Notice to Leave (Form 12) in Queensland

The Notice to Leave is Form 12. The RTA publishes it, hosts it and keeps it current, and the version in force is v27, dated 1 May 2025. Get it from rta.qld.gov.au. The RTA Form 12 row in the sources list on this page links straight to it, and there's no copy of it here, because the RTA's copy is the one that stays up to date.

The rest of the job sits outside the form, and that's what this page is for. The grounds you're allowed to use, the notice each one carries, how the days get counted, what you can and can't do inside the property once the notice is out, and where you stand if the tenant is still there on the handover day.

Two things make a Form 12 stand up, and you need both. A valid reason under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008, and the right amount of notice for that reason. The RTA puts it in one line: correct notice periods must always be given.

Section 326 of the Act fills in the detail. The notice has to require the tenant to hand over vacant possession on a stated handover day, state the ground it's given on, and give particulars of that ground. It also has to tell the tenant that if they don't comply on the handover day, the lessor can apply to a tribunal for a termination order without giving any further notice.

Every Form 12 names a ground, and it has to be one of the grounds the Act lists, with particulars of it written into the notice itself.

For a private residential landlord the ones that come up are the unremedied breach, the end of a fixed term, a sale contract, owner occupation, significant repair or renovations, a change of use, and noncompliance with a tribunal order. Each carries its own notice period and they aren't interchangeable.

Read the Act's schedule of notice periods and every row names a ground. The schedule carries no row for a notice given without one, and the Act's dictionary defines the phrase "without ground" only for the tenant's own Form 13. So on the face of the Act, a lessor's Form 12 always names something. That reading comes from two provisions of the Act. The RTA hasn't published it as a line of its own, so check it against the current Act before you lean on it.

Two bars sit on the end-of-fixed-term ground in particular. Section 291 says the lessor must not give that notice because the tenant applied or proposed to apply to a tribunal, complained to a government entity about the lessor, or took other action to enforce their rights, or while a tribunal order is in force between them. The same section rules out a notice that amounts to retaliatory action.

The whole schedule sits below. Schedule 1, Part 1, Division 1 of the Act sets a minimum notice for each ground, and the RTA republishes the same figures in its own table. The section number sits in the middle column so any row can be checked against the Act itself.

The spread runs from same-day to two months. Non-livability takes effect the day the notice is given. Unremedied rent arrears is 7 days. The grounds a landlord plans for, like a sale or a renovation, mostly sit at 2 months.

Then the asterisk the RTA prints against seven rows of its own table. On a fixed term, seven of the two-month grounds take effect at the end of the term at the earliest: a sale contract, owner occupation, demolition or redevelopment, significant repair or renovations, a change of use, a State government program, and the end of the term itself. The tenancy finishes on the end date of the agreement or the end date of the notice period, whichever is later. Both parties can agree to end a fixed term early, and the RTA says it has to be agreed in writing.

A Form 12 for the end of a fixed term can still go out as late as the day before the term ends, and the tenancy won't revert to a periodic one as long as the correct timeframe was applied. The RTA's own worked example: a fixed term ending 14 November 2022 with a Form 12 given on 13 November 2022 leaves the tenant until at least 14 January 2023. Two months, minimum, running well past the end date on the lease.

Notice periods are clear days. You don't count the day the notice is served at the address or emailed, and you can't take the next action until the day after the last day of the period.

The RTA's example runs like this. Hand deliver a 7-day notice on 12 June. Counting starts 13 June. The seventh day is 19 June. The next action can be taken on 20 June. That's eight days out from the day it was handed over, and a manager who counts a plain week has served a defective notice.

A notice expires at midnight, so the tenant gets the whole of the last day. If the last day on the Form 12 is 18 June, the tenant has until midnight on 18 June to leave. The RTA acknowledges that a midnight handover is impractical and encourages both sides to agree a time for keys and the exit inspection.

Post moves the start. Where a notice is served by post, the first day counted is the day after it arrives at the address, and the sender has to allow time for the mail. Post it on the last possible afternoon and the period you thought you gave is shorter than the one the Act requires.

Section 195A was inserted by the 2024 amendments, and it changes what a landlord can do inside the property. Once a Notice to Leave has been given, the lessor or the lessor's agent must not enter the premises more than twice in any 7-day period. The RTA says the same thing in its own words, and the same cap applies if the tenant is the one who issued a Notice of intention to leave (Form 13).

The cap attaches to the notice period, whenever the notice went out. The RTA states that a Form 12 issued at the beginning of the tenancy doesn't change the entry frequency rules, so serving early buys a landlord nothing here.

Section 195A(3) leaves five kinds of entry out of that count, by pointing back to the grounds in section 192(1). Every other entry counts. The RTA's entry page summarises the same list and stops at four, leaving out entry in an emergency, so the list below follows the Act.

This is what bites at re-letting. Showing the property to a prospective tenant is only allowed after a Form 12 has gone to the current tenant, or after the tenant has given a Form 13. Every one of those viewings still needs an Entry notice with 48 hours' notice, and a reasonable time has to have passed since the last entry for the same reason. Two entries a week, each booked 48 hours ahead, between 8am and 6pm Monday to Saturday unless the tenant agrees otherwise. Plan the re-let before the notice goes out.

A Notice to Leave asks for vacant possession on the handover day. Removing anyone takes a tribunal order on top of it. So if that day passes and the tenant is still in the property, the next move is QCAT, and the window to make it is short.

Section 293 gives the lessor 2 weeks after the handover day to apply for a termination order. The RTA states the same limit as 14 days. Miss it and the application has to rest on a fresh notice.

It's an urgent application, so it goes straight to QCAT with no RTA dispute resolution first. Non-urgent disputes do have to go through the RTA before QCAT, which is exactly why the distinction matters when the clock is this short.

If QCAT makes a termination order on an application that wasn't brought by the tenant, it must also issue a warrant of possession. Nobody has to ask for that separately. The warrant authorises a police officer, or a stated authorised person, to enter the premises and give possession to the owner, with necessary and reasonable help and force.

Sale contract. Change of use. Owner occupation. End a tenancy on any one of those and sections 365B, 365C and 365D each say the lessor must not offer a residential tenancy for the premises for 6 months after the handover day. Maximum penalty, 50 penalty units.

So the ground you pick sets two things at once: the notice period, and whether the property can earn rent again inside six months.

Selling has its own set of rules, and the RTA publishes them. A tenancy carries on through a sale. The buyer takes on any agreement that was in place before they took ownership, so a tenant on a fixed term stays to the end of the term with the new owner as their lessor.

On a periodic agreement it works differently. Where the buyer wants vacant possession, the Form 12 has to allow at least 2 months' notice after the contract of sale is signed. Before any of that, the tenant has to be given a Notice of lessor's intention to sell premises (Form 10), which sets out how the property will be marketed.

Most tenancies that end badly start with rent. The breach route runs in order. A Notice to remedy breach (Form 11) first, and section 328 says its remedy period can't end earlier than 7 days after the notice is given. If it isn't remedied, then the Form 12, at 7 days for rent and 14 days for anything else.

That's two notices before QCAT is even on the table, and we won't put a single total on it. Clear-days counting moves the dates. Posting the notice moves them again. A weekend or public holiday at the end of a period rolls the end to the next business day, and a month with no corresponding date runs to the end of that month. Count each step against the RTA's own fact sheet.

There's a separate route for the tenant who keeps breaching and keeps fixing it. Where 2 or more breach notices have gone out for the same breach inside 12 months and a third breach happens, the lessor can apply directly to QCAT to end the agreement on repeated-breach grounds. The RTA sets conditions: a Form 11 given each time, the same problem each time, rectified each time, and a problem of a serious nature. If the breach isn't serious, QCAT may not end the agreement.

FAA Property manages residential investment property across the Sunshine Coast from one office in Maroochydore. Everything above is Queensland-wide law, and it applies wherever the property sits. What we do about arrears is ordinary work done on time. We watch the rent as it falls due, prepare and lodge the notices, coordinate the repairs a tenant logs, and keep the file in the order the Act asks for.