Selling a tenanted property in Queensland: notice, entry, tenant rights

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Kooky

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

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Many of the homes sold in Queensland are someone else's home at the time: an investment property with a tenant in it. Selling one is perfectly ordinary and perfectly legal, but it is a different exercise from selling a house the owner lives in. The owner cannot decide alone when buyers walk through, cannot hold an open home without asking, and cannot move the tenant out just because a sale is planned.

The rules come from Queensland's residential tenancy law and are administered by the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA), the state body that also holds rental bonds. This guide follows a sale from the decision to list through to the handover to a new owner, and sets out what the RTA says each side may and may not do. It covers ordinary residential tenancies. Rooming accommodation has parallel forms and some different periods, and the RTA publishes those separately. The guide describes the general rules: how they apply to one tenancy depends on its agreement and its dates.

Residential Tenancies Authority, "When a property is for sale" and "Entry to the property", as published in 2025.

The tenancy does not end because the home is for sale

The starting point surprises many first-time investors. Putting a rented property on the market changes nothing in the tenancy agreement. The rent stays the same, the tenant's obligations stay the same, and so does the tenant's right to live there.

The RTA states the consequence for fixed term agreements in one sentence: the property manager or owner cannot make the tenant leave because they have decided to sell, and the tenant can stay until the end of the fixed term. A buyer who purchases during a fixed term buys the property with the tenancy attached.

Throughout the campaign, the RTA adds, the property manager or owner must ensure the tenant has quiet enjoyment of the property. The term is not formally defined in the legislation. The RTA describes it as reasonable peace, comfort and privacy, and the ability to make full use of the home. A sale campaign, with its photographer, its viewings and its sign, is exactly the kind of event that tests it.

This shapes the first decision an owner makes: whether to sell with the tenant in place, or to wait until the property is empty. Both are legitimate. A tenanted sale keeps the rent coming in during the campaign and offers investor buyers an income from the day of settlement. A vacant sale gives full control over presentation and access, and suits buyers who want to move in. Which is better depends on the property, the likely buyer and the dates in the agreement. What the law settles is only this: the owner chooses the timing of the sale, not the timing of the tenant's departure.

The first document: Form 10

Before any marketing begins, the tenant must be told. The RTA's wording is that the property manager or owner must give the tenant a Notice of lessor's intention to sell premises, known as Form 10, and that the form includes how they plan to market the property.

Form 10 does two jobs. It informs the tenant that the home is to be sold, so the first sign of it is not a stranger with a camera. And it opens the door, legally, to everything that follows: in the RTA's table of entry rules, entry to show the property to a prospective buyer carries the condition that the Form 10 notice has been given. Without it, the viewings that a campaign depends on have no basis.

The section of the form on marketing matters more than it looks. An owner who intends to sell by auction on site, to hold open homes or to use photographs of the interior needs the tenant's cooperation for each, as later sections explain. Setting the plan out at the start, and talking it through, is how most campaigns avoid a dispute in the third week.

Entering to show buyers: Form 9 and 48 hours

Every entry to a rented home needs a lawful reason and a written notice. The notice is the Entry notice, Form 9, and the notice period depends on the reason. For showing the property to a prospective buyer, the RTA's current table gives 48 hours, and adds that a reasonable interval is required between entries.

The notice must also say when. Entry must fall between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday. Sundays, public holidays and any other time require the tenant's agreement. An agent must name a time or a two-hour window and arrive within it, a rule that the RTA says does not apply to tradespeople or valuers.

Two points follow for the seller. First, a Saturday viewing has to be notified by Thursday at the same hour, so a buyer who rings on Friday afternoon cannot be shown through on Saturday morning unless the tenant agrees. Second, agreement changes everything: the RTA lists entry at a mutually arranged time as lawful, and entry with the tenant's verbal consent as needing no notice at all. A tenant who is treated as a partner in the campaign can make access easy. One who is not is entitled to hold the seller to every hour.

The law sets a firm ceiling in one situation only. Once a Notice to leave (Form 12) or a Notice of intention to leave (Form 13) has been given, the property manager cannot enter more than twice within a seven-day period. The RTA lists the exceptions: mutual agreement, smoke alarm compliance, safety switch compliance and protecting the property from imminent damage. Outside that situation there is no number, only the requirement of a reasonable interval, which is a matter of judgement and, in a dispute, of what a tribunal would think fair.

Open homes, auctions on site and photographs

The private viewing by appointment is the only form of inspection a seller can insist on. The RTA is categorical about the other two: open houses and on-site auctions can only be held if the tenant agrees in writing.

The reasoning is not hard to follow. An open home lets an unknown number of unidentified people walk through a household's bedrooms and past its belongings. A tenant may reasonably agree, perhaps on conditions such as a fixed time, the agent staying in the room, or valuables being put away. A tenant may also refuse, and needs no reason. A seller planning an auction on the front lawn of a tenanted house should have that consent in hand before the method of sale is advertised, because without it the auction has to move to another venue.

Photographs follow the same logic. The RTA notes that a property manager or owner may request photographs of the property for advertising, and its guidance on quiet enjoyment lists using photos of a tenant's possessions in advertisements without consent among the acts that unlawfully interfere with it. Listing photographs of a furnished, lived-in home almost always show possessions. In practice that means asking first, agreeing which rooms are photographed and what is moved out of shot, or using exterior shots, floor plans and earlier images taken when the property was empty.

When the selling agent is not the property manager

Many investors use one agency to manage the tenancy and another to sell. The tenant then deals with two firms, and the law keeps one of them in charge of the relationship. If the selling agent is different from the property manager, the RTA says, the selling agent must give the property manager a copy of each Entry notice before entering the property.

The rule keeps a single record of who has been through the home and when, and it means the manager, who knows the tenant and the agreement, sees every request. For a seller it is a reason to introduce the two agents to each other at the start. The property manager usually knows what the tenant's working hours are, whether there is a pet to be secured, and which days are impossible. A selling agent who learns that from the manager avoids learning it at the front door.

A tenant who has just moved in

The law gives special protection to a tenant who signs a lease and then discovers the home is for sale. If the property is put on the market within the first two months of a tenancy, and the tenant was not told in writing before signing that a sale was intended, the tenant may end the agreement.

The RTA sets out the mechanics. The tenant gives a Notice of intention to leave, Form 13, with two weeks' notice, and must do so within two months and two weeks of the start of the tenancy. The same section of the RTA's guidance covers a tenant who has just signed a new agreement for a home they already rent.

For an owner the lesson is about sequence. Someone who thinks they may sell in the coming months, and is about to take on a new tenant or renew an existing one, can avoid the problem by saying so in writing before the agreement is signed. An owner who says nothing and lists six weeks later hands the tenant a right to leave on a fortnight's notice, in the middle of the campaign, with the rent stopping when they go.

Fixed term or periodic: what the buyer inherits

What a buyer gets depends on the kind of agreement in place on the day of settlement. A fixed term agreement has an end date. A periodic agreement runs on without one, typically after a fixed term has expired and nothing new has been signed.

The last row is one buyers often overlook. The RTA states that a change of property manager or owner does not affect the 12-month rent increase frequency limit. An investor who buys a property eight months after its last increase waits four more months like anyone else. For a seller this makes the date of the last increase a fact the buyer's side will want, along with the agreement itself, the bond amount and the rent ledger.

A tenanted sale narrows and widens the market at once. Owner-occupiers who need to move in may be put off by a fixed term with ten months to run. Investors may see the same lease as a benefit. The length left on the agreement is therefore part of how the property is positioned, and it is worth knowing before the campaign is planned.

Vacant possession and the notice to leave

When a buyer wants the property empty and the tenancy is periodic, the RTA's rule is that the tenant must be given a Notice to leave, Form 12, with at least two months' notice after the contract of sale is signed.

Two details in that sentence matter. The notice follows the contract: it rests on a sale that exists, not on a hope of one. And two months is a minimum, which has to fit inside the settlement period if the buyer is to receive the keys to an empty home. A contract promising vacant possession in 30 days cannot be honoured through this route unless the tenant chooses to leave sooner.

For a fixed term agreement there is no equivalent. If the term outlasts settlement, the buyer takes the tenant. If the term ends before settlement, the tenancy can come to an end with it, but only through the notice the law requires for the end of a fixed term, given in time. Those notice rules belong to tenancy law generally and the RTA sets them out in its guidance on ending an agreement.

There is always a third way: agreement. Nothing stops an owner and a tenant from agreeing in writing to end a tenancy early on terms both accept. A tenant may ask for something in return that makes moving easier. Any such arrangement is a negotiation between two willing parties, not a right of the owner, and a tenant who declines has done nothing wrong.

One timing trap deserves a mention. Once a notice to leave has been given, the twice-in-seven-days limit on entry applies. A seller who serves notice and then wants intensive viewings in the tenant's final weeks will find the calendar tight.

After settlement: handing over to the new owner

When a tenanted property settles, the tenancy carries on with a new owner in the old one's place. The RTA describes three pieces of paperwork.

The bond itself does not move. It sits with the RTA throughout the tenancy, whoever owns the property, which is why the change is one of record and not of money. The rent, on the other hand, is ordinarily apportioned between seller and buyer at settlement, so that each receives it for the days they owned the property.

A seller's practical contribution is a clean file: the signed agreement, the entry condition report, the bond number, the rent ledger and the date of the last increase. A buyer who receives those can step into the owner's shoes without disturbing the tenant at all.

Pools and smoke alarms in a rented home for sale

Two safety regimes apply to a tenanted property twice over, once because it is rented and once because it is being sold.

The first is pool safety, regulated by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC). For a property with its own pool, the QBCC's rule for leasing is that the owner cannot enter an accommodation agreement without a pool safety certificate in effect. A certificate for a non-shared pool lasts two years, so a rental that has been let for some time may have one that has since expired. At sale, the seller either provides a current certificate before settlement or gives a notice that there is none.

The second is smoke alarms. The Queensland Fire Department states that properties being sold, rented or re-rented must already have compliant interconnected photoelectric smoke alarms, well ahead of the 1 January 2027 date by which every dwelling in the state must have them. A rental that meets the leasing requirement should therefore already meet the sale requirement. Where work is needed, the RTA's entry table allows entry to install smoke alarms on 48 hours' notice, and that entry does not count towards the twice-a-week limit.

When things go wrong

Most tenanted sales pass without incident, because both sides have an interest in a short and orderly campaign. Where they do not, the law provides a ladder.

The RTA's first step is always a conversation. Failing that, a tenant who believes the rules have been broken, for instance by entry without notice or by an open home held without consent, can give a Notice to remedy breach, Form 11. The RTA also runs a free and impartial dispute resolution service for tenants and property managers or owners. The stakes are not trivial: according to the RTA, interference with a tenant's quiet enjoyment by a property manager or owner is an offence with a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units.

An owner has the same routes when a tenant will not allow lawful entry: talk first, then the formal notice, then the RTA's conciliators. An owner has no right to force the door. Entry without notice is confined by the RTA to emergencies, protection against imminent damage and cases where the tenant consents.

A tenanted sale goes smoothly when the tenant hears about it first, is asked before being told, and never learns of a viewing from the knock on the door.

The rules reward that approach, and not by accident. Almost every limit in them can be relaxed by the tenant's agreement, and almost none by the owner's impatience.

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.

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