Reference only. This article sets out general information about the residential tenancy rules of Victoria, drawn from the public sources listed at the end. It is not legal, financial, taxation or credit advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or structure a transaction in any particular way. Tenancy law changes often and individual circumstances differ. Readers must verify every point below directly with the relevant authority and obtain their own professional advice before relying on any of it.
The lease does not die at settlement
Buy a home in Victoria with a renter in it and you are not buying an empty house with a person who has to leave. You are buying the house and the rental agreement attached to it. The lease continues at the same rent, with the same bond, and on settlement day you become the rental provider.
That is fine if you wanted an investment. It is a serious problem if you planned to move in next month. The rules below are Victorian, and they differ enough from other states that a NSW or Queensland answer does not transfer here.
What this does to your finance
Three things change on the lending side when there is a renter in the property, and they are worth knowing before you make an offer.
Purpose determines your rate. Settle with a renter in place and most lenders will treat the loan as an investment loan even if you intend to move in later, because the property is income producing on day one. Investment rates sit above owner-occupier rates. Tell your broker the actual plan up front so the application is structured for it and you know what a later switch involves.
Existing rent can help your borrowing capacity. A signed lease with a payment history is evidence a lender can use. Most will shade it, typically counting around 70 to 80 percent of the rent to allow for vacancy and costs, but it still lifts what you can borrow compared with an assumed figure on an empty property. See our investment loan page, or model it with the borrowing power calculator.
Vacant possession clauses affect settlement risk. If the notice period has been miscalculated, settlement moves, and a moved settlement means a re-issued or extended approval and possibly an expired rate lock. Settlement timing and loan approval validity therefore interact.
Case 1: You want to keep the renter
The easy one, and often the smartest. You inherit the agreement exactly as it stands.
What transfers to you:
- The rent. You cannot reset it at settlement. It stays at the agreed amount, and any increase has to follow the normal rules and notice periods.
- The bond. It stays lodged with the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority under the same bond number, and the records are updated to show you as the rental provider.
- The condition report, the agreement's end date, and any pet or maintenance arrangements already agreed.
Documents commonly requested during due diligence:
- A copy of the signed rental agreement, including the fixed term end date.
- The bond lodgement number and the RTBA details.
- The current rent, when it was last increased, and the payment history.
- The condition report from the start of the agreement.
- Any outstanding maintenance requests or open VCAT matters.
That last one matters: a dispute in progress becomes yours.
At settlement, rent is apportioned between you and the vendor the way rates and water are, so you receive the rent covering the days from settlement onward. Your conveyancer handles this. The renter must also be told in writing who their new rental provider is and where to pay rent, and that notification is a step in the settlement process.
Case 2: You want to move in yourself
Here is the number you need.
Ninety days. Not 60. Victoria increased the minimum notice to vacate period from 60 days to 90 days on 25 November 2025, so if you are working from older advice or an agent's memory, it is out of date.
The other three things that matter:
The notice must come from the seller, not from you. A notice to vacate on the ground that the property is being sold can only be given by the rental provider at the time, which is the vendor. Settle first and then decide you want the renter out and that ground is gone: you did not sell anything. You would be starting over on a different ground with its own 90 day clock.
A fixed term is a hard floor. If the renter has a fixed term agreement running to, say, next June, the vacate date on a 90 day notice cannot fall before that date. Ninety days notice served in September gets you in at the end of June, not at Christmas.
The notice is time limited at the front too. Where the vendor is giving notice on the basis of a signed contract of sale, it has to be given within 14 days of the contract being signed or of the conditions being met. It is not a document that can be produced whenever it becomes convenient.
How the timing works. The achievable date is a function of the 90 day notice period, which runs from service, and the fixed term end date where one applies. A verbal assurance that a renter is willing to leave has no effect on either. How vacant possession is dealt with in the contract, and what evidence of a served notice is provided, are matters for a reader's conveyancer or solicitor.
The stamp duty trap
This part is expensive and almost never flagged.
The Victorian first home buyer exemption and concession, and the principal place of residence concession generally, require you to move into the home within 12 months of settlement and live there as your main home for 12 continuous months. A sitting renter on a long fixed term can burn through that window before you ever get the keys.
If you claim the concession and then cannot meet the residence requirement, you have to notify the State Revenue Office within 30 days of that becoming clear, and the duty you saved becomes payable. On a $700,000 purchase that is not a rounding error.
Our stamp duty calculator can be used to see what duty applies at a given purchase price. Eligibility, current thresholds and the exact residence conditions must be confirmed with the State Revenue Office Victoria.
Case 3: The renter wants out early
A sale does not by itself give the renter a free exit. The standard renter notice at the end of a rental agreement is 28 days. Two specific triggers cut that to a 14 day notice of intention to vacate, and the second one turns entirely on what the renter was told before they signed.
Trigger 1: they have been given a notice to vacate
If the vendor serves the 90 day notice to vacate, the renter does not have to wait out the full 90 days. They can give 14 days notice of intention to vacate and leave.
Trigger 2: the sale was not disclosed before the agreement was signed
This separates two otherwise identical-looking tenancies, and is worth checking on any Victorian tenanted purchase.
If the rental provider disclosed the proposed sale before the renter entered the rental agreement: this ground is not available. The renter signed knowing the property was going to be sold, so a later notice of intention to sell gives them no shortened exit. Their notice obligations are the ordinary ones.
If the rental provider did not disclose it before the renter entered the agreement: once the renter is given a notice of intention to sell, they may give a 14 day notice of intention to vacate. Consumer Affairs Victoria frames the ground as applying where the renter "was given a Notice of intention to sell unless the rental provider disclosed the proposed sale before entering the rental agreement".
Why this matters when a fresh fixed term was signed shortly before listing. If a rental provider signed a renter onto a new 12 month agreement while already intending to sell, and did not disclose that intention, the tenancy is materially less secure than the paperwork suggests. If the same provider did disclose it, the agreement is exactly as durable as it looks. Two properties can present with identical leases and behave completely differently. Whether disclosure was given, and when, is a question of fact for a reader's conveyancer or solicitor to put to the vendor.
The fixed term limit, and a point where the sources differ
Consumer Affairs Victoria states that for fixed term agreements, the end date on a notice of intention to vacate cannot be before the end date of the rental agreement, and that if it is earlier the renter is breaking the agreement. CAV applies that restriction to both triggers above.
Tenants Victoria describes the non-disclosure ground as available whether the renter is in a fixed term or a periodic agreement, which could be read as the ground being available in both agreement types rather than as displacing the end-date restriction.
These are not obviously the same position, and the difference determines whether a renter on a fresh undisclosed fixed term can leave in a fortnight or must wait out the term. Consumer Affairs Victoria on 1300 558 181, or a solicitor or conveyancer acting on the purchase, can confirm which applies to a specific agreement.
For a buyer, this cuts both ways. Where the property was wanted empty, an early exit shortens the wait. Where a signed lease is being relied on as an income stream, a vendor-served notice to vacate, or an undisclosed sale, may mean the tenancy does not run to its stated end date.
Case 4: You keep the tenant but want to increase the rent
An inherited rent is not a rent you can reset. Consumer Affairs Victoria states that a rent increase notice must not set a start date less than 12 months after the last increase took effect, and that the rental provider must give at least 90 days written notice on the CAV form, Notice of proposed rent increase to renter of rented premises. That 90 days is the same reform that moved notices to vacate from 60 to 90 days, commencing 25 November 2025.
There is one older exception: where the renter has been in the same property since 19 June 2019, rent cannot be increased at intervals of less than 6 months.
The 12 month clock runs from the last increase, not from your settlement date. A rental provider who raised the rent shortly before listing has started a clock you inherit. Renters who consider an increase invalid or excessive can take it to Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria.
Case 5: The lender is selling, not the owner
A sale by a lender is not the same transaction as a sale by an owner, and the notice differs. Tenants Victoria records that where the rental provider has not paid their mortgage, a bank or other lender can give a minimum of 60 days notice to vacate, rather than the 90 days that applies to an ordinary sale.
If a Victorian property is being sold by a mortgagee in possession, the tenancy, the notice already served and the party entitled to serve it are all different questions from an ordinary sale, and the position must be confirmed with Consumer Affairs Victoria or a solicitor.
Case 6: Access, inspections and quiet enjoyment
Victoria regulates this more tightly than most jurisdictions, which is why access to a tenanted Victorian property is often awkward.
- A Notice of intention to sell must be given at least 14 days before the rental provider can request entry for sale inspections.
- Entry for a sale inspection or open for inspection needs at least 48 hours written notice.
- Entry for a valuation, or for advertising photographs or video, needs at least 7 days written notice.
- Entry is between 8am and 6pm, and not on public holidays.
- Open for inspections cannot run more than twice a week, or for longer than an hour.
- The rental provider must pay the renter compensation for every sale inspection, private or open, equal to half a day's rent or $30, whichever is more.
Inspections are harder on an occupied property. A tenant's furniture obscures parts of it, so building inspections and the ingoing condition report are the usual reference points for buyers assessing condition.
Case 7: Bond, arrears and disputes carried into settlement
None of this resets at settlement.
- The bond stays lodged with the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority under the same number, with the record updated to show the new rental provider. The amount does not change because the owner did.
- The condition report from the start of the agreement remains the benchmark against which the property is assessed when the renter eventually leaves. A buyer who never sees it inherits a comparison they cannot make.
- Arrears and damage do not reset. Any claim is made against the same bond.
- VCAT or Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria matters already on foot continue. They do not settle when the property does.
Where to check this yourself
Every figure above comes from one of these, all reachable at the time of writing.
Regulator and tenancy services
- Consumer Affairs Victoria (1300 558 181), and specifically its pages on notices to vacate in rental properties, renters giving notice, rent increases and when a rental provider can enter a property
- Tenants Victoria, a community legal centre for renters, and its pages on a rental home being sold and notices to vacate
- Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, which holds the bond
- VCAT, the tribunal
Legislation
- Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic)
- Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Act 2025, the amending Act behind the 90 day notice periods
Duty
- State Revenue Office Victoria, and its pages on the principal place of residence duty concession and the first home buyer duty exemption or concession
Dates these rules took effect
Everything above is stated as at September 2026 and is drawn from Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic) and the public guidance of the authorities named below. Tenancy rules in Victoria have changed more than once in recent years, and a figure quoted from an older article, an agent's recollection or another state will often be wrong.
Notice periods for notices to vacate and rent increases rose from 60 to 90 days on 25 November 2025 under the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Act 2025, which also removed no-cause eviction notices. Renters in the same property since 19 June 2019 keep a 6 month minimum interval between rent increases.
Readers checking a specific transaction should confirm the current position with Consumer Affairs Victoria (1300 558 181), Tenants Victoria, VCAT and Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, and should note the date on which any guidance page they rely on was last updated.
The short version
| Situation | The rule |
|---|---|
| You keep the renter | The lease, rent, bond and condition report all transfer to you unchanged |
| You want to move in | The vendor must serve a 90 day notice to vacate, and it cannot end before the fixed term does |
| The renter wants to leave | 14 days notice, but only after a notice to vacate, or where the sale was not disclosed before they signed. Disclosed before signing means no shortened exit |
| You want to raise the rent | 12 months since the last increase, 90 days notice (90 days since 25 November 2025) |
| The lender is selling | 60 days notice to vacate, not 90 |
| Showing buyers through | Notice of intention to sell 14 days ahead; 48 hours per sale inspection; compensation of half a day's rent or $30, whichever is more |
| Bond, arrears, disputes | Nothing resets at settlement. Same bond, same condition report, same VCAT matters |
The mistake that costs the most money is assuming a sale ends a lease. It does not. It changes who the renter pays.
Which of the seven cases applies determines the achievable settlement date, the first year's rent, and how a lender is likely to assess the loan. If you would like to discuss the finance side of a purchase like this, you can contact us.
Buying in another state? The rules change completely at the border. See the same guide for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT.
This article covers Victoria only and was prepared in September 2026. Residential tenancy law, duty concessions and lender policy all change, and the position may have moved since publication. Nothing in this article is legal, financial, taxation or credit advice, it does not take account of any reader's objectives, financial situation or needs, and no reliance should be placed on it. Readers are responsible for confirming the current rules directly with Consumer Affairs Victoria, VCAT and the State Revenue Office Victoria, and for obtaining their own legal, conveyancing and financial advice before acting.
