What if you discovered that your cheap-as-chips rented home in the backyard of someone else’s house, wasn’t just “unofficial’ but was unsafe and technically unfit for human habitation?

We are getting reports that local councils are targetting granny flats that are being illegally let to tenants when they are not fit for habitation.

A few years ago the then Premier of NSW Morris Iemma announced that the government was lowering restrictions on second homes on the same plot, including that they had to accommodate a relative, in the hope that so-called granny flats would ease the rental housing crisis.  The idea was that ‘compliant’ proposals would be approved withing 10 days.

However, these backyard bunkhouses still had to meet basic building and safety standards, not to mention getting development approval from local councils.

The situation is different in other states – probably because the rental crisis isn’t quite so harsh in Victoria and Queensland, where rented accommodation still needs to have full planning approval. Most still demand that the resident be a relative – the politically correct term for a granny flat is a Dependent Person Unit (DPU) – and that the property is no larger than 60 sqm (70 in Queensland).

Earlier this year a state Opposition  proposal in Victoria to free up their DPUs to ordinary renters met with a howl of disapproval, mostly from local government.

And while the NSW state Government wanted to make it easier to squeeze more people into the same space … they didn’t mean it to be a free-for-all.

Predictably, however, a few opportunists ignored that last bit and structures that were once garages or sheds were soon acquiring bathrooms and kitchens, then being put on the market for desperate renters.

Now, it seems, councils are catching up with the worst culprits and demanding that they demolish these non-compliant cubbyhouses.

How does this happen?  All you need to do is fall out with a neighbour or a disgruntled previous tenant and then all it takes is a phone call. As usual, it’s the poor tenants who suffer most as they are out on their ears without so much as a ‘by your leave’.

We reckon there may be a backyard blitz on so if you hear of any local council search and destroy missions, let us know on the Forum.

You’ll find a links to one reader’s dilemma when she discovered her rented Granny flat was scheduled to be demolished, plus the original news report about premier Iemma’s initiative, the Victorian story, some government guidlines and other information HERE.