Bond lodgement WA rules are short, and self managing owners break them more often than any other part of a tenancy. The bond is capped at four weeks rent, unless the rent is more than $1,200 a week. It has to go to the Bond Administrator within fourteen days of being paid. It is not the owner’s money and it cannot sit in the owner’s account, not even briefly.
How much can be taken?
Up to four weeks rent as a security bond. Where the rent is more than $1,200 a week that cap does not apply.
A pet bond is separate. It is capped at $350 for a residential tenancy, it is held and accounted for on its own, and it does not come out of the four weeks.
Where does it go, and by when?
To the Bond Administrator, within fourteen days of the bond being paid.
Fourteen days sounds generous until a tenancy starts on a Friday before a long weekend and the paperwork goes into a tray. The clock runs from payment, not from the day someone gets to it.
The bond is trust money throughout. It is not working capital, it is not a buffer against the first month’s expenses, and it is not available to offset anything while the tenancy is running. An owner who holds a bond in their own account has a problem whether or not anything goes wrong.
Why self managing owners come unstuck
Three ways, repeatedly.
The bond is collected and not lodged, because the tenancy started smoothly and nobody thought about it again until the tenant moved out.
The paperwork records a figure that does not match what was actually paid, usually because the tenant paid in two instalments and only one made it onto the form.
Or the pet bond is rolled into the security bond as one number, which makes it impossible to account for either of them properly later.
None of these are dramatic at the time. All of them surface at the end of the tenancy, which is exactly when the owner needs the paperwork to be right.
What the bond is actually for
It covers what the tenant owes at the end of the tenancy. Unpaid rent, damage beyond fair wear and tear, cleaning that was required and not done, and anything else properly owing under the agreement.
It does not cover fair wear and tear, and that is where most disagreements live. Carpet that has aged over a four year tenancy is wear. Carpet with a burn in it is damage. The difference is usually obvious and occasionally is not, which is why the next point matters more than the bond itself.
The document that decides the bond
The property condition report at the start of the tenancy. Not the bond, not the lease, not the inspection reports.
A detailed report with dated photographs of every room, signed by both sides, settles almost every end of tenancy argument before it starts. A thin report with a few ticked boxes settles nothing, and an owner without one is arguing from memory against a tenant who is also arguing from memory.
If there is one thing to spend an extra hour on at the start of a tenancy, it is this, and it is worth more than the four weeks sitting with the Bond Administrator.
At the end of the tenancy
The bond is released through the Bond Administrator, and where the owner and the tenant do not agree on how it should be split there is a process for deciding it. That process runs on evidence, which means the condition report, the photographs, the inspection reports and the ledger.
An owner who has kept those things has a straightforward claim. An owner who has not is usually better off agreeing a figure.
The short version
Four weeks rent, unless rent is over $1,200 a week. Pet bond separate and capped at $350. Lodged with the Bond Administrator within fourteen days of payment. Never held in the owner’s account. And the condition report does more work than the bond ever will.
If any of this is currently being done from a spreadsheet and good intentions, it is worth handing over. Our residential leasing service handles the bond, the lodgement and the condition report as part of setting up the tenancy, which is the point at which all of it is easy and cheap to get right.
These rules come from the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 and the guidance published by Consumer Protection WA. This article is general information and not advice.
