Concreting a Rockhampton investment property: what you must fix, what you can claim.

What the Queensland rules actually require

Residential tenancies in Queensland run under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act, administered by the Residential Tenancies Authority, with disputes going to RTA conciliation and then to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Two obligations matter for concrete.

Fit to live in and in good repair. The lessor must maintain the premises in good repair and in a way that is fit for the tenant to live in. That is not a promise of a perfect driveway. It is a promise that nothing about the property is unsafe or unusable.

Minimum housing standards. These applied to new Queensland tenancies from 1 September 2023 and to every tenancy from 1 September 2024. They require, among other things, that the premises are weatherproof, structurally sound and in good repair. Concrete lands squarely inside structurally sound and in good repair: steps, landings, entry paths and anything a tenant walks on to use the home. A hairline crack in the middle of a driveway is not a breach. A step that has dropped 30mm, a path with a 25mm lip across it, or a slab edge that has broken away next to a door almost certainly is.

Urgent against routine, and why the difference costs you money

Queensland separates emergency repairs from routine repairs, and the list of emergency repairs includes a serious fault in a staircase or other access way that unduly inconveniences a resident in getting to or using the premises, along with anything that makes the property unsafe. That is the category a broken step or a badly lifted entry path falls into.

The practical consequence is this. For an emergency repair, if the tenant cannot contact you or your nominated repairer, they can arrange the work themselves and you have to reimburse it, up to the limit set in the Act, currently the equivalent of 4 weeks rent. You lose control of who does the work and what it costs. For a routine repair, the tenant issues a notice to remedy breach giving you at least 7 days, and if it is not done they can escalate to the RTA and then QCAT.

So the cheap move is almost always to move fast on the small stuff. A grind is $150 to $400 and takes an hour. The same defect left for three months becomes an emergency repair arranged by someone else, at a price you did not agree, with a tenancy dispute attached.

Notice and entry, including for work outside

• Repairs and maintenance: 24 hours written notice of entry. This applies even when the work is entirely outside, because the tradesperson is entering the property.
• Routine inspection: 7 days written notice, and no more than once every 3 months.
• Emergency repairs: immediate entry is permitted.
• Hours: entry is between 8am and 6pm, and not on a Sunday or public holiday unless the tenant agrees.
• Practical courtesy: concrete work needs the cars off the driveway for up to 7 days and foot access rerouted for 24 to 48 hours. Give the tenant the real timeline in writing, not just the legal minimum notice, and agree a temporary parking arrangement before the saw arrives.

That last point is where most rental concreting goes wrong. A driveway replacement means no vehicle on the slab for 7 days and no heavy load for 28 days. If you have not told the tenant that, you will be told about it later, and you may be looking at a rent reduction claim for loss of amenity.

What property managers need that owners do not think about

A property manager is buying something slightly different from an owner. The owner wants the cheapest defensible fix. The manager wants a document trail that survives a tribunal and a tradesperson who will turn up at a time the tenant has been told about. In practice that means:

• An itemised quote written for owner approval, with quantities and rates, so the approval email is short and the owner cannot say later that they did not know what they were paying for.
• Photographs before and after, dated, attached to the invoice. That set of photos is what closes out a maintenance request and what defends a bond claim.
• A make safe option priced separately, so you can authorise the $250 grind today and take the $2,400 replacement to the owner next week without leaving a hazard on site in the meantime.
• The invoice in the owner name with the correct ABN, because their accountant needs it that way and reissuing invoices at tax time is nobody idea of a good July.
• A licence and insurance check on file. In Queensland, building work over $3,300 must be carried out by a QBCC licensed contractor, and residential work over that threshold attracts Queensland Home Warranty Scheme cover. Keep the licence number and the certificate of currency for public liability on the property file.

What happens to concrete at the exit inspection

The exit condition report is compared against the entry condition report, and the only question that matters is whether the difference is fair wear and tear or damage. Concrete is unusual because it fails so slowly that almost everything on it is wear and tear.

Fair wear and tear, so the owner pays: hairline and shrinkage cracking, surface wear in the wheel tracks, general fading and weathering, efflorescence, moss in a shaded corner, a slab that has moved with the ground.

Damage, so the tenant may be liable: oil and transmission fluid staining left uncleaned, paint or concrete slurry poured out on the driveway, a slab cracked by a vehicle far heavier than a car, chemical burns from a spill, holes drilled or bolts left in the slab, a fire pit scar.

The evidence rule is the same rule that applies everywhere: it has to be in the entry condition report and photographed, or you will not recover it. If you take one thing from this page, photograph the driveway and every path at entry, in daylight, from both ends. Once one party lodges a bond refund claim with the RTA, the other side has 14 days to dispute it, and a set of dated entry photos is worth more in that fortnight than any amount of argument.

Sensible pricing for the common exit items: pressure cleaning a 60 square metre driveway is $250 to $500, oil stain treatment is $120 to $350 depending on how long it has been soaking in, and a resurface where the stain has gone right through is $45 to $90 per square metre. Do not try to recover a full replacement for a stain. It will not survive conciliation.

Repair or capital improvement, and why the invoice wording matters

This is general information, and your accountant decides your situation, but the distinction is worth understanding before you sign a quote.

A repair restores something to the condition it was in without changing its character. Sealing a crack, grinding a lip, replacing one damaged panel of an existing driveway: these are usually deductible in the year you pay for them.

Capital works means something new or an improvement on what was there. A new driveway where there was none, a new path, a new shed slab, or replacing the whole driveway rather than a section. Capital works are generally claimed at 2.5 per cent a year over 40 years under the capital works rules, so a $12,000 driveway returns roughly $300 a year rather than a $12,000 deduction.

Initial repairs is the trap. Work done to fix defects that already existed when you bought the property is capital even if it looks exactly like a repair. If you buy a Rockhampton investment with a cracked driveway and fix it in the first six months, expect that to be treated as capital.

Two practical consequences. First, ask for the quote and the invoice to describe the work accurately: replace 2 panels of existing driveway reads very differently from new driveway. Second, if you are doing a larger capital job, a quantity surveyor depreciation schedule usually pays for itself, and the concreting invoice is one of the documents they will want.

Three jobs we tell landlords not to do

1. Do not put a decorative finish on a rental. Exposed aggregate is $130 to $200 per square metre against $90 to $130 for plain broom finish, and it needs resealing every 3 to 5 years at $12 to $30 per square metre. No tenant has ever paid more rent for exposed aggregate. Plain, well drained, correctly jointed concrete is the right answer at an investment property, every time. If you want the comparison, we set it out in exposed aggregate against plain concrete.
2. Do not replace a driveway for hairline cracking. Cracking that is 1mm or less and not lipped is cosmetic. Sealing it at $30 to $60 per lineal metre and fixing whatever is putting water under the slab will outlast a full replacement poured over the same problem. Read when to worry about concrete cracks before you spend $12,000.
3. Do not reseal a rental driveway on a schedule. Sealing is worth doing on decorative work and on a slab you are protecting for resale. On a plain rental driveway it is a cost with no return, and it has to be redone. Spend that money on drainage instead.

And the one we will refuse: we will not pour a new slab over a drainage problem. If stormwater is running under the existing concrete, a new pour on the same ground fails the same way inside a few wet seasons, and you will have spent $12,000 to buy the same defect. Ag line and a pit costs about $80 to $150 per metre installed and is almost always the cheaper half of the job. Our page on slab prep on reactive soil explains why the ground under Gracemere and the Fitzroy flats punishes shortcuts.

Related: if a storm caused the damage, read what a Queensland policy pays on flood damaged concrete. If you are preparing the property for sale rather than reletting, repair or replace before you sell works through which jobs actually return the money. To keep an asset out of the repair cycle altogether, follow the maintenance schedule.