Publications

It is uncontroversial to say that renters in Australia face a difficult time at present. In attempt to alleviate some of the issues facing renters in NSW, the State Government has introduced the Residential Tenancies Amendment (Protection of Personal Information) Bill 2025 (details can be found here). The Bill amends the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 to introduce new regulations relating to residential renting in NSW, particularly in respect to tenancy? applications. The amendments, if brought into law, include significant changes for real estate agents and property managers. The build-to-rent industry, in particular, will have to adapt to take into account the new changes.

What are the key changes?

Tenancy Applications

Many of the changes relate to applications by potential tenants. The Bill (at the time that this article is published) will affect the application process by:

• Introducing a new standard form tenancy application that must be used.
• Prohibiting a tenancy application from being accepted where the applicant has not inspected the property (with an exception where the tenant themselves states in writing that they either are unable to or do not wish to inspect the property).
• Prohibiting the collection of identity verification information (for example, driver licenses or passports) unless the entity intends to enter into a tenancy agreement.

Property Advertising

Advertisements for property to rent will have further requirements:

• Any advertisement for a residential property that includes digitally generated or altered images that may be misleading must include a statement advising that the image has been digitally generated or altered.
  • Examples of the above that were provided in Parliamentary speeches on the amendment bill include altering images to remove undesirable infrastructure such as electricity towers, modifying images to remove signs of property damage, or including artificially generated furniture that do not accurately reflect the proportions of the property.
• Advertisements must also disclose if there is an ‘exclusive supply network’ being an arrangement where a service (such as electricity, gas, internet etc.) is supplied to the premises and the Tenant is unable to obtain an alternative supplier.

Privacy and Data Protection

New requirements as to privacy and data protection for entities that collect information about residential tenants are introduced, including:

• Applying the Australian Privacy Principles (as outlined in the Privacy Act 1988) to all entities involved in managing residential tenancies. At present, these Principles would only apply to entities whose annual revenue exceeded $3 million.
• Requiring landlords (or their agents) to provide a means for tenants to give any personal information directly to the landlord or agent. This effectively means the use of any third-party for data collection/application processing will be optional for the applicant.

Pets

While previous amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 have introduced a regime for tenants to request permission to keep pets (and limited the grounds for a landlord to refuse), this Bill adds a provision allowing pets to be kept until the landlord makes their decision, provided the request is made within 7 days of entering into the tenancy agreement.

Considerations for build-to-rent

The amendments within this Bill, if brought into law, will have implications in the growing build-to-rent space. The requirement for applicants to have inspected the premises before an application may be accepted will prove difficult where the premises are not yet built, or may be one of a number of similar (but not identical) premises on offer.

The requirement to offer a direct means of providing information also means that such entities cannot rely on third party application processing and may need to consider how they can bring their application processing in-house.

The collection of identification verification information will need to occur after the landlord or agent has decided to accept the tenant, rather than collected from all prospective tenants, resulting in further changes to the standard application process.

Finally, entities regardless of size or revenue need to consider their privacy obligations, including creating (or updating) a privacy policy and reviewing their data management.

What Happens Next

The Bill has passed the Legislative Assembly and is currently before the Legislative Council.  It was referred to a Portfolio Committee for consideration on 3 February 2026.

Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers will continue to monitor updates in the Bill.

This article was published on 1 April, 2026 by Carroll & O’Dea Lawyers and is based on the relevant state of the law (legislation, regulations and case law) at that date for the jurisdiction in which it is published. Please note this article does not constitute legal advice. If you ever need legal advice or want to discuss a legal problem, please contact us to see if we can help. You can reach us on 1800 634 290 or via the Contact us page on our website. (www.codea.com.au).