One of the quieter but more consequential rental reforms of the last decade took effect in South Australia on 1 January 2026. From that date, landlords and property managers can only accept rental applications submitted on the government-prescribed Form A1. Custom application forms are no longer valid, and information not covered by Form A1 cannot be requested from prospective tenants. Seven months in, here is where the rule is landing.
What Form A1 actually contains
Form A1 is prescribed by Consumer and Business Services. It captures four things: identity verification (100-point ID), rental history for the previous three years, income verification, and references. It does not permit questions about family status, medical conditions, sources of government support, or intended use of the property beyond ordinary residential occupation. Any questions you have historically asked in an internal form that fall outside that scope are now off-limits.
Why the reform happened
The stated policy driver was standardising a process that varied dramatically between agencies — some landlords were requesting bank statements, social media handles, or letters from previous employers; others were asking nothing beyond a name and phone number. The government's view was that a common form protects tenants from over-collection while giving landlords the specific evidence they need to make a sound decision.
What has changed in practice
Three things stand out from seven months of using Form A1 across our portfolio. First, applications are shorter and more comparable — assessing five candidates for the same property is meaningfully faster when every applicant has answered the same set of questions in the same order. Second, referee follow-up has become more important, because there is less discretionary data on the form to sort strong applicants from weak ones. Third, tenant record verification through the National Tenancy Database still works as it always did — the reform did not change what background checks landlords may run.
What has not changed
Landlords retain the right to select the applicant they consider best suited, provided that selection is not based on a protected attribute (race, sex, age, family status, disability, and the other categories under the Equal Opportunity Act). Landlords are still not required to give reasons for a rejection. Rental appraisal figures, deposit amounts, lease durations and rent-review clauses are unaffected by Form A1.
The trap to watch for
The most common compliance problem we see is agents (and self-managing landlords) still relying on the pre-2026 online forms embedded on portal websites. Some third-party forms have been updated; others have not. If you are self-managing, check the source of any application you receive: if it is not the CBS-prescribed Form A1, you cannot lawfully process it. Ask the applicant to resubmit on the correct form.
How we handle it
At Marshall SA every rental campaign runs applicants through Form A1 as the intake, then structured referee and income verification behind it. The reform hasn't changed the standard of tenant we select — it has just changed the form in which the information arrives. If you are self-managing and want a walk-through of the new process, we're happy to talk it through.
