Rental safety checks across a whole rent roll

The rule changed on Monday. From 13 October 2026, the two-yearly electrical safety check applies to every Victorian rental agreement, not only those that started after 29 March 2021. If you manage a portfolio, that means a batch of properties moved into scope on one day.

We wrote about what the rule says and what the check covers for owners. This one is the version for the people who actually have to administer it, because the obligation sits with the rental provider but the paperwork usually lands on the agent.

Which properties just came into scope

The ones to pull out of your system first are long-tenancies. A property let to the same renters since before March 2021, never re-let, is the classic case: it has quietly never needed a check and now does.

The second group is anything you have taken on mid-tenancy from another agency, where the file came across without a safety record. If no electrical safety check has been done in the two years before a renter moved in, the check has to be completed as soon as practicable rather than at the next renewal.

What a compliant record has to show

This is the part that causes problems later, because a check with thin paperwork is not much use when someone asks for it. The record has to carry the name and licence number of the electrician, the date, the testing results, any repairs that were needed and what was done about them, and what was and was not covered.

Keep it until the next check is done. If a renter asks in writing for the date of the most recent check you have to tell them, and you have to provide a copy within seven days of a written request. From 13 October there is also a requirement to hold documentation showing the property met the minimum standards before it was advertised or occupied.

We issue the record in a form you can drop straight onto the file, with the licence number and the test results on it, so you are not chasing a tradesperson for a second document a month later.

Group the properties rather than booking them one at a time

Checks fall due every two years per property, so the dates scatter the moment you are handling more than a handful. Once they scatter you are booking single call-outs forever and the renewal dates arrive one letter at a time.

It is worth grouping. If you have several properties around the inner north we can work through a few in the same run and hand back one set of records with the dates lined up, which makes the next round a diary entry instead of a scramble. Clustered addresses also keep the cost per property down, because the travel is shared.

What tends to fail in inner north stock

The housing around Coburg, Brunswick and Preston throws up the same handful of things, and none of them should be a surprise given the age of the buildings.

Boards with rewirable ceramic fuses and no safety switch. Old rubber or cotton-braided wiring still live in a ceiling space. Earthing that was fine decades ago and is not now. Bathroom and kitchen circuits that were extended at some point without anyone upgrading the board behind them.

Most outcomes are small: adding safety switches where there are none, replacing a damaged fitting, correcting an extension that was never done properly. Sometimes it is a switchboard upgrade, and occasionally in an older weatherboard or double brick house it means partial rewiring. Finding out at a scheduled check is the cheap version of finding out.

How to handle a fail without a fight

A failed item is the check doing its job, but it does put you between a renter and an owner. Two things make that easier.

The first is knowing the cost before you ring the owner, so the conversation is a quote rather than an open question. The second is having the repair recorded against the check, so the file tells one consistent story instead of a check that says failed and an invoice nobody has linked to it.

Repairs should be done by a Registered Electrical Contractor, or a licensed electrician working for one. We are REC 35681 and we record the remedial work against the original check for exactly that reason.

If you are working through a list

Send the addresses and we will come back with a schedule and a per-property cost. There is more detail on what the check involves on our rental safety check page, and we cover Northcote, Fitzroy and the rest of Melbourne’s inner north as well as the suburbs above.

If you are not sure which properties on your rent roll have a current record, that is the thing to resolve now rather than when a renter asks in writing.

Sources: Consumer Affairs Victoria, new changes to the rental laws and rental providers: gas and electrical safety; Energy Safe Victoria, residential tenancy. General information, not legal advice. Confirm your own obligations with Consumer Affairs Victoria.