Every state has its own rules — and often its own form

Residential tenancies in Australia are governed by state and territory law, and each sets out when a condition report must be prepared, how many copies the tenant gets, and how long they have to return it. Several prescribe the form itself: New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, for example, each publish an official condition report through their tenancy regulator or fair trading office.

This template is a general record laid out the way those forms are — rooms by items, clean / undamaged / working, agent's and tenant's comments — with room for photos that the paper forms do not have. Before you rely on it, check what your state requires. Where an official form is prescribed, use it, and attach this report and its photos as supporting evidence.

How the report works

The sequence is much the same everywhere:

• The agent or landlord inspects the empty home before the tenant moves in, and fills in every room and item.
• The tenant is given the report — usually two copies — at or before the start of the tenancy.
• The tenant checks it against the home, writes their own comments where they see things differently, signs, and returns a copy within the time the state allows. That window is short, commonly from a few days to a week, so do it in the first week.
• Both keep a signed copy until the bond is refunded.

Clean, undamaged, working

For every item the report asks three plain questions. Is it clean? Is it undamaged? Does it work? Here each item takes one or more answers — "clean, undamaged and working" when all three are true, or whichever of "needs cleaning", "marked or damaged" and "not working" applies. Add "not present" for something that should be there and is not.

The comments carry the detail, and the detail is what settles disputes. "Carpet stained" is an argument waiting to happen; "carpet in bedroom 2 — pale stain about 15 cm across, 50 cm in from the door" is not. Photograph every room from the doorway, then close up on anything you have commented on.

Keys, smoke alarms and meters

Three things outside the rooms cause a surprising share of end-of-tenancy disputes. Record every key, remote and fob handed over, with how many. Record each smoke alarm, where it is and that it sounded when tested — every state places duties on landlords about working smoke alarms, and the details (type, interconnection, testing intervals) differ. And read the water, electricity and gas meters, with a photo of each.

Common questions