Tenancy Compliance and Investigations team
The Tenancy Services Compliance and Investigations Team monitor and enforce compliance with the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the Act).
Compliance & Investigation (transcript)
Little House: Hey, I’ve got a bit of a...problem.
Apartment: What is it?
Little House: There’s a hole by my back door...and you can see my drawers.
Apartment: Whoa, that’s nasty. Hey everyone!
Little House: Shoosh!
Apartment: Check out this guy’s drawers!
Old House: Eeeeew, your tenants should talk to the landlord.
Apartment: Yep, that’s the first thing to try.
Little House: They did, but he’s not fixing it. A child fell through it the other day.
Healthy House: My landlord once didn’t give the bond back. They had to go to the tribunal, where it all got solved.
Old House: What I reckon is if it’s been there for a while and the landlord’s not doing anything it’s a compliance issue. The Tenancy Services Compliance and Investigation Team can help with that.
Apartment: They stepped in when a friend of mine had a fire. Landlord hadn’t actually installed smoke alarms. Major. Fail.
Little House: Well, turns out the Tenancy Services Compliance and Investigation Team can help with compliance issues, like if the property is a significant risk to health or safety, or if the landlord has committed a serious or ongoing breach of the Act.
The team can also advise you on how to reach resolution yourself, and can visit landlords and property managers to audit their processes. There’s more information on this page.
How the team works
Where ongoing breaches are identified, the team uses a number of interventions and enforcement activities to make sure landlords comply with their obligations under the Act. This includes holding landlords to account, and requiring them to change their behaviour where necessary.
As well as investigating alleged breaches, landlords and property management companies are proactively visited, and their business processes and systems are assessed for compliance with the Act.
Use the landlord compliance checklist to see if you meet the requirements under the Act.
What the team investigates
Some of the areas the team looks into are:
- if there are breaches that cause the condition of the premises(s) to be a significant risk to the health or safety of vulnerable people or groups of people.
- if the landlord has committed a serious breach or has persistently breached the Act.
- if the landlord’s actions risk undermining public confidence in the administration of tenancy law.
The team can't intervene in every issue that is brought to their attention.
In some cases people will be given specific advice or directed to the website to help them solve the issue themselves. This may include advice on issuing a notice to remedy or applying to the Tenancy Tribunal.
The team have a range of compliance tools to ensure landlords are meeting their obligations. These include (but are not limited to) formal warnings, enforceable undertakings, improvement notices and infringement notices. In the most serious cases, the team may decide to take proceedings against a landlord in the Tenancy Tribunal.
Get in touch with the Compliance team
If you think there has been a serious or ongoing breach of the Act, use this form to give us the details of your issue.
