Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Regulation 2025

2. Standard lease terms

• Different types of tenancy agreements (standard rentals, moveable dwellings like caravans, government housing, community housing, and rooming accommodation) each have their own set of standard terms — the basic rules that automatically apply to every lease of that type.
• These standard terms cover things like: rent amounts and payment methods, bond (security deposit), repairs, entry by the landlord, rent increases (only once every 12 months, with 2 months' notice), pets, ending the tenancy, and more.
• The order and numbering of clauses in a lease matters — if they're scrambled or reordered, the standard terms are legally treated as if they were never included.

3. Minimum housing standards

• Rental properties must meet minimum physical standards (detailed in Schedule 6, which is referenced but not fully reproduced here).
• Rent cannot be increased just because the landlord makes repairs to meet these minimum standards.

4. Goods left behind

• If a tenant leaves belongings behind after moving out:
  • The landlord can sell or dispose of goods worth more than $2,500 (or $5,000 for moveable dwelling park sites).
  • The landlord must store goods for 1 month (or 2 months for caravan contents) before disposing of them.
  • Before auctioning goods, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to contact the former tenant (phone, text, email, social media, emergency contacts, or a notice in an online newspaper).

5. Tenancy databases (blacklists)

• A landlord can only list a former tenant on a tenancy database (a rental "blacklist") for specific reasons:
  • Unpaid rent (where the tenant was given notice to fix the breach and didn't)
  • Amounts owed under a tribunal order or conciliation agreement (a formal dispute resolution process)
  • Abandoning the property and owing money
  • Being evicted for seriously offensive/objectionable behaviour
  • Being evicted for repeated breaches of the lease
• There is a minimum debt threshold — the amount owed must exceed the bond paid (or one week's rent if no bond was paid).

6. Water efficiency

• If a landlord wants to charge tenants for water usage, the property must have water-efficient fixtures:
  • Toilets: dual flush (max 6.5L full flush, 3.5L half flush, average under 4L)
  • Shower heads and taps: maximum flow rate of 9 litres per minute

7. Domestic violence protections

• Tenants experiencing domestic violence can end their tenancy early using supporting evidence such as protection orders, police notices, court injunctions, or a report signed by a doctor, nurse, social worker, solicitor, or crisis worker.

8. Caravan sales

• If a landlord helps a tenant sell a caravan, the maximum fee they can charge is 4% of the sale price.

9. House rules for rooming accommodation

• Specific house rules for rooming accommodation (like boarding houses) are set out in Schedule 7.

10. Transitional rules

• Leases already in force before 1 September 2025 continue under their existing terms (from the old 2009 regulation), as long as those terms don't contradict the Act.
• Goods left behind under agreements that ended before 1 September 2025 are handled under the old rules.