Minimum Housing Standards in Queensland

Nine standards, in two groups. Schedule 6 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Regulation 2025 sets them out: five under safety and security, then four under reasonable functionality. That's the whole list. If something isn't in those nine, it isn't a minimum housing standard.

Read them properly and you'll notice how narrow some of them are. The kitchen standard is one line about a cooktop. The laundry standard leaves whitegoods out of it. The lock standard only reaches windows and doors a person could get to without a ladder. And the mould standard has a tenant-caused exception written into it.

That narrowness matters, because plenty of summaries of these rules add things that aren't in them. Working smoke alarms and adequate lighting both turn up in write-ups that rank for this search. Neither is in Schedule 6. Smoke alarms are a genuine obligation for a Queensland landlord, they just sit under separate rules, and our Queensland investment property page runs through those.

The list, with the wording that decides a pass or a fail.

They arrived in two steps. New and renewed tenancy agreements had to meet them from 1 September 2023. Every remaining tenancy was caught from 1 September 2024. So there's no Queensland rental left that predates them.

The property has to meet the standards when the tenant moves in, and keep meeting them for the whole agreement. They cover general tenancies, moveable dwellings and rooming accommodation.

The duty is the lessor's, and the Act itself carries it. Section 185 says the lessor must ensure the premises and inclusions comply with any prescribed minimum housing standards at the start of the tenancy, and again while the tenancy continues. A property manager does the work and organises the trades. The obligation stays with the owner.

Google's related searches for this term point straight at these three. Start with fly screens. They aren't in the nine standards. We searched the full Regulation and the full Act for fly screen, flyscreen and insect screen, and got nothing in either one. So Schedule 6 doesn't require one. You can still end up needing one, though. A term in the tenancy agreement or a body corporate by-law can require it. And a screen that's already fitted counts as a fitting, so it has to be kept in good repair like anything else at the property.

Mould splits by cause. If it came from a problem with the building, a leaking roof or leaking pipework for example, it's the owner's to address and repair. If the tenant caused it, say by letting steam build up in a bathroom without ventilating or cleaning it, the tenant cleans it and pays for the damage it caused. The regulation gives its own example of tenant-caused: not using an exhaust fan that's already installed at the property.

Air conditioning is the one that starts arguments every summer. The nine standards don't list it, and the words don't appear in the Regulation or the Act. A unit supplied with the property is an inclusion, though. Section 185 says the lessor must maintain the premises and inclusions in good repair while the tenancy continues. So installing one is your choice. Keeping an existing one in good repair is your obligation. The emergency repairs list in the Regulation names hot water, cooking and heating, and cooling is absent from it. That same list does catch a fault or damage likely to injure a person, damage property or unduly inconvenience a tenant.

One more that catches people out. Fitting a security screen or a grille over a window leaves the lock requirement exactly where it was. The RTA says it plainly on its locks and security page: with those measures in place, the property still needs a functioning lock or latch to meet the standards.

This is the part that catches owners by surprise. A repair needed to bring a property up to minimum housing standards counts as an emergency repair. Section 30 of the Regulation puts it in that class, and the RTA says the same. Routine repairs are then defined as everything left over.

Emergency repairs run on their own track. The lessor's agent can arrange one straight away, up to a limit of 4 weeks rent under the agreement. The tenant can arrange one too, on the same 4 weeks rent cap. Two triggers open that door. The tenant couldn't notify the lessor or the nominated repairer, or the repair wasn't made within a reasonable time after notice was given. Your tenancy agreement also has to name a repairer with a phone number, and say whether the manager or the repairer is the tenant's first point of contact when something urgent happens.

A tenant who believes the property doesn't meet the standards has five ways to act, and several of them run on short clocks.

There's an outer limit on all of it. A QCAT application has to be made within 6 months of the person becoming aware of the breach. And it runs the other way too. If the property fails the standards because of something the tenant did, the owner can issue a Notice to remedy breach (Form 11), and the tenant may have to pay for the repairs.

This is the rule that decides whether compliance work ever pays for itself. Section 91 sets a condition on the increase being payable at all. Under subsection (6)(c), increased rent is only payable if the increase doesn't relate to bringing the premises or inclusions up to the prescribed minimum housing standards. So money spent getting a property compliant stays spent. You can't get it back through a rent rise tied to that work. The same carve-out covers keeping a pet or a working dog.

The general rent rules sit on top of that. Rent can go up once every 12 months, and the 12 months attaches to the premises. It survives a new agreement, a new tenant and a new owner buying the place. An increase needs written notice. The new rent can't start earlier than 2 months after that notice is given. The notice has to state the new amount, the day it starts and the day rent was last increased for the premises. Our Queensland investment property page walks through the general rule in full, so this page won't repeat it.

Two more things a tenant can do, and both point back at the condition of the property. A tenant can ask in writing for evidence of the day of the last rent increase. The lessor or agent then has 14 days to hand it over, with a maximum penalty of 40 penalty units. A tenant who believes an increase is excessive can apply to QCAT instead. That application runs on two clocks: within 30 days of receiving the notice, and, if the agreement is a fixed term one, before the term ends.

Section 92 then tells the tribunal what to weigh. Seven things, set out below, and the last two only come into play in particular cases. The tribunal can look at other matters it considers relevant on top of them.

Two rows in that table are about the condition of the property. State of repair is one. Repairs and maintenance carried out to the premises or inclusions is the other. That row is written for this page's topic. It only applies where the proposed increase relates to the minimum housing standards. A rundown property is a weaker place to raise rent from, because the tribunal is directed to look at exactly that.

A lot of Sunshine Coast rentals are units, and a unit answers to a second rule book. The RTA puts it plainly. A rental property in a body corporate has to comply with the minimum housing standards and with the body corporate by-laws.

The useful part for an owner is who pays. There may be cases where the repairs needed to make a property comply with the standards are the body corporate's responsibility rather than yours. So before you book a trade, it's worth finding out whether the fix is yours to make at all.

That doesn't move the tenancy obligation off you. Section 185 still puts it on the lessor. If the repair belongs to the body corporate, you're the one who has to chase it, because your tenant's clock keeps running either way.

FAA's answer is mostly about catching things early. Routine inspections on a set schedule, written up with notes and photos, are where a failing window latch shows up. Or a leaking tap. Or new mould in a bathroom, or a privacy blind that's come off its bracket. Before a tenant has any reason to reach for a Form 11.

Repairs come in through the Tapi tenant portal, which timestamps a request the moment it's raised. That matters more here than on most pages, because a minimum-standards repair is an emergency repair, and emergency repairs have a clock attached to them.

The property management team is four named people: Kayla Dale, Kylah Jaggs, Jo-Anne Jerome and Kimberley Stevens. FAA Property Pty Ltd is a licensed Queensland real estate agency, Office of Fair Trading licence 4220395. We manage residential investment property across the Sunshine Coast from our Maroochydore office.

Worth being straight about the limits of that. This page is Queensland-wide information, and it applies to a rental in Cairns the same way it applies to one in Buderim. Our management service isn't Queensland-wide. If your property sits outside the Sunshine Coast, the rules here still bind you, we just won't be the ones managing it.

None of this needs an agent. A landlord with a copy of the tenancy agreement and an hour at the property can check most of it.

Walk the property against the nine standards first. Then there are four things to check on paper, and they're the ones that decide who pays when something goes wrong.

You can check us too, without asking. FAA's listing feed is public, and on 25 August 2026 it held 16 distinct current properties across 14 suburbs, 13 of them rentals. Treat that as a floor rather than a count of what we manage, because a tenanted property isn't advertised anywhere. The business carries 61 Google reviews (read 2026-08-15).

If you'd like a second set of eyes on the property itself, that's what a property management review is for.