What a property manager does in Queensland: licence, appointment, duties

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Kooky

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

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A property manager is the person most Queensland tenants deal with and most rental owners never meet in person. They advertise the home, choose between applicants on the owner's behalf, collect the rent, arrange repairs, inspect every few months and, at the end, hand the keys to the next tenant. It looks like administration. In law it is the work of a licensed real estate agent, done under a written appointment from the owner and under a tenancy Act that gives the tenant rights the owner cannot switch off.

This guide explains that position from the ground up: why the work needs a licence and which one, how an owner appoints a manager, which regulator oversees which part of the job, and what the law requires at each stage of a tenancy, from the advertisement to the final inspection. It draws on the Property Occupations Act 2014 and its regulation, the Office of Fair Trading's guidance for the property industry and the Residential Tenancies Authority's published rules. It describes the general position. A particular tenancy or appointment turns on its own documents.

Source: Residential Tenancies Authority guidance on entry, routine inspections and emergency repairs.

Managing a rental for someone else is licensed work

The starting point is section 26 of the Property Occupations Act 2014. It sets out what a real estate agent licence authorises its holder to do as an agent for others, for reward. The list includes buying, selling, exchanging or letting real property, negotiating those transactions, and collecting rents. Letting a home and collecting its rent for the owner are therefore the same category of work, in the eyes of the Act, as selling it.

The consequence is that nobody may manage a rental for a fee without the right licence. The Office of Fair Trading's list of offences puts the maximum penalty for acting as a property agent without a licence at $34,540 or two years' imprisonment for an individual. The rule applies whatever the length of the stay. In a statement published on 2 June 2026 about a short-term letting business, the Fair Trading Commissioner, Ben Griffin, said that "anyone who manages a property on behalf of others must have a licence".

The same statement drew the line on the other side. An owner who lets their own property, including through a booking platform, is not acting as anyone's agent and needs no licence. The licence attaches to acting for someone else for reward, not to being a landlord.

The commissioner also explained what the licence is for. A licensed manager has passed a criminal history check, has completed the required training and must keep rent received for owners in a trust account. Those three things are the protection an owner gets from using a licensed manager and loses with an unlicensed one.

Which licence, and who in the office holds it

The Office of Fair Trading lists several licences and registrations in the real estate family. The ones that matter for a rented home are these.

A real estate agent licence is the full licence. Its holder may run an agency, hold trust money and carry out everything in section 26, including letting and rent collection. A company that trades as an agency holds its own corporate licence as well.

A real estate salesperson registration is held by an employee. According to the office's licensing pages, a registered salesperson may list, show, negotiate and let property, but only as an employee of a licensee, and may not operate a trust account. The same pages list 12 units of competency for a registration against 19 for the full licence. Despite the name, this is the document most property managers hold: "salesperson" is the Act's term for a registered employee, whether the person sells homes or manages them.

A resident letting agent licence is a separate, narrower licence. The office describes it as the licence needed to work as a resident letting agent, the on-site manager who lets units in a building for their owners. The office's list also includes a business letting real estate agent licence, a further limited category.

Behind the person an owner or tenant speaks to there must be a licensee in charge. Section 19 of the Act says a person is in charge of a licensee's business at a place only if they personally supervise, manage or control the conduct of the business there, and the office's offence list gives a maximum of $34,540 for an individual, and $172,700 for a corporation, where a place of business is not properly supervised.

Anyone can confirm what a manager holds. The Office of Fair Trading keeps a free online register showing the name of each licence holder, any registered business name and place of business, the licence number and class, and whether the licence is current, expired, refused, cancelled or suspended.

How an owner appoints a manager

A manager cannot start work on a handshake. The Office of Fair Trading's guidance says a property agent must be appointed in writing before acting, on the approved Form 6, "Residential agent appointment or reappointment", signed by both sides, with a copy given to the client and one kept by the agent. The office's offence list gives a maximum of $34,540 for acting without a written appointment.

The guidance sets out what the form must state: the services to be provided; any limits, restrictions or conditions on them; the commission, fees and expenses and when they fall due; and any benefit the agent receives from a third party, such as a rebate from a supplier the agent uses.

A rental management is what the guidance calls a continuing appointment, as opposed to a single appointment for one sale. It has no fixed end. Either the owner or the agent may end it with 30 days' written notice, or less if both agree. An agency also cannot pass a management to another agency on its own initiative: the guidance says an appointment may be transferred only if the appointment itself allows it or the client consents in writing. That rule matters when a rent roll is sold from one agency to another.

The limits written on the form are the heart of the arrangement. They record what the manager may decide alone and what must go back to the owner: how much may be spent on a repair without asking, who approves a tenant, whether the manager may sign a lease or serve a notice. Two owners with the same agency can have given quite different authority.

Two laws and two regulators

A property manager works under two separate sets of rules, and it helps to keep them apart.

The first governs the manager as an agent: the licence, the appointment, the handling of the owner's money and the way the manager behaves towards the client. That is the Property Occupations Act 2014, with the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014 for trust accounts, and the regulator is the Office of Fair Trading.

The second governs the tenancy: the agreement, the bond, rent, entry, repairs and how a tenancy ends. That is the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008, and the regulator is the Residential Tenancies Authority, which also holds bonds and runs a free dispute resolution service. Disputes that are not settled there go to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The tenancy Act binds the owner, and the manager carries out the owner's obligations under it. That is why a tenant's rights do not shrink when an owner chooses to use an agency, and why an owner's instruction cannot authorise something the tenancy Act forbids.

Finding a tenant

The work begins before there is a tenant. The manager advertises the home, shows it, receives applications and recommends an applicant to the owner.

Three legal points shape this stage. First, the rent must be advertised at a fixed amount. The Residential Tenancies Authority's compliance pages list a rent not offered at a fixed price among the breaches it takes reports about and gives priority to in 2026-27, and say an advertised home that does not meet minimum housing standards can be reported in the same way.

Second, the application process is itself regulated. The authority lists non-compliance with tenancy application processes among its priority breaches for the year. The detail of what may be asked of an applicant sits in the tenancy Act and the authority's forms.

Third, what the manager says about the home has to be right. The conduct rules in the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 require an agent to take reasonable steps to find out or verify the ownership and description of a property before listing it, and to act on the client's written instructions about price. A manager who advertises a rent the owner has not authorised, or a feature the home does not have, has a problem under the agency law before any tenancy law is reached.

The choice of tenant is the owner's unless the appointment delegates it. The manager's part is to present the applications fairly and give a recommendation.

Rent, bond and the owner's money

Money is where the two sets of rules meet most closely, and three different kinds pass through a manager's hands.

Rent collected for an owner is trust money. It goes into the agency's trust account, which only a principal licensee may open and which is audited, and is paid on to the owner at the intervals the appointment sets, less the agreed fees and any authorised outgoings. It is never the agency's own money.

A bond is not kept by the agency at all. It must be lodged with the Residential Tenancies Authority within 10 days of being received, and the authority holds it until the tenancy ends. Non-lodgement of a bond is the first item on the authority's list of priority breaches for 2026-27.

Receipts and records are the third element. The authority's list includes the failure to provide or keep receipts, documents or records, and its new compliance plan, announced on 10 August 2026, begins with evidence for bond claims: a manager who claims part of a bond at the end of a tenancy is expected to be able to show why.

One spending power comes from the tenancy rules themselves. For emergency repairs, the authority's guidance allows a manager to arrange work costing up to four weeks' rent and deduct it from rent received, which lets a burst pipe be fixed on a Saturday without waiting for an owner who cannot be reached.

Inspections and the right to enter

A rented house or unit is the tenant's home for as long as the tenancy lasts, and a manager's access to it is limited to listed purposes with fixed notice. The Residential Tenancies Authority sets these out, and they are the rules a manager uses most weeks.

A routine inspection needs at least seven days' notice on an Entry notice, Form 9, and cannot happen more than once every three months unless the tenant agrees in writing. The notice may give a set time or a two-hour window. The authority is direct about its purpose: it is to check the condition of the property, look for leaks, pests, damage and future maintenance, and it is, in the authority's words, not a housework inspection.

Most other entries need 48 hours' notice. Entry must fall between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday, unless the tenant agrees otherwise, and no notice is needed in an emergency.

Once a notice ending the tenancy has been given, the authority's guidance limits entry to two occasions in any seven days, apart from exceptions such as emergencies and smoke alarm or electrical safety work. Unlawful entry is on the authority's list of priority breaches, and its compliance pages describe an investigation that relied on tenants' witness statements, tenancy documents and photographs.

Repairs: routine and emergency

Repairs generate more calls to a property management office than anything else, and the rules split them in two.

Routine repairs are everything that is not an emergency. The authority's guidance says the tenant should tell the manager or owner in writing as soon as possible and should not organise the work themselves without written permission. The owner or manager must then have the repair done within a reasonable time, having regard to how serious it is and whether a tradesperson is available. If that does not happen the tenant may issue a Notice to remedy breach on Form 11, giving at least seven days, then use the authority's dispute resolution service, then apply to the tribunal for a repair order. The guidance adds a warning to tenants that a manager will often repeat: rent must keep being paid while a repair is in dispute.

Emergency repairs are defined by a list in the Act. The authority's summary includes a burst water service or serious leak, a blocked or broken toilet, a serious roof leak, a gas leak, a dangerous electrical fault, flooding, serious storm or fire damage, the failure of gas, electricity or water supply, the breakdown of an essential service for hot water, cooking or heating, and any fault that makes the home unsafe or insecure. Work needed to meet minimum housing standards is on the list too.

Every tenancy agreement must name a nominated repairer with a phone number and say whether the manager or the repairer is the first person to call. If the tenant cannot reach that person within a reasonable time, the tenant may arrange the repair up to a cost of four weeks' rent and ask in writing to be repaid, with receipts. The owner or manager then has at least seven days to reimburse.

Following instructions, and where that stops

A manager is the owner's agent, and the conduct rules say so plainly. Section 22 of the Property Occupations Regulation 2014 requires a property agent to act in accordance with the client's instructions unless doing so would be contrary to the conduct rules or otherwise unlawful.

Both halves of that sentence matter. The first means the owner decides: the rent, the tenant, the lease term, whether to renew, whether to sell. The manager advises and then carries out the decision, even one they would not have made.

The second half is the limit. An instruction to keep a bond in the agency's account, to enter without notice, to raise the rent sooner than the law allows or to ignore a repair request is not one a manager may follow. The authority's priority list for 2026-27 includes rent increases inside 12 months alongside unlawful entry and unlodged bonds, which are all things an owner might ask for and a manager must refuse.

The regulation also deals with divided loyalty. Section 18 says an agent must not accept or continue an appointment where their duty or interest conflicts with the client's interests. In property management the usual test is the trades the agency uses and any benefit it receives from them, which is why the appointment form requires third-party benefits to be written down.

Who oversees a manager when something goes wrong

Because two regulators are involved, the right door depends on the problem.

A tenancy problem, such as entry, a bond, a repair or a rent increase, belongs to the Residential Tenancies Authority. Its dispute resolution service is the first formal step, and unresolved disputes go to the tribunal. Separately, its compliance team investigates breaches of the tenancy Act. The authority says it concentrates on repeat, opportunistic and serious non-compliance, that requests for investigation can come from tenants, owners or managers, and that outcomes range from education and an official warning to a penalty infringement notice or prosecution. An investigation can take from a few weeks to several months. It does not recover money for anyone: the authority says its investigations uphold compliance and do not provide compensation.

A problem with the manager as an agent, such as working unlicensed, mishandling rent money or acting without a proper appointment, belongs to the Office of Fair Trading, which licenses agents and can discipline or prosecute them. Money lost through an agent's breach of the trust account rules can be the subject of a claim on the fund the State maintains for that purpose.

An owner who is simply unhappy with the service has a simpler remedy, built into the appointment: 30 days' written notice.

What an owner or tenant can check

A few checks follow from all of this, and none needs specialist knowledge.

An owner can look up the agency and the individual manager on the Office of Fair Trading's free register and see the class and status of each licence. The owner can read the Form 6 before signing, paying attention to the limits on the manager's authority, the fees and any disclosed benefits. The regular statement from the agency should show every rent payment received and every deduction, which is the visible face of the trust account.

A tenant can check that the bond has been lodged, using the bond search among the authority's online services, and can expect every entry to come with a Form 9 and the right notice. Both can expect requests to be answered in writing.

Most tenancies run from start to finish without any of these rules being tested. They exist so that when a pipe bursts, a payment goes missing or a lease ends badly, each person knows what the manager was entitled and required to do.

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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