Guides / 01
Get the bond back: the order of operations
A bond in NSW is usually four weeks' rent, which around here is real money. Whether it comes back rides on the state of the property at handover and the paper trail behind it, and both are things you control with sequencing, not luck.
The sequence, and why the order matters
- Give notice correctly. Notice periods depend on your lease type; NSW Fair Trading publishes the current table. Get the date in writing and count your run sheet backwards from it.
- Dig out the condition report. The one from when you moved in is the benchmark the final inspection is judged against. Read it before you clean so you know what "as it was" actually means, fair wear and tear excepted.
- Move first. Everything out, including the balcony, the garage cage and the top kitchen cupboards. A cleaner cannot clean around furniture, and a walkthrough with boxes in the hallway invites a second walkthrough.
- Clean into an empty property. The day after the move is the slot that works. Whether you clean yourself or book a cleaner is your call; what matters is the empty rooms and the checklist matching the condition report.
- Walk through, hand keys, keep everything. Photos of the finished state, receipts for the clean, the condition report. If a claim on your bond comes, the paper wins the argument.
Where the bond actually lives
NSW bonds are held by the Rental Bonds Online scheme, not by the agent, and the refund is a claim you lodge after handover. If the landlord claims deductions you disagree with, you do not have to accept them; Fair Trading's pages set out the dispute path and the timeframes. Knowing that changes the conversation at the final walkthrough.
The two mistakes we see from the truck
The same-day sandwich: move, clean and walkthrough crammed into one day. Any slip in the first ruins the second and third; there is a reason our run sheet refuses to write it that way.
The forgotten spaces: the garage, the storage cage, the oven. The final inspection always looks exactly where the moving day did not.
The local wrinkle
Around Kensington and Kingsford, lease-ends bunch at semester boundaries and the good move slots go first. If your keys-back date sits in one of those windows, everything above still applies, just with more notice on the booking end.
- NSW Fair Trading, Ending a tenancy: notice periods by lease type, condition reports and final inspections.
- NSW Fair Trading, Rental Bonds Online: how the bond is held, claimed and disputed in NSW.