Rental Property Compliance Options

Keeping up with compliance

As rental property owners, under State and Federal legislation, you’re responsible for regular safety checks of various services including electrical and gas connections and appliances. As an example, in states like Victoria, the rental provider needs to ensure an electrical safety check by a licensed or registered electrician is carried out each 2 years on all electrical appliances, installations and fittings.

Below, we answer some common questions about the legislation changes for rental property managers.

How are landlords keeping up with regular compliance checks?

For landlords using software tools like PropertyMe, they are managing compliance by using Reminders that alert them when compliance tasks like pool safety, smoke alarm checks and insurance renewal dates are coming up. These can be set up using PropertyMe reminder templates that create compliance alerts and also provide the option for exceptions reports to be run.

What if you need a more comprehensive workflow for managing your rental property portfolio?

As a PropertyMe alternative for managing landlord compliance reminders, SyncEzy offers integrations with popular CRM and field service software platforms that help automate your compliance process. Using an integration like the PropertyMe to simPRO integration, real estate property managers can have their tenant details passed across to their own technicians so that repairs and maintenance can be organised. As a Detector Inspector alternative, managers can align their business with local service professionals and repairers, booking them easily.

What are some new compliance needs?

Some compliance needs, from recent legislation, include:

• Access to photo folder of certificates of compliance
• A real time data portal
• Live reporting of compliance actions completed and outstanding

By using a field service app alongside your property management software, you can ensure that photos are attached to the client files, your team can access compliance information via a secure portal and tasks are monitored.

What are some examples of services that can be automated?

Some of the tasks and services that can be tracked, completed and audited include:

• The preservation of records detailing that the property is compliant with current smoke detector legislation. This includes smoke detector positioning according to the Building Code of Australia and compliance with the Australian Standards AS 3786-1993
• Cleaning detector and surrounding areas
• Battery replacement
• Decibel testing
• Smoke test to ensure effective operation of the detector (when applicable)
• Replacement of faulty and expired smoke detectors
• Leaving information card for occupant upon completion of the smoke detector service
• Tenants signature upon completion of the smoke detector service (when applicable)
• Photos of each smoke detector showing the location and expiry date
• Displaying service information and photos on our online portal (allowing property managers to easily identify the last service date and previous service information while on site without climbing a ladder)

What areas of safety have been affected by current legislation changes?

Areas that need to be closely monitored include:

• Smoke alarm safety
• Gas safety
• Electrical safety
• Cord blind safety
• Water efficiency
• Essential fire safety

What can I do to ensure I can manage my properties in a compliant way?

We recommend that you speak to one of our integration experts to see how you can use PropertyMe alongside other apps to manage properties under the new legislation. We’re here to help and can speak to you about your options in this space.