Rent Increases in Queensland

Rent in Queensland cannot be increased unless at least 12 months have passed since the current amount of rent became payable.

That sentence looks simple and is where almost every invalid notice comes from, because of one detail: the 12 months attaches to the premises, not to the tenancy agreement.

The RTA states it plainly. The period applies even if the last rent increase was under a different tenancy agreement, with a different tenant, or was made by a previous agent or a previous owner of the property.

So none of the things that feel like a fresh start actually are one. Signing a new tenant does not reset it. Switching property managers does not reset it. Buying the property does not reset it. The clock stays with the house.

The first is the new owner. Settlement happens in March, the buyer looks at the rent, sees it is below market and issues a notice in April. If the previous owner raised the rent the preceding October, that notice is invalid and the increase is an offence. The rent roll the buyer received at settlement should have carried the date of the last increase, and it is worth asking for specifically during due diligence rather than discovering it afterwards.

The second is the new tenancy. A tenant leaves, the property is re-let at a higher figure, and the owner treats the new tenancy as year zero. It is not. If rent was increased for those premises within the preceding 12 months, the new letting figure is constrained by the same clock.

The third is the new agency. An owner moves to a different property manager and the incoming agency, working from a file that starts on the day it took over, proposes an increase. Whether it is allowed depends on what the previous agency did, which is why the date of the last increase is one of the handover items that matters most.

In each case the honest answer to give an owner is a question: when did the rent for this property last go up, whoever was managing it and whoever was living in it?

For a general tenancy, the tenant must be given at least two months notice in writing. For rooming accommodation, at least four weeks.

Two months is the minimum, not the target. An increase served with exactly two months notice arrives as a demand; one served with a little more room arrives as a conversation, and a tenant who has time to plan is a tenant more likely to stay. Re-letting a property costs an owner far more than the increase is usually worth.

The notice has to contain three things: the increased amount, the day the increase takes effect, and the date the rent was last increased for the premises.

That third item is the same rule stated a different way. Queensland requires the notice itself to declare when the clock last started, which means a notice cannot be issued by someone who does not know the answer.

Queensland limits how often rent can rise. It does not limit how far.

There is no percentage ceiling, no index and no formula. An owner may propose whatever figure they choose, provided the frequency rule and the notice rules are met.

What does exist is a challenge route. A tenant who believes an increase is excessive can seek dispute resolution and, if that does not resolve it, apply to QCAT. The window is 30 days: within 30 days of receiving the notice for an existing agreement, or within 30 days of entering into a new agreement.

A tribunal considering an excessive rent application looks at the rent against comparable properties in the area, the state of the premises, and the services provided. An increase to market is ordinarily unremarkable. An increase well beyond market on a property with outstanding maintenance is where these applications succeed.

This is not a technicality that gets sorted out later. It is an offence under the Act to increase the rent in less than 12 months, and the maximum penalty is 20 penalty units.

The practical consequence is usually smaller and more annoying than a penalty: the notice is invalid, the increase does not take effect, rent collected above the lawful amount is arguably recoverable, and the relationship with the tenant has been spent on a notice that achieved nothing. The owner then has to wait out the original clock anyway.

It also puts the manager in a poor position. An agency that issues an invalid notice on an owner's instruction has not served the owner well, and the fix is to check the date before drafting rather than to argue about it afterwards.

Diarise the date, not the season. The only date that matters is when the current rent became payable, and the anniversary of that date is the earliest the next increase can take effect.

Work backwards from it. If the anniversary is 1 November, notice has to be served by 1 September at the latest for a general tenancy, and serving it in mid-August is better practice than serving it on the deadline.

Review before you reach the anniversary rather than after. An owner who checks the market three months out has time to decide whether an increase is worth the risk of a vacancy; an owner who checks the week the anniversary passes has already lost a month.

And weigh the increase against the alternative honestly. A $20 a week increase earns about $1,040 over a year. Three weeks of vacancy on the same property costs more than that. Increasing rent is a decision about a whole tenancy, not an arithmetic exercise on a market comparison.