Where Should Pathway Lights Be Installed to Make Geelong Gardens Safer at Night?
October 13, 2026
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You step out your back door at 9pm to take the bins out. The path looks fine in daylight…
Every few weeks we get the same call. A property manager rings us the day before a new tenant moves in, asking whether the switchboard is up to scratch and whether anyone’s ever done a safety check on the place. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes nobody’s touched the switchboard since the house was built in the seventies.
We’ve been doing rental electrical work around Geelong long enough to know that compliance rarely fails because someone didn’t care. It fails because nobody flagged it, the paperwork went missing, or the previous owner did things “the old way” and nobody’s checked since.
This guide covers what actually applies to Victorian rentals right now: the two-yearly safety check, the switchboard standard, smoke alarms, who pays for what, and what counts as urgent. We’ve written it the way we’d explain it to a client on the phone, not the way a regulation reads.
There are three separate obligations here, and it’s easy to mix them up.
The two-yearly electrical safety check. Every rental property in Victoria needs its switchboard, wiring and fittings checked by a licensed electrician at least once every two years, following AS/NZS 3019:2022. This one’s about to get a lot more important: from 13 October 2026, it applies to every rental agreement in the state, including tenancies that have run for years and have never had a check done. If you’re managing a portfolio with long-term tenants who moved in well before 2021, this is the date to put in your calendar.
The switchboard minimum standard. Since March 2023, rental properties need a switchboard upgrade fitted with circuit breakers and safety switches (RCDs). If a property still has an old panel or fuse board, it doesn’t meet the standard, full stop.
Smoke alarm compliance. Alarms need to be photoelectric, correctly placed, and tested at least once every 12 months. We’ll go into more detail on all three shortly.
Here’s the part worth remembering: as the rental provider, you’re responsible for all of it, even if you’ve handed day-to-day management over to an agent. The agent can organise the trades and chase the paperwork, but if something’s missed, the obligation sits with you.
Every two years, done by a licensed electrician, no exceptions.
The two-year clock runs from the date of the last check, not from when the tenant moved in. So if your last check was done in June 2024, the next one’s due by June 2026. That timing catches a lot of landlords out, particularly on properties that changed property managers partway through, where the check date got lost in the handover.
A few things worth knowing about how it works in practice:
If you manage several properties, it’s worth setting up a simple tracker rather than relying on memory. A missed two-year window is one of the easiest compliance gaps to fall into, and one of the easiest to fix with a reminder system.
It’s not just a glance at the switchboard. A proper check covers the switchboard, the visible wiring, and the fixed electrical fittings throughout the property.
During a check, we’re generally looking at:
At the end, you get a written report. If everything’s fine, that report becomes your compliance record for the next two years. If something needs attention, the report tells you exactly what and why, so you’re not just taking someone’s word for it. For landlords who need a more detailed inspection and documentation, rental electrical compliance audits in Geelong can help identify issues and keep the property’s records up to date.
Geelong has plenty of older housing stock, and we see the same handful of issues again and again.
Old fuse boards. Ceramic fuses instead of circuit breakers. They still technically work, but they don’t meet the current switchboard standard and don’t offer the same protection.
No safety switches. Pre-1990s properties were often wired without RCDs at all. Without one, a fault that would normally trip a circuit instantly can instead keep running, which is a real shock and fire risk.
Aluminium or rubber-insulated wiring. Common in homes from the 60s and 70s. It degrades over time and isn’t rated for the loads a modern household puts on it, think air conditioners, multiple TVs and everyone’s phone charger going at once.
Too few power points. Not a safety issue by itself, but it leads to double adaptors and overloaded power boards, which absolutely is.
Undersized or ageing wiring for today’s usage. Houses built for a couple of lights and a kettle are now running heat pumps, induction cooktops and entertainment systems. The wiring often hasn’t kept up.
None of this means an older rental is automatically unsafe. It just means it’s more likely to need attention, and that’s exactly what the two-yearly check is designed to catch before it becomes a bigger problem.
Picture two identical faults. Same faulty appliance, same damaged cord, same moment where current escapes where it shouldn’t. In one house, the power cuts out instantly. In the other, it just keeps running. That’s the entire job of a safety switch, technically called an RCD.
It sits quietly in the switchboard doing nothing, until the second it’s needed. The moment it senses current leaking somewhere it shouldn’t, off a frayed cord, through a dodgy appliance, or worse, through a person, it kills the power before things get serious. We’re talking a fraction of a second. Without one fitted, that same fault can run for far longer, and the outcome is a different story altogether.
This stopped being optional back in March 2023. Every rental property in Victoria now needs safety switches as part of the minimum standard, whether it’s sitting behind a shiny new circuit-breaker switchboard or an ancient fuse box that hasn’t been touched since the Hawke government.
We get asked the same handful of questions on pretty much every job:
Old fuses, no safety switch anywhere on the board, that combination is usually the first red flag we spot walking into a compliance check.
If there’s one area that catches landlords out more than anything else on this list, it’s smoke alarms, largely because the goalposts have moved a few times in recent years.
Where things sit right now:
There’s also an interconnection requirement coming for existing homes, so alarms sound together throughout the property rather than just in the room where the smoke started. If you haven’t looked at your alarms’ interconnection status recently, it’s worth getting ahead of it rather than scrambling later.
For properties needing new units or replacement work, smoke alarm installationand testing in Geelong can be handled as part of keeping the property compliant.
We treat smoke alarm compliance as something to check every time we’re on site for another job, not just when it’s specifically requested. It takes minutes and it’s the kind of thing nobody wants to discover has failed after the fact.
As the rental provider, you’re responsible for keeping the property’s electrical installation safe and compliant. That covers the switchboard, fixed wiring, power points, light fittings and smoke alarms.
Where it gets a bit more nuanced is tenant-owned or tenant-supplied items. If a renter plugs in a faulty appliance they own and it causes a problem, that’s generally on them. But if the issue comes from the property’s own wiring, switchboard or fixed fittings, that’s the landlord’s responsibility, regardless of who’s currently living there.
Property managers sit in the middle. You can arrange the trades, manage the paperwork and keep everything on schedule, but the legal obligation to meet the standard still rests with the rental provider. That’s why a lot of the agencies we work with build real estate electrical maintenance into their standard maintenance routine, rather than waiting for a tenant to raise it.
Under Victorian rental law, certain issues have to be treated as urgent, meaning they need fixing fast, not scheduled in for whenever it suits.
Electrical issues that typically count as urgent include:
If a tenant reports something like this, don’t sit on it. Beyond the legal side, it’s a genuine safety issue, and quick action is what keeps a minor fault from turning into something much bigger, or from ending up as a much bigger conversation with your insurer.
If you’re ever unsure whether something counts as urgent, it’s worth erring on the side of getting it looked at. A call-out for a problem that turns out to be minor costs a lot less than the alternative.
Good record-keeping is what turns “we’re pretty sure this was done” into “here’s the paperwork.” When something goes wrong, or a tenant asks a question, that paperwork is what protects you.
For each property, we’d suggest keeping:
Legally, safety check records need to be kept for five years, and you need to be able to hand a copy to a tenant within seven days of a check if they ask, or to a prospective tenant who requests one before signing. If you’re managing multiple properties, a shared folder or property management system with reminders is far more reliable than relying on individual memory.
The landlords who never seem to have compliance headaches are usually the ones who treat it as routine, not a one-off task.
A few habits that make a real difference:
Compliance in Victoria has changed a fair bit over the past few years, and the October 2026 rental laws change means a lot of long-term tenancies are about to need their first-ever check. Getting ahead of it now, rather than waiting for a reminder letter, saves a lot of last-minute scrambling.
Requirement | What’s needed | How often |
Electrical safety check | Licensed electrician inspects switchboard, wiring and fittings | Every 2 years (all agreements from 13 Oct 2026) |
Switchboard standard | Circuit breakers and safety switches (RCDs) fitted | Ongoing, since March 2023 |
Smoke alarms | Photoelectric, tested and correctly placed | Tested at least every 12 months, plus before each new tenancy |
Records | Reports and certificates kept and provided to tenants on request | Kept for 5 years |
Urgent repairs | Loss of power, faulty alarms, unsafe wiring | Actioned immediately |
Staying on top of rental electrical compliance is really about keeping things simple: know when your next check is due, fix problems when they come up, and keep your records in one place. For landlords and property managers around Geelong, this can make it much easier to keep a property safe and ready for the next tenant.
At Kuna Electrics, we help landlords and property managers with their electrical needs and compliance requirements. Get in touch with us if you need advice or electrical work for your rental property.
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