Your rent
Rent in a residential park is set by the park owner. It’s determined by market forces, location, facilities, establishment costs, park size, mortgage payments, local government rates and charges, wages and other operating costs.
Rent can increase over time. The park owner must follow specific processes if changing the amount of your rent.
Paying your rent
You can pay your rent by:
- cash
- cheque
- deposit to a financial institution account nominated by the park owner
- credit card
- EFTPOS
- deduction from pay, pension or other benefit
- another method agreed on between the parties.
Your site agreement will state the payment methods available to you.
Rent receipts
The park owner must give you a rent receipt if you pay by cash and if you request one when paying by cheque.
If you make electronic payments, the park owner must give you a site rent record within 7 days of requesting one.
Site rent increases covered by the site agreement
A park owner can propose a general increase in site rent that uses the methods specified in the site agreement.
A site agreement may allow for a site rent increase using multiple bases (CPI and market review), but only one basis may be used at a time.
All general site rent increases for a particular basis must occur on the general increase day, which is a day nominated by the park owner for that basis. A general site rent increase for a site cannot occur more than once a year.
The park owner must notify residents of any proposed general increase in site rent. They must provide this notice to the home owner at least 35 days before the nominated general increase day.
The home owner has 28 days to dispute the increase in writing through the dispute resolution procedures.
Site rent increases to cover special costs
In certain circumstances, a park owner may increase site rents in a residential park to cover special costs using methods not contained in the site agreement.
There are 3 types of special cost:
- operational costs: a significant increase in the cost of running a park, such as rates, taxes or utility costs for the park
- repair costs: the cost of significant repairs to common areas or communal facilities in the park that the park owner could not have reasonably foreseen
- upgrade costs: the cost of significant upgrades to common areas or communal facilities in the park.
The park owner must notify residents of any proposed increase in site rent to cover special costs. They must provide this notice to home owners at least 2 months before the proposed date of the rent increase.
If a home owner disagrees with a site rent increase to cover a special cost or doesn’t respond to the notice, the park owner can assume that they dispute the site rent increase. The park owner can then begin dispute resolution procedures.
Decreasing site rent
You can apply to QCAT seeking a reduction in your rent when:
- the quality of the residential park’s common areas and communal facilities have decreased substantially
- the park owner removes a shared (communal) facility or service that they provided when your site agreement started
- a shared (communal) facility or service as described in advertising, or in another document made available to you before you entered the site agreement, has not been provided in the residential park.
A park owner may reduce your rent if:
- a utility charge included in the rent becomes separately metered and you have to pay separately for the use of the utility
- a utility stops being available to you through no fault of your own.