keep Flanagan in the property for longer, Albanese said the tenant had spoken with the property manager.
“He’s refused to have discussions with the real estate agent, that’s a matter for him. I wish him well, he has been well looked after for a long period of time,” Albanese said.
“But I am entitled to make decisions in my personal life including selling a property that I own because I wish to move on in my personal life in a different direction.
“The property was bought when my personal circumstances were different.”
Flanagan told the Daily Telegraph he was on a month-to-month lease and said he acknowledged Albanese had the right to sell the property.
In NSW, a landlord must give someone on a periodic rental agreement 30 days’ notice if they are selling the property and want to end the lease.
Sydney is Australia’s most expensive city for renters, with the median weekly rent rising to $750 for houses and $700 for units in the March quarter, according to PropTrack data.
Source Agencies
