In August and September, 50,000 Queenslanders received an email encouraging them to claim their outstanding rental bond monies from the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA).

The reminder resulted in over 4,000 tenants, residents, property managers and owners claiming over $4.7 million in outstanding bond payments.

RTA Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Smith said while it was positive to see so many Queenslanders reunited with their forgotten bonds, she would like to see even more customers come forward to claim the bonds that are owed to them.

'We’re committed to reuniting as many people as possible with their outstanding bond payments. At a time when scams are common, receiving an email saying you have money to claim can appear suspicious.  

‘If you think you might have an outstanding bond, check if you recently received an email from the RTA. If you’re unsure or don’t feel safe following the links in our email, you can always go the RTA website and follow the steps to claim,’ Ms Smith said.

There are many reasons why someone may have an outstanding bond payment, but it’s usually when contact details provided to the RTA at the start of a tenancy are incomplete or become out of date.  

Even if it has been a while since you rented a property, it is still possible to have an outstanding rental bond.

‘The oldest outstanding bond payment we returned following our reminder email was from 2008. If you’ve forgotten to claim your rental bond, regardless of how long it’s been, the RTA will still return it to you once you provide your updated and verified customer details,’ Ms Smith said.

‘The average rental bond that we returned was $1,099 and the largest bond we returned was $11,000.’

How to check if you’re owed an outstanding rental bond

It is important to ensure your details are kept up to date with the RTA so bond monies can be returned to you at the end of a tenancy. You can also complete an online enquiry form on the RTA website to help us check or update your details and reconnect you with any forgotten bond monies.  

You can find out more about how to check if you are owed any outstanding bond monies on our outstanding bond payments page. We have recently updated our enquiry form for individuals, and published a new form for organisations to make it easier for organisations and joint lessors to provide information to the RTA about themselves and any one of their tenancies, which the RTA will use to verify their details before making contact.

Any official RTA electronic correspondence will always come from an @rta.qld.gov.au email address. The RTA will only ask you to provide your details by completing an RTA-branded online RTA Web Services form or a paper Update your details form. If you have concerns you are not dealing with an RTA employee, hang up/do not respond and contact the RTA directly.