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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Victoria's next round of rental rules starts on Tuesday 13 October 2026. In a notice to its members dated 6 October, the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) listed the changes and recommended that agents take training before the day: application fees are banned, gas and electrical safety checks become compulsory every two years, a gas check is required before draughtproofing, rental providers must keep records showing that a property meets the minimum standards, and bond claims come with new evidence duties.
The regulator, Consumer Affairs Victoria, sets out the same changes on its page on new rental laws, last updated on 27 September 2026. They are the sixth set of dates in a reform programme that began on 25 November 2025 under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, and one more is already fixed for 1 March 2027.
Consumer Affairs Victoria, "New changes to the rental laws", last updated 27 September 2026.
What starts on Tuesday
The five changes touch different moments of a tenancy: the application, the weeks before a property is advertised, the years a renter lives in it, and the day the bond is settled. Consumer Affairs Victoria uses the state's own vocabulary throughout. A landlord is a rental provider, a tenant is a renter, and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, known as VCAT, hears the disputes between them.
The table below gives each change as the regulator words it, and who has to act on it.
| Change | What the rule says | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Application fees | Charging a renter any fee to make a rental application becomes an offence. | Rental providers and agents |
| Safety checks | Gas and electrical checks by a qualified tradesperson every 2 years, for every agreement. | Rental providers and agents |
| Draughtproofing | A gas ventilation safety check within the 6 months before any draughtproofing work. | A licensed or registered gasfitter |
| Standards records | Records showing the property met the minimum standards, handed to the regulator on request. | Rental providers or their agents |
| Bond claims | Advance notice to the renter of a claim at the end of the agreement, with supporting evidence. | Rental providers |
Consumer Affairs Victoria, page last updated 27 September 2026.
Neither the regulator's page nor the REIV notice states a penalty amount for any of the five rules, or how long the minimum standards records must be kept.
Related readDubai rent increases, Ejari and eviction notices: how the rules workApplication fees become an offence
From 13 October it is an offence for a rental provider or an agent to charge a renter any fee to make a rental application, Consumer Affairs Victoria says. The REIV notice puts it in one line: providers and agents are banned from charging application fees.
The ban closes a sequence that has reshaped the application stage in under a year. According to the regulator's timeline, all rental bidding was banned on 25 November 2025, along with new rules protecting renters' personal information. On 31 March 2026 a prescribed standard form for rental applications arrived, with limits on the information that can be asked of applicants and a ban on third-party fees for applications and rent payments. The October rule deals with what was left: a fee charged by the provider or the agent themselves.
For an agency, the practical consequence is narrow and clear. The application is made on the standard form, the questions are limited, and from Tuesday no charge of any kind can be attached to making it.
Safety checks now cover every agreement
Two-yearly gas and electrical checks are not new in Victoria. What changes is who is covered. The regulator's page on gas and electrical safety for rental providers, last updated on 3 May 2026, describes the rule as it stood before this month: the checks were required every two years for agreements entered into after 29 March 2021, and for older agreements they were not legislated, only strongly encouraged.
From 13 October that line disappears. Consumer Affairs Victoria says providers and agents must arrange the checks every two years for all rental properties, whether the agreement started before, on or after 13 October 2026. A tenancy that has run since before March 2021 without ever being checked is therefore brought inside the rule.
Related readDubai rent settlements reach 2,350 in nine months, worth AED 401 millionThe same page sets out who may do the work and what the work is. The gas check is carried out by a licensed or registered gasfitter endorsed for servicing Type A gas appliances, and covers items such as ventilation, the condition of flues and chimneys, clearances from combustible surfaces and the restraint of appliances against tipping. The electrical check is carried out by a licensed electrician and covers all electrical installations, fixtures and fittings under the standard AS/NZS 3019.
Each check produces a record: the name and licence or registration number of the tradesperson, the date, the results and any repairs. The provider keeps it until the next record is created, the regulator says, and must give the renter a copy of the most recent one within 7 days of a written request. Before an agreement is signed, the provider also discloses the date of the last gas check and the last electrical check, and any recommendations still outstanding. If no check was done in the two years before a renter moves in, one must be done as soon as possible.
The draughtproofing rule is the one change that looks ahead rather than back. A licensed or registered gasfitter must check the property for gas ventilation safety needs within the 6 months before any draughtproofing work, according to Consumer Affairs Victoria. Draughtproofing is also one of the six areas of the energy efficiency standards due from 1 March 2027.
Proof that a property met the standards
Since 25 November 2025 a Victorian rental property has had to meet the minimum standards when it is advertised, not only when the renter moves in. The October rule adds the paper trail. Providers or their agents must keep records showing that the property met the standards before it was advertised, offered or occupied, and must give those records to Consumer Affairs Victoria if asked.
Related readHow a rent dispute is heard at Dubai's Rental Disputes CenterThe regulator's minimum standards page, last updated on 14 May 2026, lists 15 categories. They run from the basics of a habitable home to small safety fittings: bathrooms, electrical safety, heating, kitchen, laundry, lighting, locks, mould and damp, structural soundness, toilets, ventilation, vermin-proof bins, windows, window coverings and, since 1 December 2025, anchors for corded window coverings.
Several of them carry a specific test. The main living area needs a fixed heater in good working order. External entry doors need functioning deadlocks or an equivalent. The kitchen needs a sink with hot and cold water and a stovetop with at least two burners. Showers need a 3-star water efficiency head where one can be fitted. All rooms must be free of mould and damp caused by the building structure.
The standards do not reach every tenancy. According to the same page, they apply to agreements that started on or after 29 March 2021, and to older ones that became month-to-month agreements on or after that date. Rooming houses have separate rules.
What the new duty changes for a property manager is the order of work. The evidence has to exist before the listing goes live, because the rule refers to the state of the property before it was advertised, offered or occupied. Neither page says what form the records must take.
Bond claims arrive with their evidence
On bonds, the regulator and the institute describe two sides of the same change. Consumer Affairs Victoria says that from 13 October a rental provider must notify the renter in advance if they plan to claim the bond at the end of the agreement, and must provide evidence supporting the claim.
Related readRenting in New South Wales: rent rises, lease endings and petsThe REIV's notices describe what happens at the tribunal. In a notice dated 28 September 2026, the institute told members that from 13 October evidence must be uploaded to myVCAT, the tribunal's online portal, when a bond or compensation application is lodged. New questions at the start of the application decide which evidence is mandatory. The evidence should show the damage or the reason for the claim and support the cost of fixing it; the institute gives the ingoing and outgoing condition reports and a repair quote as examples.
A VCAT bond claim without evidence is rejected
According to the REIV notice of 28 September 2026, an application lodged without evidence will be rejected and cannot be reinstated. The updated myVCAT portal was expected to go live on Monday 5 October, with the previous process applying until 12 October.
The regulator's list of 13 October changes does not mention the tribunal's portal, and the REIV notice does not describe the advance notice to the renter. Read together, they point the same way: a claim on a bond now starts with documents, shown to the renter and then to the tribunal.
Bond handling is already an area the regulator enforces. Bonds must be lodged with the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, the RTBA, within 10 business days, and in a statement dated 22 September 2026 Consumer Affairs Victoria said it had fined one agency A$21,000 over 51 late lodgements. Two earlier dates of the reform also concern bonds: since 1 July 2026 renters can transfer bond money from one tenancy to the next under the Portable Rental Bond Scheme, and since 9 September 2026 they can pay a bond directly to the RTBA after giving the provider written notice.
Where the reform stands
The October date is one step in a programme the regulator has published as a calendar. Its page on new rental laws groups the changes by start date, and five of them mark out the path.
- 25 November 2025No-fault evictions and rental bidding banned. 90 days' notice of rent increases. Annual smoke alarm checks.
- 31 March 2026Standard application form, limits on questions to applicants, third-party fees banned.
- 1 July 2026Bond money can be transferred under the Portable Rental Bond Scheme.
- 13 October 2026Application fees banned, safety checks for all agreements, standards records, bond evidence.
- 1 March 2027Minimum energy efficiency standards begin, phased in.
The March 2027 standards cover heating, cooling, hot water, showerheads, ceiling insulation and draughtproofing, Consumer Affairs Victoria says, and are phased in with different triggers rather than applied to every property on one day.
For market context, in a commentary published on 29 September 2026, the REIV put Melbourne's median rent at A$600 a week for both houses and units, with a vacancy rate of 2.5 per cent in August 2026.
For the trade, the weekend before the start date is the last under the old process. A tribunal application lodged up to 12 October follows the previous rules, according to the REIV; one lodged from Tuesday needs its evidence attached. The institute's notice of 6 October names no penalty and no case. Its one recommendation to agents is training on the new rules before the day arrives.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
