In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Most Queensland home owners know that a smoke alarm deadline falls on 1 January 2027. Fewer know that for anyone selling, the deadline passed years ago. A home that changes hands has had to meet the state's full smoke alarm standard since the start of 2022, and the seller is the person the law holds to it.
This guide sets out what that standard requires, where the alarms have to go, who may install them, how the seller's declaration on the transfer form works, and what the standard sale contract lets a buyer do if the alarms are not right at settlement. It relies on the Queensland Fire Department's published requirements, as updated on 25 August 2026, on the Titles Queensland transfer form and on the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's guidance to its members. It describes the general rules. A particular home, especially an older one with unusual ceilings or a mix of old and new wiring, may need an electrician's view.
Queensland Fire Department smoke alarm requirements and fact sheet; REIQ guidance on the standard residential contract.
The rule sellers have lived with since 2022
Queensland introduced its current smoke alarm law in stages over ten years. New and substantially renovated homes came first. Homes being sold or leased came next. Every other existing dwelling comes last, on 1 January 2027.
For sellers, the Queensland Fire Department states the trigger precisely. The obligations on property sellers are set by the date the initial sale contract is signed. When a contract of sale is signed after 31 December 2021, the seller is obliged to upgrade the dwelling to the interconnected smoke alarm standard before the dwelling is transferred. In the department's summary, all homes or units being sold require photoelectric, interconnected smoke alarms.
Related readBrisbane homes for sale jump 18.5 per cent in May, SQM Research findsTwo things follow from that wording. The duty is the seller's, not the buyer's: the home must comply when it is handed over, not at some point afterwards. And the moment that counts is the transfer, which in an ordinary sale means settlement. A seller has the whole of the campaign and the contract period to get the work done, but not a day beyond.
This is the reverse of the position for a pool, where a seller may hand the task to the buyer with a notice. For smoke alarms there is no notice that passes the job on. There is only a price adjustment, described below, if the job has not been done.
What a compliant system looks like
The Queensland Fire Department lists four characteristics. Each alarm must be photoelectric, meaning it detects smoke with a light sensor. It must comply with Australian Standard 3786-2014, and the department's fact sheet tells owners to look for that code on the alarm itself. It must not also contain an ionisation sensor, the older technology that many homes still have. And it must be interconnected with every other alarm in the dwelling, so that when one sounds, all sound.
Interconnection is the feature that most often turns a small job into a larger one. A house may have two or three perfectly good photoelectric alarms and still fail, because they do not talk to each other and because the bedrooms have none. The point of the requirement, the department's fact sheet explains, is that all alarms activate together and give everyone in the home time to get out, wherever the fire starts.
Related readBrisbane keeps adding homes for sale in June as other capitals thin outPower is the fourth element. An alarm must be either hardwired to the mains with a secondary power source, or powered by a non-removable battery with a ten-year life. Interconnection can be by wire or wireless for either kind, according to the department's answers to common questions.
Age matters as well. The fact sheet lists the alarms an owner must replace: those containing ionisation sensors, those that cannot be interconnected, those that do not show the Australian Standard code, and those more than ten years old. Alarms carry a date of manufacture, and a seller checking a home before listing can read it on the unit.
Where the alarms must go
The standard is defined by rooms, not by floor area. A two-bedroom unit and a five-bedroom house follow the same logic and end up with very different numbers of alarms.
| Location | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Bedrooms | One in each bedroom |
| Hallways | In each hallway that connects bedrooms with the rest of the dwelling |
| No hallway | Between the bedrooms and the other parts of the storey |
| Every storey | At least one alarm on each level |
| Storey with no bedrooms | At least one in the most likely path of travel to the exit |
Source: Queensland Fire Department, smoke alarm requirements (page updated 25 August 2026).
A worked example shows how the count builds. Take a single-storey house with four bedrooms off one hallway. It needs four bedroom alarms and one in the hallway: five in all. Put the same four bedrooms upstairs in a two-storey house, with living areas and no bedrooms downstairs, and a sixth alarm is needed on the lower level, in the path to the exit. These are illustrative layouts, and a real floor plan may differ, for instance where bedrooms open off two separate hallways.
Position on the ceiling is regulated too. The department's guidance is that alarms go on the ceiling, at least 300mm from corners and from light fittings, and at least 400mm from anything that blows air, such as an air conditioner. Air movement can carry smoke away from the sensor, and corners can trap still air that smoke is slow to enter. The department publishes an installation guide for owners who are fitting battery alarms themselves.
Related readJune quarter resales: Brisbane's median gain stalls at $525,000Hardwired or battery: who can install
The choice between the two power types is partly made by the house. The department's fact sheet is explicit that where the existing system is hardwired, the replacements must be hardwired as well. A seller cannot remove mains-powered alarms and put ten-year battery units in their place.
Hardwired alarms must be installed by a licensed electrician. The Queensland Fire Department adds a paperwork point that sellers should keep in mind: hardwired interconnected alarms installed by a licensed electrician require a certificate of testing and compliance, issued under section 227 of the Electrical Safety Regulation 2013. That certificate is the seller's evidence that the work was done and done properly, and it is the document a buyer's conveyancer is most likely to ask to see.
Alarms powered by a non-removable ten-year battery can be installed by the owner, with no licence required. For rooms that have never had an alarm, which in most older homes means the bedrooms, this is often how the gaps are filled, with wireless interconnection linking the new units to each other.
The department also asks owners to be wary. Its guidance warns of unscrupulous traders promoting upgrades that are not needed, and directs concerns to the Office of Fair Trading. A seller who is quoted for a complete replacement of a system installed only a few years ago is entitled to ask why.
The electrician's certificate is part of the sale file
Where alarms are hardwired, the certificate of testing and compliance shows who installed them and when. Kept with the contract documents, it answers the buyer's question before it is asked and supports the declaration the seller makes on the transfer form.
The declaration on Form 24
The seller's compliance is not left to trust. It is declared in writing on a form that goes to the titles office with the transfer.
Related readBrisbane owners hold back new listings as spring approachesThe form is the Property Information (Transfer), known as Form 24. The Queensland Fire Department describes it as a standard compliance statement that should be provided by a conveyancer, and says the seller must declare on it, to the buyer and as part of the transfer process, that the smoke alarm obligation has been discharged.
The current version of the form, version 8, asks two questions under its smoke alarm item. The first is whether a compliant smoke alarm or alarms are installed. The second is whether the transferee, the buyer, has been informed in writing about it. Each has boxes for yes, no and not applicable. The item immediately before it asks the same pair of questions about an electrical safety switch.
A seller should understand what signing that page means. The conveyancer prepares the form, but the answers are the seller's, and they are answers about the physical state of the home on the day of transfer. The REIQ's guidance to agents notes that penalties apply for providing false or misleading information on compliance documents, in addition to a maximum fine of five penalty units for failing to meet the installation requirement. The department, for its part, says property owners will receive an infringement notice if they are proven not to have complied.
The practical consequence is that a seller should know the answer before the form arrives for signature. Ticking "yes" on the strength of an assumption that the alarms are probably fine is the one approach the form is designed to prevent.
Related readNearly every Brisbane resale made a profit in the March quarterThe contract clause and the 0.15 per cent adjustment
The second mechanism sits in the contract. According to the REIQ, its standard residential contract has contained smoke alarm provisions for sales since 1 January 2022, and under clause 7.9 a buyer may ask for a reduction in the price if the alarms are not compliant at settlement.
The amount is fixed by formula: 0.15 per cent of the purchase price. The REIQ's own example is a $700,000 property, where the reduction is $1,050. The adjustment applies only if the alarms do not meet the requirements at settlement.
| Purchase price | Adjustment at 0.15% |
|---|---|
| $500,000 | $750 |
| $700,000 | $1,050 |
| $900,000 | $1,350 |
| $1,200,000 | $1,800 |
Illustrative figures computed from the 0.15% rate; the $700,000 case is the REIQ's own example.
The sums are modest beside the price of a home. At typical prices they are of the same order as the cost of fitting a system, discussed below, so a buyer who inherits a non-compliant home has something to put towards fixing it. The clause is not a bargain for sellers. A seller who accepts the adjustment has not met the legal duty to transfer a compliant home. The Form 24 questions still have to be answered truthfully, and the possibility of an infringement notice remains.
How a buyer establishes that the alarms fall short, and by when the claim has to be made, is governed by the terms of the contract in use and by the legislation behind it. Those details belong to the parties' conveyancers and can differ between contract editions.
Timing the work in a sale
Because the duty crystallises at settlement, a seller can in theory leave the work until the week before. In practice the calendar argues for the opposite.
- Before listingCount the bedrooms, hallways and storeys, and check each existing alarm for type, standard code and date.
- Get the work quotedHardwired systems need a licensed electrician. Battery units for missing rooms can be fitted by the owner.
- Install and testPress the test button on one alarm and confirm that every alarm in the home sounds.
- File the evidenceKeep the certificate of testing and compliance, receipts and the dates of manufacture.
- At contract and transferTell the buyer in writing, and answer the Form 24 questions from the file, not from memory.
There are three reasons to do it early. The first is that buyers and their building inspectors look up. A home with a single yellowed alarm in the hallway raises a question at the first open home, and a compliant system removes it. The second is that the work occasionally uncovers something larger, such as old wiring, which is better discovered in week one of a campaign than in the last week of a contract.
Related readBrisbane sellers concede 4.2 per cent off asking, Cotality chart pack showsThe third reason is particular to this year. With the deadline for all remaining homes falling on 1 January 2027, electricians are being asked to upgrade a great many houses at once. Insurance Business reported on 19 May 2026 that more than a million Queensland properties were estimated to be non-compliant, and quoted a Townsville electrician warning of pressure on both stock and contractor availability as the date approaches. A seller with a settlement in November or December is competing for the same tradespeople as every owner-occupier who has left it late.
What it costs
There is no official price. The same Insurance Business report put the cost of a full installation at $800 to $1,000 for a four-bedroom home, a figure cited in that report and not an official one. The bill for a particular house depends on how many alarms are needed, whether the existing system is hardwired, how easy the ceiling space is to reach and whether wireless interconnection can be used.
Set against the adjustment table, the comparison is instructive. At a price of $700,000, the buyer's contractual adjustment of $1,050 is about the cost of the work. At $1,200,000 it is $1,800, well above it. Since the adjustment does nothing to remove the seller's legal exposure, the arithmetic favours simply doing the work at any price point.
Some households are entitled to help. The Queensland Fire Department points owners who are deaf or hard of hearing to a smoke alarm subsidy scheme run by Deaf Connect.
Tenanted properties and units
An investment property that is already let should be most of the way there. The Queensland Fire Department states that properties being rented or re-rented must already have compliant alarms, so the standard a landlord met for the lease is the standard required for the sale. What may have changed is the age of the alarms. A system that was new for a tenancy several years ago should be checked against the ten-year limit.
Related readBrisbane's for-sale stock is 70 per cent above this year's lowDuring a tenancy, responsibility for upkeep is shared. The department's guidance is that the landlord tests the alarms within 30 days before a tenancy begins, and the tenant tests and cleans them at least once every 12 months. If a seller needs to get into a tenanted home to install or replace alarms, the Residential Tenancies Authority lists smoke alarm installation among the lawful reasons for entry, on 48 hours' notice.
For units, the department's summary refers to homes or units being sold without distinction: the alarms inside the lot have to meet the same room-by-room standard. Whether any part of a building's wider fire system is the body corporate's concern is a separate question from the alarms inside the unit being sold.
What 1 January 2027 changes, and what it does not
For a seller, the coming deadline changes nothing in law. A home sold in October 2026 and a home sold in February 2027 are held to exactly the same standard, because the sale rule has applied to every contract signed after 31 December 2021.
What changes is everything around the sale. From 1 January 2027, the Queensland Fire Department states, all existing private homes, townhouses, units and manufactured homes require interconnected photoelectric alarms, and registered caravans and motorhomes must have at least one photoelectric alarm. An owner who is not selling loses the option of waiting. Buyers will assume every home complies, and a home that does not will stand out.
For a seller, the smoke alarm deadline is not a date in January. It is the day of settlement, and it has been since 2022.
That is the difference worth holding on to. The statewide date is a backstop for homes that never change hands. For a home on the market, the standard is already due, the declaration is already on the form, and the work is easier to arrange this spring than it will be in December.
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.
