THE NAMES of 400,000 Australian renters have swelled national blacklists for crimes ranging from pouring concrete down toilets to stealing entire kitchens from properties.
As the ACT Government prepares regulations to allow Canberra tenants to be added to blacklists for the first time, some of the country's largest private rental database operators have revealed the scale of the problem that landlords are facing.
A trail of filth and destruction has been left in rental properties around Australia, costing landlords a small fortune.
Commerically owned databases such as TICA and the National Tenancy Database allow real estate agents to see everything from unpaid rent to virtual destruction of properties.
Canberra's real estate agents subscribe to a handful of databases to run checks on tenants, but legislation has previously prevented information about ACT residents being entered on to those lists.
Under new laws that come into effect in February, tenants will be listed on the national databases if they have caused damage to a rented property that is greater than their bond, or if the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal has terminated their agreement.
ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the legislation would stop clandestine rental blacklists from circulating among real estate agents and create a transparent system where people could seek reviews if they were added.
TICA managing director Phillip Nounis said tenants' names were taken off the national list every three years, but there were repeat offenders.
''If you can imagine it, it has happened,'' he said.
''We have seen instances where people have cut holes in the floors of Queenslander-style houses so they could lift food up and down between levels rather than have to walk up and down.
''We had a person who was building their own house so they took the new kitchen out of the rental property and installed it in the house they were building and then replaced the rental one with an old kitchen.''
ACT real estate agents have fiercely denied circulating clandestine blacklists, but said agents would keep records for their own use.
Real Estate Institute ACT president Michael Wellsmore said agents should not be portrayed as ''colluding'' with one another.
''There would be all sort of issues with privacy,'' he said.
''The idea of clandestine lists is really fantasy, and either people accept that or they don't.''
Spokesman for the National Tenancy Database Mark White said good tenants often had to shoulder the burden for bad renters.
''It is an important point to remember that costs incurred by the landlord to repair damages left by the last tenant often have to be re-couped from any new tenants that follow,'' he said.
Tenants Union executive officer Deborah Pippen said ACT renters have been threatened with being blacklisted and it was something the union wanted to see stopped.
Ms Pippen said she wanted rules that would ensure nobody would be added to any list for having personality clashes with real estate agents or for being branded trouble makers for forcing landlords to carry out necessary repairs.
Mr Nounis said the suggestions were unfounded and tenants could only be listed for legitimate reasons.
Mr Corbell said the new legislation would begin on February 29 and bring the ACT into line with nationally consistent legislation agreed to by the consumer affairs ministers of the states, territories and the Commonwealth.
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