Stacey Holt (Real Estate Excellence Academy)

The Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 (RTRA Act) cites the two types of Residential Tenancy Agreements; fixed term and periodic tenancy agreements.

Fixed term tenancies are defined in the RTRA Act as;

Fixed term agreement— (a) for a residential tenancy, means a residential tenancy agreement for a residential tenancy for a fixed term;

Periodic Tenancies are defined as;

Periodic agreement— (a) for a residential tenancy—means a residential tenancy agreement that is not a fixed term agreement;

When property managers negotiate new or existing tenancies on behalf of lessor clients, the question that should be asked is ‘when is the best time for my client’s property to become vacant?”. For example, from Mid December through to Mid January in most areas would be the worst time for a property to be vacant. This of course can be controlled and negotiated by property managers. There would be other times of the year for some areas known to be difficult for letting.

Having said this, property managers should also remember that a fixed term tenancy is only required to have a definite start date and definite end date. Traditionally tenancies have been per calendar month such as from the 29th May 2010 to 28th May 2012 (for a 12 month tenancy). The fact is that the dates do not have to be calendar. For example, a tenancy that was just negotiated in Lutwyche Brisbane recently (a personal investment property of mine) has a start date of 1 July 2010 and end date of 20th January 2011. Tenancies don’t have to be, and technically should not be the traditional six or twelve month as there are only two lawfully identified types of agreements; fixed or periodic.

In Item 6 of the General Tenancy Agreement, fixed term agreement or periodic agreement should only be inserted; though if six or twelve months is added at the moment, it most likely won’t make the agreement ‘fatal’. If required, refer to the fine print under Item 6 of the agreement to see what the government have written; ‘insert fixed term agreement or periodic agreement’.

For some in the industry, this may require a ‘mind shift’ away from the traditional agency practice ways of six or twelve month tenancies; the important points to remember is not only that the law doesn’t identify with ‘six or twelve month tenancies’ and only focuses on fixed or periodic agreements, but also the fact that a duty of a property manager is to ‘minimise their clients losses and maximise their income’. One way of demonstrating this duty is by taking into consideration when negotiating new tenancies or renewals, when is the best time to re let this property again in the future?

One penalty unit equals $100. The legislation can be downloaded from http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/

(c) Stacey Holt Real Estate Excellence - http://www.realestateexcellence.com.au/