Changes to Retail Disclosure Statements

The Government has gazetted the Retail Leases Amendment Regulations 2022 (Vic) with the changes provided there to affect businesses from 1 December 2022. The alterations centre around retail lease disclosure statements provided to tenants before entering into a retail lease. If this applies to your business, either as a landlord or a tenant, find out more about the impact below.

What changes do the Regulations make?

The Retail Leases Act 2003 as amended by the Regulations updates the forms of the disclosure statements parties must provide.

Disclosure statements in the form of Schedule 1 for premises not in a retail shopping centre and Schedule 2 for premises in a retail shopping centre, must be provided by a landlord to a tenant at least 14 days before entering into the retail premises lease.

For lease renewals, the landlord must provide a disclosure statement in the form of Schedule 3 at least 21 days prior to the end of the lease term if the tenant has exercised or is entitled to exercise an option to renew, or where the parties have entered into an agreement to renew the lease, no more than 14 days after that agreement is entered into.

Where a tenant seeks to assign a lease and requests a current disclosure statement, the landlord should provide a statement in the form of Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 as applicable above to a new lease. In addition, where the tenant assigns a lease and the premises will continue to be sued for the carrying on of an ongoing business, the tenant must provide a disclosure statement to the landlord and the proposed assignee in the form of Schedule 4 to the Regulations.

When do the changes come into effect?

These changes commence on 1 December 2022. If you provide or receive disclosure statements for retail leases and need assistance with the changes or the new prescribed forms, please contact Lang Legal for a no obligation quote.