NSW Tenancy laws say how residential tenancy agreements can be ended. Tenancies are usually terminated by the tenant, landlord, the landlord's agent, or by a Tribunal order. Fair Trading conducted an end-of tenancy survey to collect data about how and why tenancies end. This survey was designed to help Fair Trading to better understand the renting experience to help inform future tenancy reforms.

The survey process: Every principal tenant and landlord or nominated agent is asked to complete a survey when a bond claim is finalised through an online bonds system. Survey invitations are sent by email and participation is voluntary. Individual responses are kept anonymous.

Fair Trading conducted a pilot end of tenancy survey which ran from 2 December 2019 to 30 March 2020 and from 27 April to 11 May 2020.

To mitigate re-identification risks, postcode information has been removed and response dates grouped into months. It should be noted that the representativeness of the survey data is limited, including because: • participation is voluntary • the survey only includes respondents who used Rental Bonds Online to lodge and claim their rental bond, so the sample does not extend to all terminated tenancies • no demographic information is collected • some tenancies had duplicate responses • domestic violence victims may also self-select out of completing such a survey, given their vulnerability and the difficult circumstances they may experience after ending a tenancy.