The Victorian Rental Lock Rules, in Plain English

What the standard actually says

The locks standard in the Residential Tenancies Regulations 2021 requires that all external entry doors, other than screen doors, that are not able to be secured with a functioning deadlock must be fitted with a lock that can be operated by a key from the outside.

Read that carefully, because the structure matters. It is not 'every door must have a deadlock'. It is: if the door cannot be secured with a functioning deadlock, then it must at least have a lock that a key operates from outside. A door that already has a working deadlock satisfies it.

Which doors it covers

External entry doors. Screen doors are explicitly excluded, so a security screen is not a substitute for the entry door behind it. Internal doors are not covered.

For apartments, the public lobby door onto common property is excluded — that door belongs to the building, not to the tenancy.

The date, which is the part people get wrong

The minimum standards apply to rental agreements entered into on or after 29 March 2021. If you moved in before that date, the standards do not apply to your agreement in the same way — which is a genuinely important distinction and the reason two neighbours in identical flats can be in different positions.

The heritage exemption, and how narrow it is

There is an exemption for heritage-listed properties, and it is much tighter than most people assume. It is not 'the house is old'. It is not 'the house is in a heritage overlay'. The exemption applies where permission to make the change has actually been sought and refused.

This matters enormously in inner Melbourne, where an enormous share of the rental stock is period housing. A landlord saying 'we cannot, it is heritage' has not met the test unless a permit was applied for and knocked back. In practice, the answer is usually different hardware rather than no hardware — a mortice lock sized for a narrow period stile will fit a door that will not take a modern tubular deadbolt.

What to do if your rental does not comply

• •Put the request in writing to the rental provider or the agent. Written, not a phone call — the record is the point.
• •Keep a copy, with the date.
• •If it is not dealt with, you can apply to Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria.
• •You can also report the matter to Consumer Affairs Victoria.
• •If you are locked out or the door will not secure at all, that is a different and more urgent category than a standards complaint.

If you are the landlord or the agent

This is usually a small job and a fast one. The common inner-Melbourne cases are a front door with a latch and no deadlock, a rear or laundry door that has never had anything but a bolt on the inside, and a period front door that a previous trade said 'could not take a deadlock' because they only carried one type of hardware.

It is also worth doing properly rather than minimally: a deadbolt fitted into a soft architrave rather than the frame stud will pass a glance and fail a shove.