Repainting a Rental in Victoria: Fair Wear and Tear vs Damage

Two questions come up constantly at the end of a Victorian tenancy: does the rental provider have to repaint, and can the cost of repainting come out of the bond? The answers are less dramatic than most people expect, and they turn on one distinction.

There is no repaint clock in Victorian law

Start here, because it saves a lot of argument: there is no rule in Victoria requiring a rental property to be repainted every so many years. No fixed cycle between tenancies, no legislated expiry on a paint job. If someone tells you a property must be repainted every five or seven years, ask them to point at the rule. There isn’t one.

What the law does require is that the property is maintained in good repair. Paint that has failed — peeling, flaking, water-damaged, no longer protecting the surface underneath — is a maintenance issue. Paint that is simply a colour someone dislikes, or is a few years old, is not.

The distinction that decides everything: fair wear and tear vs damage

Consumer Affairs Victoria publishes Guideline 3 — Damage and fair wear and tear, and it gives worked examples. On the wall-and-surface side:

• Fair wear and tear: “Cracks in the wall caused by building movement, or minor marks or scuff marks on the wall”
• Damage: “Holes in walls or missing paint due to wall hooks, nails or shelves installed by the renter”

The same split runs through the other examples in the guideline — a worn or faded kitchen benchtop is wear and tear, burns or cuts in it are damage; scuff marks on a wooden floor are wear and tear, badly scratched or gouged floors are damage.

Fair wear and tear is the rental provider’s cost. It is what happens when someone lives somewhere normally. Damage is a different conversation.

Why “the tenant pays for a repaint” usually doesn’t hold

Even where there is genuine damage, the general principle is restoration — putting the property back to the condition it was in, not to a better one. A few picture-hook holes in one wall is a patch-and-touch-up job, not grounds for repainting the whole house at the outgoing renter’s expense. If a claim covers more than restoring what was damaged, expect it to be challenged, and expect the condition report and photographs to be what settles it.

This cuts both ways. If a wall genuinely cannot be patched invisibly — a large repair in the middle of a feature wall, say — then repainting that wall corner to corner may be the only way to restore it. The test is what it takes to restore, not what would be nice to have.

None of this is legal advice, and disputes about bond and damage in Victoria are decided by VCAT on the specific facts. If a claim is contested, go to the CAV guideline and the condition report first.

Where a repaint genuinely is the landlord’s job

• Peeling or flaking exterior paint. Once the coating stops protecting the substrate, the next thing that fails is the timber underneath.
• Water damage and staining from a leak, once the leak itself is fixed.
• Mould-affected surfaces caused by a building fault rather than by how the property is being lived in.
• Anything that makes the property unsafe or not in good repair.

The commercial case for repainting between tenancies

Setting aside what is required, a repaint between tenancies is usually a good decision:

• It is the cheapest thing you can do to a vacant property to lift what it lets for
• It photographs better than anything except new flooring
• It resets the condition report, which makes the next end-of-tenancy far easier to assess
• An empty property means no furniture moving, no access windows, and a faster, cheaper job

Neutral, hard-wearing colours in a washable finish are the standard choice for a reason. Between tenancies is also the sensible time to deal with the things that are cheap now and expensive later — a bathroom or laundry ceiling that keeps going mouldy, exterior timber that is starting to check, a fence that has gone past sun-faded into bare.

Repairs, improvements and your tax return

Worth raising with your accountant rather than your painter: the Australian Taxation Office draws a line between a repair, which restores something to its former function, and an improvement, which makes the property better or changes its character. Repainting a wall that has deteriorated during a tenancy is generally treated as a repair. Work that fixes defects that were already there when you bought the property is treated differently again.

The practical tip: if a job includes both repair work and improvement work, ask for an itemised invoice so the two are separable. We are happy to break a quote down that way — just tell us before we write it. This is general information, not tax advice; check your own situation with your accountant or the ATO.