Victorian rental compliance, in plain English
The safety checks a Victorian rental provider must arrange, how often each falls due, and who is responsible.
Three checks, three cycles
A Victorian rental carries three recurring safety obligations under the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2021: an electrical safety check every two years, a gas safety check every two years where the property has a gas connection, and smoke alarm testing every twelve months.
Each cycle restarts from the date its own check was done, not from a shared anniversary. A property whose electrical check was done in March and whose smoke alarms were tested in September has two different dates to hit, and hitting one does nothing for the other.
This is the most common way compliance fails: an agency tracks one date per property, does a visit, ticks the property off, and finds out later that the smoke alarms have been overdue for months.
Who is responsible
The obligation sits with the rental provider. In practice the property manager holds the diary, arranges access and takes the call, which is why the compliance record has to live somewhere the agency can see it.
The person doing the work must be licensed for it: a licensed electrician for the electrical safety check and a licensed gasfitter for the gas safety check. A check performed by an unlicensed person does not satisfy the regulation, however thorough it was.
What a check produces
An electrical safety check produces a Certificate of Electrical Safety, issued through Energy Safe Victoria by the electrician who attended. A gas safety check produces a gas compliance certificate the same way. No compliance management service generates either document.
What a service should give you is everything around the certificate: the due date tracked, the visit arranged, the tenant contacted, the certificate filed against the property as soon as it is issued, and a report of what was checked and found.
What overdue costs
An overdue check is a breach of the regulations. After an incident, the first question an insurer or tribunal asks is when the last check was done and who can prove it. An agency that cannot produce a date and a certificate is poorly placed whether or not the incident had anything to do with the check.
The fix is knowing the date months out, being reminded before it lands, and booking the visit while there is still room in the calendar.