Southern Sydney Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service (SSTAAS) provides free telephone information, advice and assistance to private and public housing tenants. We can help by talking to, or writing to landlords and real estate agents. We also assist tenants to prepare for Tribunal hearings and can provide representation at the Tribunal for highly disadvantaged tenants. This is usually limited to matters involving terminations or illegal lockouts.
Our services are available to renters in houses, units, caravan parks, retirement villages and boarding houses in the Bankstown, Canterbury, Hurstville, Kogarah, Rockdale and Sutherland local government areas. Please note that we do not assist landlords or real estate agents. SSTAAS also assists tenants through community education sessions on tenancy laws.
For online Tribunal hearings, our Tenant Advocates may be available to provide you duty advocacy service during your appointment. Please call 9789 3744 and check for availability.
Tenants Advice & Advocacy Services have limited availability over the holiday period. The Tenants' Union will be coordinating a Holiday Hotline to make sure renters can get urgent advice. Call 1800 251 101
We’ve been fighting for decades to strengthen renters' rights by changing law in NSW. Now it's finally happening. The reforms cap rent increases at once yearly, and will end no-grounds evictions and make it easier to have pets in your home. Find out more...
Julie Foreman, Tenants' Union of NSW Executive Officer reflects on the TU's 40 years of working for tenants rights and housing justice. She introduces a compilation of stories which…
At the launch of the Tenants' Union 40th anniversary celebrations at the Northcott estate in Surry Hills in February 2016, we asked the three Members of Parliament who attended about their…
Carol Carter is an Aboriginal woman living in public housing in Bankstown in Sydney. In September 2014, Carol received a letter from the Department of Housing in relation to relocating her to…
My family and I had been living in our place for three years. It wasn’t a a bad property – there’s a nice view over Budgewoi Lake (although the lake can get a bit smelly!). Then there was a…
Firstly, to introduce us, I am Carol (on the left in the picture) and my sister is Vivian (on the right). We are social housing residents living in Riverwood and have lived here since 1984.…
In 1990 I bought a manufactured home in a residential park (now called a ‘residential community’). I knew there was an element of risk in using my meagre retirement funds to become the owner of…
Sharon Callaghan, former Tenant Advocate in the Illawarra, reflects on the fight for tenants' rights in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1980s Sharon was a community worker at the…
Home means security for me – this is where I feel safe. My home is like my castle, even though it's one room at the back of my landlord's house. I also like to go out, but I value my…
Charmaine Jones, social housing tenant and Tenants' Union Treasurer, reflects on her involvement with the TU and the changes in the sphere of social housing.
Robert Mowbray was a founder of the TU and continues to be active in the movement for the rights of tenants through his work as the TU Older Tenants Project Officer and his work with residents…
Ned Cutcher, Senior Policy Officer of the Tenants' Union reflects on 40 years of advocating for tenants' rights and the big ticket items that remain. Drawing on the experience and…
"I am originally from Walgett, Northern NSW. In Walgett everyone knows me as ‘Daughter’. I would like to move back to Walgett, but my children and grandchildren are in Sydney, so I will…