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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →A short-stay management operator at Mount Tamborine has been ordered to pay nearly $24,000 after managing a holiday rental for its owner without a real estate licence. The Office of Fair Trading announced the outcome on Tuesday 2 June 2026, following a hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
The case involved one property and one owner, over a period of about five and a half months. Its interest for Queensland investors is wider than that. The rule the operator broke applies to anyone who is paid to let a property on someone else's behalf, including the co-hosts and management services that have grown up around booking platforms, and the owner is the person exposed when the rule is ignored.
Office of Fair Trading statement published by the Department of Justice, 2 June 2026. The total is the sum of the three amounts ordered.
What the court ordered
According to the Office of Fair Trading, the operator traded under a business name offering short-term letting services and managed a property at Mount Tamborine for its owner between 3 September 2022 and 16 February 2023. In that time the operator provided letting and rental services, and received payment for them, without holding a real estate licence. The statement puts the payments received while unlicensed at more than $4,000.
The offences were against the Property Occupations Act 2014, the Queensland law that licenses real estate agents, auctioneers and property managers. The court imposed a fine of $5,000 and ordered the operator to pay $9,250 in costs and $9,594.70 representing letting fees and expenses that had been retained. Those three amounts add to $23,844.70. No conviction was recorded.
The statement does not describe a dispute between the operator and the owner about the quality of the service. The matter prosecuted was the absence of a licence. That is worth noting, because it shows the regulator treating unlicensed management as an offence in itself, whatever the standard of the work.
Related readBuying an investment unit in Queensland: levies, sinking funds, by-lawsThe dates also say something about how long these matters take. The conduct ended in February 2023 and the outcome was announced in June 2026.
The rule: letting for others, for reward
The Office of Fair Trading's statement sets out the rule in two parts. An owner who lists and manages their own property on a platform such as Airbnb, Stayz or Booking.com does not need a licence. Anyone who manages a property on behalf of others must hold one.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland has explained the same rule to its members. In guidance last updated in March 2024, it points to section 26 of the Property Occupations Act and summarises its effect: a person who lets, or negotiates the letting of, a property for others for reward requires a licence, and so does a person who collects rent for others. The institute's guidance says this includes people managing properties on booking platforms for their owners.
The words "for reward" carry the weight. A percentage of each booking, a flat monthly fee and a payment per changeover are all reward. The length of the stay is irrelevant. A two-night booking is a letting in the same way a twelve-month tenancy is.
This was not the first prosecution of its kind. The institute's guidance refers to an earlier case in which a Gold Coast woman was found guilty of operating without a licence and ordered to pay a fine and costs totalling $1,800. The Mount Tamborine outcome is more than thirteen times that figure.
| Who manages the bookings | Licence needed | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The owner, for their own property | None | Owners managing their own properties are outside the rule |
| A real estate agency | Real estate licence | It lets property for others for reward |
| A co-host or management service paid by the owner | Real estate licence | The same test applies, whatever the business calls itself |
| The on-site manager of a unit complex | Resident letting agent licence | A narrower licence, tied to that complex |
Office of Fair Trading statement of 2 June 2026; REIQ guidance on managing holiday homes; Queensland Government guidance on the resident letting agent licence. General summary.
The on-site manager's licence
Many short-stay apartments on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast are let through the building's own manager, and that arrangement has its own licence.
Related readForeign buyers and non-resident landlords: what federal figures showThe Queensland Government's guidance, updated on 14 May 2026, describes what a resident letting agent may do: rent out and manage units in a building complex on behalf of their owners and the body corporate, collect rents, and operate a trust account for the complex. The licence comes with conditions. The holder must be at least 18, must complete a required training course drawn from the real estate qualifications, must keep a registered office in one of the complexes they manage and must hold current body corporate approval for each complex.
It is a limited licence. The guidance states that a resident letting agent cannot sell units in the complexes they manage unless they also hold a real estate agent licence. And it attaches to particular buildings, so an on-site manager who offers to look after an owner's house in the next street is stepping outside it.
For an investor buying into a holiday complex, this is the reason the building manager can lawfully run the letting pool while an unlicensed outside service cannot.
What a licence gives the owner
Licensing can look like paperwork. For an owner handing over the keys and the income of a property, it supplies three protections that are otherwise absent.
The first is the trust account. The institute's guidance notes that licensed agents must operate trust accounts. Booking income collected for an owner is held separately from the manager's own money until it is paid across, under rules the regulator can audit.
The second is the claim fund. The same guidance says property owners dealing with a licensee have access, in certain circumstances, to a fund that compensates financial loss. An owner whose unlicensed manager disappears with a season's takings has the ordinary remedy of suing them, and nothing behind it.
Related readForeign buyers of Queensland homes: approval, duty and land tax surchargeThe third is the person. The institute describes licensing as involving professional training and suitability checks, and says operating without a licence is more than a technical breach because it exposes consumers to people who have had neither.
None of this guarantees a good manager. It means that when something goes wrong there is a regulator, an account and a fund to turn to.
What an owner can check before appointing a manager
The Office of Fair Trading's advice to owners in its statement is brief: an owner who engages someone to manage a property should verify that they hold the appropriate licence. In practice that comes down to a few questions asked before any agreement is signed.
Does the business hold a real estate licence or, for an on-site manager, a resident letting agent licence? The Office of Fair Trading keeps a public register on which a licence can be looked up. The name on the licence should be the name on the agreement.
Is the appointment in writing? A licensed agent acting for a property owner in Queensland works under a written appointment that sets out the service, the fees and how the arrangement ends. A management service that operates on an exchange of messages and a shared login is not following the process a licensee has to follow.
Where does the money go? An owner can ask whether booking income is paid into a trust account and how often it is paid out. A manager who has bookings paid into a personal account is holding the owner's money without the protection the law intends.
Related readGross and net rental yield: how Queensland investors measure a returnWho is insured for what? Short-stay letting changes the risk a standard landlord policy was written for. Both the owner's insurer and the manager's own cover are worth confirming.
These are checks on the arrangement, and they do not replace a judgement about whether a particular manager is good at the job.
Why this matters to the investment
The short-stay market in Queensland has been the subject of several decisions in recent weeks, and they bear on what an investor is buying.
Brisbane City Council announced in May 2026 that it would not proceed, at this time, with a local law that would have required a permit for every short-stay premises from 1 July. Its existing local laws and its planning scheme continue to apply. On 20 May the Australian Taxation Office issued a new ruling and a compliance guideline on holiday homes that are also let to guests, which the Tax Office will apply to expenses incurred from 1 July 2026.
Against that background, the Office of Fair Trading's case is a reminder that the management layer is regulated too. The Property Occupations Act was not written for co-hosting. It was written for anyone who lets property for someone else, and co-hosting fits the description.
For an owner the consequences of using an unlicensed manager are indirect but real. The owner in the Mount Tamborine matter was not the one prosecuted. But an owner in that position has had booking income collected with no trust account and no claim fund behind it, and is relying on a business that the regulator may stop from trading in that form.
What comes next
The Office of Fair Trading has not announced a wider compliance program on short-stay management, and its statement describes a single prosecution. Two things are nonetheless clear from it. The regulator is prepared to pursue a case involving one property and a few thousand dollars in fees, and it regards booking platforms as squarely inside the licensing rules.
Operators who have been managing properties for others without a licence have a straightforward path, which is to obtain one or to work under a licensee. Owners have an easier task still. A licence search takes a few minutes, and it is the one check on a short-stay manager that has a definite answer.
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.
