Resident letting agents: the on-site manager's licence in Queensland

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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The office beside the lift, with the parcel shelf and the board of keys, is a real estate business. In many Queensland unit complexes and holiday buildings, the person behind that desk lets apartments for the owners who live elsewhere, takes the rent or the nightly tariff, and often looks after the gardens and the pool as well. The industry calls the package management rights. The law calls the person a resident letting agent, and gives the role a licence of its own.

That licence is one of only three categories the Property Occupations Act 2014 creates, beside the real estate agent and the auctioneer. It is narrower than either. It works only inside a building complex, it depends on the consent of the body corporate, and it sits on top of agreements made under a different Act altogether.

This guide sets out what the licence authorises, how it differs from a real estate agent licence, who can hold it and what training the Office of Fair Trading asks for. It then follows the manager's dealings with lot owners, the handling of rent, and the caretaking and letting agreements that the body corporate legislation governs. It draws on the Act, the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 and the Queensland Government's pages for licensees and for bodies corporate.

Office of Fair Trading pages on the resident letting agent licence (updated 14 May 2026), on trust money for resident letting agents and on buying a resident letting agency.

What the licence authorises

Section 24 of the Property Occupations Act lists the categories of licence the chief executive may issue: auctioneer, real estate agent and resident letting agent. Section 17 defines a resident letting agent simply as a person who holds the third of those.

Section 27 says what it is for. The holder may, as an agent for others and for reward, let lots in a building complex and collect rents for lots in a building complex. The section adds that the work may be done in a business carried on alone or with others, or as an employee of someone else.

The Office of Fair Trading's licensing page, last updated on 14 May 2026, puts the same thing in everyday terms. A resident letting agent may rent out and manage units in a building complex on behalf of the owners and the body corporate, collect rents in the complex and operate a trust account.

Two words carry the limit: building complex. The licence does not extend to a house down the road or to a unit in an unrelated building. The same page explains how the boundary is drawn where a manager looks after more than one block. Several complexes are treated as one if they share common boundaries and the boundary is not a public road.

One detail of the Act is easy to miss. Its definition of a property agent, in section 15, covers auctioneers and real estate agents only. A resident letting agent is a licensee under the Act, but the statute treats the role as its own class, and the regulation gives it a separate set of conduct standards.

How it differs from a real estate agent licence

The plainest difference is sale. The regulator's page states that a resident letting agent must not sell any units in the complex they manage unless they also hold a real estate agent licence. An owner in the building who decides to sell therefore needs a real estate agent, who may or may not be the same person as the on-site manager, depending on which licences that person holds.

The second difference is territory. A real estate agent licence is not tied to a building. A resident letting agent licence exists only in relation to the complexes for which its holder has the body corporate's approval.

The third is the registered office. The regulator requires a resident letting agent to have a registered office in one of the complexes they manage. A real estate agency chooses its own premises.

The two licences are also alternatives for the same job. The regulator's page on buying a resident letting agency says a person taking over such a business needs one or the other.

A licence tied to a building and its body corporate

The regulator's page lists the conditions that come with the licence. The holder must:

• hold current body corporate approval for each building complex they manage;
• have a registered office in one of those complexes;
• have a licensed person in charge at each place of business;
• appoint a substitute licensee whenever they are absent from work.

The first item sets the role apart. The lot owner chooses the agent, but the agent's right to operate in the building at all comes from the body corporate.

The Act reflects the same idea in its wording. Section 46, on eligibility, speaks of an individual being eligible to obtain a resident letting agent licence for a building complex, not in general.

Must the manager live in the building? The word resident suggests it. The sources are more careful. The regulator's requirement is a registered office in one of the complexes managed. The Queensland Government's guide for bodies corporate says a caretaking service contractor generally owns or leases a lot in the scheme and runs the letting business from it. The parts of the Act that deal with the licence set an age and a qualification test and require a business address at which documents can be served, which section 31 says cannot be a post office box. Whether a particular manager must sleep on site is usually a matter for the agreements with the body corporate.

Eligibility and suitability

Under section 46 of the Act, an individual is eligible if they are at least 18 and hold the educational or other qualifications the chief executive has approved for this licence. The approved qualifications must be published on the department's website. The section treats the training requirement as met where the chief executive is satisfied that the person holds a comparable qualification, or was licensed as a resident letting agent or a real estate agent within the two years before the application.

Suitability is a separate test, set out in sections 29 and 34 to 36. The regulator's page summarises it. A person is not suitable if they are insolvent under administration, are currently disqualified from holding a licence or registration certificate, or have been convicted of a serious offence within the past five years. The page describes serious offences as those punishable by three or more years in prison, and gives fraud and dishonesty, violence, drug trafficking, extortion, arson and stalking among its examples.

Beyond those bars, the Office of Fair Trading weighs a list of matters: criminal history, a past cancellation or suspension, a successful claim against the claim fund caused by the applicant, a current disqualification as a company director, and the character of the applicant and of their business associates.

Every application goes through a criminal history check, which the page warns may take time. The regulator allows four to six weeks to process a complete application, longer if something is missing.

The training the regulator lists

The qualification is assembled from two national courses, the Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice and the Diploma of Property (Agency Management). The regulator's page lists 15 units of competency.

The first five cover the foundations: professional practice, ethics, legislation, marketing and communication, and preparing to work with trust accounts. Two cover appraising a property for sale or lease and marketing it. Five are the property management sequence: establishing landlord relationships, managing tenant relationships, managing a tenancy, ending a tenancy and transacting in trust accounts.

Three units mark the role. One, managing on-site residential property, is specific to this kind of business. Another, from the diploma, covers managing operational finances. The last is presenting at hearings in real estate.

The list contains no sales units, which matches the licence. The page adds that training from the superseded CPP07 package is no longer accepted and that evidence of each unit must be supplied.

Companies, the person in charge and time away

Where the business is owned through a company, the regulator offers a corporate resident letting agent licence, and section 46 of the Act sets the condition: a corporation is eligible only if a person in charge of its business is a resident letting agent. Section 19 defines being in charge as personally supervising, managing or controlling the conduct of the business at the place.

Where a licensee has more than one place of business, each address is registered and each needs a licensee in charge, who the regulator says may hold either a resident letting agent licence or a real estate agent licence. Buildings on adjacent blocks not separated by a public road count as one place of business.

Holidays are covered as well. The regulator requires a substitute licensee whenever the holder is absent from work, and its list of forms includes Form 11, the application to appoint a substitute for more than 30 days or to extend such an appointment.

The appointment between a lot owner and the manager

The body corporate's approval lets the manager operate in the building. It does not make the manager any owner's agent. That takes an appointment from each owner who wants the service.

The Queensland Government's page of property industry forms describes Form 6, the residential agent appointment or reappointment, as the form that appoints a real estate agent or a resident letting agent for residential property. It must be given to the client before any service is performed.

The Property Occupations Regulation 2014 then sets five conduct standards for resident letting agents, in sections 26 to 30.

Conflicts. The agent must not accept an appointment, or act, where that would put the agent's duty or interests in conflict with the client's, unless the conflict is disclosed to the client in writing beforehand.

Earlier appointments. Before accepting, the agent must take reasonable steps to find out whether the owner has already appointed another resident letting agent or a real estate agent for the lot. Where an existing appointment could leave the owner paying commission twice or paying damages, the new agent may proceed only after giving the owner a written statement about that risk before the owner signs.

Ownership. Before letting a lot or collecting rent, the agent must take reasonable steps to verify who owns it and how it is described.

Material facts. The agent must take reasonable steps to check the facts a prudent agent would check, so as to avoid error, omission, exaggeration or misrepresentation, both before letting and afterwards as the occasion arises.

Instructions. The agent must act in accordance with the owner's instructions unless they are unlawful. The regulation's example is advertising a lot at a price or on terms different from those the owner authorised.

Nothing obliges an owner to use the on-site office. The government's body corporate guide says owners may let their lots privately or through a real estate agent instead of the authorised letting agent. The second conduct standard protects an owner who moves a unit from an outside agency to the on-site manager from being caught between two appointments.

Rent and the trust account

A resident letting agent must have a trust account to handle trust money, the Office of Fair Trading's page on the subject says, and all trust money must be paid into it. Trust money, in the regulator's definition, is money handled on behalf of someone else. Money that belongs to the business goes to its general account.

On-site businesses have a particular difficulty, which is why the regulator devotes a page to them. A manager often receives, in a single payment, money that is partly an owner's and partly the business's own. Where the two cannot practically be separated, the rule is to pay the whole amount into the trust account and then remove the non-trust part within 14 days.

The regulator's reasons are practical: non-trust money left to build up in a trust account makes the audit slower and dearer, and keeps from the business cash that belongs to it.

The surrounding duties are those of any agent who holds client money. The opening or closing of a trust account, or a change to its name, is notified on Form 5 under the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014. An agent with a trust account must appoint an auditor, and the audit report, prepared by a qualified auditor, is lodged with the office. Rental bonds follow their own path: the regulator's trust account pages point agents to the Residential Tenancies Authority's bulk lodgement service.

Beside the licence: caretaking and letting agreements

The licence comes from the Office of Fair Trading. The right to run the business in a given building comes from the body corporate, under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act, and the Queensland Government's guide to service contractors explains the vocabulary.

A letting agent, in that guide, is a person authorised by the body corporate to let lots and collect rent for owners who are investors, and who must be licensed under the Property Occupations Act. The authorisation is the body corporate's authority for the agent to act in the scheme. A caretaking service contractor is a service contractor who is also the scheme's authorised letting agent, or an associate of that agent. The typical on-site manager is both at once: paid by the body corporate to look after common property, and paid by individual owners to let their units.

The developer may make the first engagement and set the initial remuneration, which the guide says should relate to the work done. After that, a new engagement or authorisation is decided by ordinary resolution at a general meeting. It must be in writing, state its term and the duties, and include the payment arrangements. It cannot be made by a by-law, and the body corporate cannot sell letting or caretaking rights.

How long an engagement may run depends on the regulation module that applies to the scheme, and the term counts every option to extend or renew.

The last row has a consequence. The guide states that schemes under the Small Schemes and Specified Two-Lot Schemes modules cannot engage a caretaking service contractor or authorise a letting agent at all. Management rights belong to larger schemes.

The body corporate legislation carries its own rules of behaviour. A caretaking service contractor must follow two codes of conduct set out in schedules to the Act, one shared with body corporate managers and one for letting agents. The code forms part of the engagement automatically and prevails where the two conflict. It requires the contractor to know the Act and the code, to act honestly, fairly and professionally, to act in the body corporate's best interests where lawful, and not to influence a motion or an election unfairly. The contractor must also disclose to the body corporate any commission, payment or other benefit.

A caretaking service contractor who owns a lot may vote at general meetings like any other owner. The contractor is automatically a member of the committee, but a non-voting one, and cannot be elected as a voting member. Motions to raise the contractor's pay, extend the contract or widen the letting authority may be considered only once in a financial year, and an amendment that includes an extension or renewal option is decided by secret ballot.

When the business changes hands

Management rights are bought and sold, and each sale runs through both systems. The licence does not pass with the business, and the engagement cannot be transferred without the body corporate.

The government's guide lists what the committee may weigh: the incoming person's character, financial standing, competence, qualifications and experience, the terms of the transfer, and any training completed or likely to be completed. The committee may ask to be reimbursed for its reasonable costs. It cannot ask for or receive any other fee or reward, with one exception. If the transfer happens within two years of the initial contract, a transfer fee may apply: 3 per cent of fair market value if approved in the first year, and 2 per cent in the second. A seller in genuine hardship may ask for the fee to be waived. Transfers are not permitted at all under the Commercial Module or the two small-scheme modules.

On the licensing side, the Office of Fair Trading says a buyer can be fined for acting as a licensee or taking any reward before the licence is issued. The committee's written approval does not need to be sent to the office.

What an owner or a tenant deals with in practice

An owner who uses the on-site office has one relationship with it as a client and a second, shared with every other owner, through the body corporate. The first is governed by the appointment form and the conduct standards. The second is governed by the caretaking and letting agreements, which only the body corporate can enforce.

That division shapes what happens when something goes wrong. A grievance about how a unit is let, about instructions ignored or about rent not accounted for is a matter between the owner and a licensee, and licensing and conduct are the Office of Fair Trading's field. A grievance about the gardens or the pool concerns the caretaking contract. There, the government's guide says, the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management has limited jurisdiction: it recognises disputes between the body corporate and the contractor, and a lot owner cannot lodge an application against the contractor directly. Contractual disputes about an engagement or its transfer may go to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal or to a specialist adjudicator.

The body corporate's own remedy has steps. For misconduct, gross negligence, a failure to perform duties or a breach of the code of conduct, the committee may issue a remedial action notice. The notice states the failure, allows at least 14 days to fix it and warns that termination may follow. Ending the engagement then takes an ordinary resolution at a general meeting. The guide recommends legal advice before a body corporate enters, amends, transfers or terminates one of these contracts.

The letting business keeps some privacy from the scheme. The letting agent is not required to give the body corporate the details of its letting arrangements with owners, although some roll information, such as tenants' names and addresses for leases of six months or more, may have to be supplied.

A tenant or a holiday guest meets none of this machinery. They deal with an office in the foyer that advertises the unit, hands over the keys and takes the money. What stands behind it is a licensed person in charge, a trust account with an appointed auditor, and a body corporate that approved the business.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

About Kooky and Shaka →