Western Australia has been modernising its rental laws, and the latest round landed on 4 May 2026: a State Government package of tenant protections and rent relief, with the Rent Relief Program extended for 12 months for households under pressure. Another change, ending no-grounds terminations, is announced but not yet law: drafting will commence straight away, consultation comes next, and a Bill goes to Parliament after that.
Search WA rental reforms 2026 landlords and the practical question is which numbers a tenancy runs on: the notice periods for ending one, the gap and notice required between rent increases, the bond top-up that follows an increase, and the repair and inspection clocks. This guide works through each as it stands in WA, flags what is still a proposal, and covers the Victorian equivalents if you hold in both states. It does not put a dollar figure on what any of this costs a particular property, and it does not cover breaking a lease or screening tenants.
Ending a tenancy: what's law now, and what's coming
A landlord can currently end a tenancy without giving a reason. On a periodic lease, that is 60 days' notice, given at any time. On a fixed term, it is 30 days' notice at the end of the term that it will not be renewed. Termination without grounds happens even when the tenant has paid rent on time and looked after the home.
The Government has proposed ending this. The proposal is that a landlord will only be able to terminate with a valid reason, drawn from an expanded list of grounds. Among them are seriously and repeatedly breaking the agreement's rules within a set period, such as 12 months, and threatening the landlord or the property manager. A tenant who believes there is no valid reason will be able to apply to the court to challenge the termination notice. As of 4 May 2026 that was still a proposal: drafting was to commence straight away, key stakeholders were to be consulted, and the Bill follows that process. The review behind it has been running since 2019.
What to recalculate: if your exit plan for a problem tenancy, or an early sale, rests on a no-grounds notice, the current 60 and 30 day notices still run, and the announced reform replaces them with a grounds test and a court challenge.
Rent increases: no cap on the amount, but the clock and the notice are set
The amount first: there is no cap. The Government considered rent caps and decided not to introduce them at this time, and no Australian state or territory has them apart from the ACT. What limits an increase is timing and process.
Timing: for agreements signed from 29 July 2024, rent can only be increased once every 12 months. For agreements signed before that date, increases must be at least six months apart until the fixed term ends, and the 12-month minimum applies from there. A renewal with the same tenant counts as a continuous agreement, so the 12 months runs from the last increase rather than resetting at the new signature.
Notice: every increase needs at least 60 days' notice on the prescribed form. Form 10 is the notice of rent increase for a standard tenancy.
Work the dates forward: say the last increase took effect on 30 May 2025. The next cannot start until after 30 May 2026. Notice has to be out at least 60 days ahead, so on or after 31 March 2026. Leave the notice until 30 May 2026 and the new rent does not start until 29 July 2026.
Challenge: a tenant who thinks an increase is too high can apply to the Magistrates Court within 30 days of the notice, to ask for a rent reduction or to argue against a proposed increase. One more rule sits around the advertising: rent bidding is banned.
The bond top-up that follows a rent increase
An increase moves the bond as well. After the rent goes up, you can ask the tenant to pay a top-up to their security bond so it equals four weeks of the new rent. You must give 60 days' notice in writing, lodge the funds with the Bonds Administrator, and the tenant receives an updated bond certificate. The figure that moves is four weeks of the new rent, so it belongs in the same calculation as the increase itself.
The clocks that run the tenancy
Three sets of timeframes sit outside the money.
Urgent repairs: if an essential service fails, you must arrange the repair within 24 hours for electricity, and within 48 hours for water, including the supply of hot water, and for other urgent repairs such as those needed to avoid risking injury to a person.
Routine inspections: four a year, with 7 to 14 days' notice, and not at the same time as collecting rent.
Furniture anchors: a tenant can ask, on a Form 24, to anchor furniture to a wall for the safety of a child or a person with a disability. If you do not reply within 14 days of receiving the request, permission is presumed. Silence counts as a yes, so the form needs a slot in your process.
If you also rent in Victoria
WA's settings are one state's settings, and the equivalents move when you cross the border. The rules for renting in Victoria read like this.
Rent: a periodic agreement's rent must not increase more than once in 12 months, and a fixed-term rent must not increase before the end date unless the agreement allows it, on at least 60 days' written notice. A tenant who thinks an increase is too high can request a rent assessment by Consumer Affairs Victoria within 30 days of the notice. If they disagree with the assessment, they can apply to the tribunal within 30 days of the report, which can set a maximum rent for the next 12 months.
Bonds and arrears: the bond is usually one month's rent, and a dispute over it goes to the tribunal on an application for a bond repayment order made within 14 days of the agreement ending. If rent is 14 days or more overdue, the rental provider can give 14 days' notice to vacate.
Repairs and a forward date: if the rental provider refuses urgent repairs, the tenant can get them fixed and claim the money back, for repairs costing up to $2,500. And minimum energy efficiency standards for rental properties come into effect in phases from 1 March 2027.
Where PropSpotter fits
The rules above are the environment your property runs in once you own it. The decisions that shape how well it does are made earlier: which suburb, which property, and whether the numbers hold. That is the work PropSpotter is built for, and it is built for people who have never bought an investment property before.
The system runs in three stages. The research stage produces an institutional-grade, data-backed suburb brief, and a coach walks through it with you so you understand why each suburb was selected and how to read the signals yourself next time. The sourcing stage runs a proprietary listing system that monitors your target suburbs 24/7 and notifies you before other investors know a property exists, because the best-priced listings don't sit on Domain or realestate.com.au for weeks. The coaching stage is one-on-one property investment coaching from an active investor, on WhatsApp, so you are never making a decision alone. It covers deal assessment (comparable sales, rental yield projections, risk factors, negotiation positioning), your negotiation strategy before you make an offer, and a post-purchase debrief after settlement. The goal is to make you self-sufficient.
PropSpotter does not buy the property for you. You stay in control of every decision, and the point is to build genuine capability as an investor rather than a dependency on someone else. The system covers all Australian states, so it works the same whether you are in Sydney looking at Brisbane or in Melbourne exploring Perth. It is a fixed $4,990 with no commissions, no percentage of the purchase price and no hidden fees, and no per-session billing, no upsells and no 50-module course.
If you want a read on a suburb or a specific property before you commit, the entry point is a free 30-minute strategy call with no obligation. Book the free strategy call when you are ready.