Online property management platforms are charging renters new fees or moving them onto paid "memberships" to cover card processing costs in the wake of Australia's ban on surcharges.
Tenants have been encouraged to challenge or bypass the additional fees charged by so-called rent-tech platforms, including in Victoria, where fees on rent payments are banned.
At least 1.2 million rent payments are made on the platforms each month in Australia, typically at the instruction of property managers and often with an extra transaction fee.
OurProperty told Guardian Australia it had stopped accepting direct card payments across the country after the Reserve Bank's ban, which took effect on 1 October. Founder Russell Burstow said the platform previously charged a 1.95% surcharge and now routes payments through Pay4it, a platform he founded in August that collects its own 1.95% "service fees".
Burstow said the cost was passed on to tenants because the alternatives were to lift costs for real estate agencies or stop accepting cards, which he said would push customers who relied on credit cards into rental arrears.
"There's no way that the agency would absorb that sort of money," he said. "They would just pass it on to the landlord, who would just push the rent up."
Burstow said OurProperty and Pay4it were not making more money out of the new arrangements and would start losing money unless the Visa and Mastercard networks dropped their processing fees.
Victoria will later this month outright ban rental providers and real estate agents from charging fees to pay rent or submit tenancy applications, after prohibiting rent-tech companies from doing so in March.
In that state, OurProperty will on Tuesday introduce a system of "memberships" that waives the Pay4it service fees for tenants who take out a "platinum" membership costing 1.95% of their monthly rent. Chief executive Curtis Thomson said the Victorian memberships included new app features and did not replace old card surcharges. He said Victorian tenants would by default be granted a "silver" membership, meaning their real estate agency would have to cover the fees charged for direct debit and automated bank transfer, which will still incur fees on OurProperty outside Victoria.
Melbourne tenant Hazel Kearns-Rees said she was first notified on Thursday that she would have to opt out of her new membership.