SA Residential Lease Agreement: A Private Landlord's RTA 1995 Guide

If you're managing your own rental in South Australia rather than paying a property manager 7 to 9 percent of weekly rent, you can prepare the tenancy agreement yourself. The Residential Tenancies Act 1995 (SA) sets the framework, and as long as your agreement complies with the Act, you don't need to use an agent's template or pay a solicitor each time you change tenants.

This guide walks through what's mandatory, what's optional, and what landlords often try to include that simply doesn't hold up. For a ready-to-use form, the SA Lease Agreement Generator handles all the mandatory fields under RTA 1995 and produces a downloadable PDF you can sign.

What the RTA 1995 mandates

Section 48 of the Act sets out the terms every residential tenancy agreement in SA must include. Skipping any of these doesn't invalidate the tenancy (the Act fills in the gaps by default), but it can create ambiguity and expose the landlord to disputes. The mandatory fields are:

• Names and addresses of all landlords and tenants.
• Full address of the rented premises.
• Lease type: fixed term (with start and end dates) or periodic (with start date only).
• Rent amount and frequency of payment (weekly, fortnightly, monthly).
• Method of rent payment (bank transfer, BPAY, etc.) and where to pay.
• Bond amount and the requirement to lodge it with Consumer and Business Services (CBS) within 2 weeks of receipt.
• Reference to the property condition report (mandatory, see below).
• Statement of any inclusions (furniture, appliances) provided with the premises.
• Notice that the tenancy is subject to the RTA 1995 and CBS jurisdiction.

Bond rules under the RTA 1995

The Act sets a strict ceiling on bonds and a strict process for handling them:

Weekly rent	Maximum bond
$800 or less	4 weeks' rent
Over $800	6 weeks' rent

The bond must be lodged with CBS within 2 weeks of receiving it from the tenant. Holding it in your own account is unlawful. Lodgement is done online via the CBS portal; the tenant receives a receipt directly from CBS. At the end of the tenancy, both parties agree (or CBS arbitrates) how the bond is distributed.

You cannot ask for additional security beyond the bond. No "pet bond" on top of the standard bond, no "key deposit", no "cleaning fee" held in advance. The bond is the bond.

Condition report (Form 1A)

Before the tenant moves in, the landlord must complete a property condition report describing the state of every room and any included chattels. Give it to the tenant on or before the day they move in. The tenant has two business days to return a signed copy noting any disagreements.

The condition report is the baseline that determines what counts as "fair wear and tear" versus damage at the end of the tenancy. Without one, you have effectively no evidentiary support if there's a bond dispute. Photographic evidence taken on move-in day, with timestamps, is strongly recommended even though it's not a strict legal requirement.

The CBS-published Form 1A template is widely used, but any equivalent format that captures the same detail is acceptable. The SA Lease Agreement Generator includes a condition report reference and a checklist of what to capture.

Fixed-term vs periodic tenancies

A fixed-term tenancy runs for a defined period (6 or 12 months is typical). At the end of the term, both parties decide whether to renew at a new rent, convert to periodic, or end the tenancy. The landlord must give 60 days' notice to end at the fixed-term expiry; the tenant must give 21 days' notice.

A periodic tenancy runs indefinitely with no end date. Either party can end it with 60 days' notice (or 28 days for the tenant). Rent can be increased once every 12 months with 60 days' notice.

Most private landlords start with a fixed term to lock in the tenant, then convert to periodic if both parties want to continue. Going straight to periodic is more flexible but offers less certainty for the landlord that the tenant will stay through the initial settling-in period.

Special conditions that don't actually work

Landlords often try to add special conditions that look reasonable but are unenforceable under the RTA 1995. Common examples:

• "No pets ever." Since recent SA reforms, landlords must reasonably consider tenant requests to keep pets. A blanket no-pets clause won't survive a CBS dispute. You can specify which pets are permitted and require approval, but you can't pre-emptively ban all.
• "Tenant responsible for all repairs." The RTA 1995 splits repair responsibility: the landlord covers structural and major repairs, the tenant covers damage they caused. You can't contract out of that.
• "Tenant cannot break the lease." Tenants can break leases; the Act sets the compensation owed. You can't deny the right to end early, only specify how the financial consequences are calculated (typically up to the cost of re-letting plus advertising).
• "Rent increases automatically by CPI each year." Rent can only be increased with 60 days' written notice, no more than once every 12 months. An automatic-escalation clause doesn't override these rules.
• "Tenant pays all water usage." Tenants pay water usage only if the premises are separately metered AND the agreement explicitly states so. You can't retroactively charge usage.

Special conditions that do work include reasonable house rules (no smoking inside, no commercial activities, garden maintenance requirements), inclusions/exclusions of specific chattels, and process clauses (how to report repairs, who pays for what utilities).

Lease renewals: what changes, what doesn't

When a fixed-term lease ends and both parties want to continue, you have three options:

1. Sign a new fixed-term agreement at the same or revised rent, with the same or revised terms.
2. Let the lease convert to periodic automatically under the RTA 1995 default. No new paperwork required; the existing terms continue indefinitely on a month-to-month basis until either party ends it.
3. End the tenancy with 60 days' notice from the landlord (or 21 from the tenant) and start fresh with a new tenant.

If you're renewing at a higher rent, the 60-day notice rule still applies. Don't surprise the tenant on renewal day; give the notice 60 days in advance even if they're staying. Document the new rent in the renewal agreement.

Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

Writing your own SA residential lease is straightforward once you know the mandatory fields and the bond rules. The Act fills in any gaps in your favour as the landlord most of the time, but skipping the condition report or trying to slip in unenforceable special conditions creates more disputes than it prevents. Generate a compliant agreement in 5 minutes with the SA Lease Agreement Generator, sign it, lodge the bond with CBS, and you're set.

For anything genuinely unusual (commercial use, shared accommodation, sub-letting, tenancies involving NDIS or community housing), get advice from a CBS-registered agent or a tenancy law solicitor. The DIY route is for standard private residential tenancies.