Asbestos Landlord Obligations in NSW: A Practical Guide

If you own a rental property in NSW, you are responsible for managing any asbestos in it. The NSW Government says the owner of a rental property must maintain it, including managing asbestos-containing materials. Sound, sealed asbestos is generally low risk. Damaged or disturbed material is a serious health risk and has to be dealt with properly, usually by a licensed removalist.

This guide sets out what that duty means in practice: what you must keep in good repair, what you must tell tenants, when removal is required, who is allowed to do it, and what happens if a hazard is ignored.

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TL;DR

A NSW landlord must keep the rental fit to live in and meet health and safety laws, and that includes managing asbestos-containing materials.
Intact, sealed non-friable asbestos is usually low risk. Damaged, loose or friable material must be removed.
Any friable asbestos, or more than 10m² of non-friable asbestos, must be removed by a licensed removalist (Class A for friable, Class B or A for non-friable).
You must disclose a loose-fill asbestos insulation register listing, and agents cannot give false or misleading answers about asbestos.
Never sand, drill, scrape or water blast asbestos products, and never ask a tenant to do so.

What the law expects of a NSW landlord
Do you have to test for asbestos in a rental?
Intact versus damaged: what changes your obligations
What you must tell tenants
When removal is required and who can do it
Practical steps for a landlord
If a landlord does nothing: tenant options
Our perspective
Planning asbestos work on a rental property
FAQ
Sources

What the law expects of a NSW landlord

There is no single “landlord asbestos act” in NSW. The duty comes from the tenancy rules, which require a safe, liveable property, and from asbestos and work health and safety rules that govern how the material is handled.

On the tenancy side, NSW Fair Trading states that landlords must provide a property that is fit to live in, keep it in a reasonable state of repair and meet health and safety laws. It adds that meeting health and safety laws is a term of every tenancy agreement. The standard agreement spells this out: under clause 19.6 of the Residential Tenancies Regulation 2019, the landlord must comply with all statutory obligations relating to the health or safety of the premises.

Before a property is rented, the Landlord Information Statement requires it to be reasonably clean, fit to live in and in a reasonable state of repair, and to comply with health and safety laws. A cracked, crumbling asbestos cement sheet on a wall or eave does not meet that standard.

In practical terms, three duties follow:

Know what is in the building. Most NSW homes built before the mid-1980s contain some asbestos products, and use continued in various forms until the 2003 ban.
Keep it in good condition. Sealed and undamaged material is manageable. Deteriorating material is not.
Act properly when it is damaged or must be disturbed. That means a licensed professional, not a handyman.

Do you have to test for asbestos in a rental?

No rule says every landlord must commission an asbestos test before letting a home. But the management duty is hard to meet if you do not know where the material is. The Australian Asbestos Safety website suggests that when a property changes hands or new residents move in is a good time to check where asbestos is located, assess its condition and plan for safe removal where possible.

If a building was built before 2004 and has no Asbestos Register, you can have suspect material tested by an accredited laboratory before starting work. You should never take samples by breaking or drilling material yourself. An inspector collects them with controls in place and gives you a written record you can keep with the property file. We cover the process in our guide to Sydney asbestos inspections, and our asbestos inspection and testing service handles identification and sampling.

A simple register is worth keeping for every investment property:

Item to record	Why it matters
Location (eaves, wet-area walls, roof, fences, garage, sheds)	Tradespeople and agents need to know before any work starts
Material type and test result	Distinguishes bonded from friable material
Condition and photos with dates	Shows you monitored it and tells you when it deteriorates
Any sealing or repair work, and who did it	Evidence of your management over time

Intact versus damaged: what changes your obligations

The NSW Government’s position is that in most rentals, non-friable asbestos cement sheeting is low risk while undamaged, but once it is damaged or loose it can become friable and must be removed.

That distinction drives nearly every decision:

Non-friable (bonded): fibres are locked into a cement or resin matrix. Cement sheet cladding, fibro eaves and corrugated roofing are typical.
Friable: material that can be crumbled by hand or is loose. Old pipe lagging, some insulation and sprayed coatings fall here.

SafeWork NSW explains that disturbing friable asbestos carries a higher inhalation risk, and that inhaled fibres may lead to asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma. That is why the rules for friable removal are far stricter.

Sealing sound material

For asbestos sheeting and corrugated asbestos in good condition, the NSW asbestos site notes it can be sealed with good quality paint to prevent fibre release. The same page is firm that you must not disturb fibres by sanding, scraping, scrubbing, drilling, cutting or water blasting. Pressure washing a fibro fence or roof between tenancies is a classic way to turn a low-risk situation into a contaminated one.

When damage happens

Storm damage, a tree limb, a failed repair or a fire can all break up bonded sheets. If this happens, stop access to the area, keep tenants and trades away, and get an assessment. Our guide on asbestos exposure after a house fire covers the fire scenario in more detail.

Roof spaces need particular care. Rodents and other pests nesting in old insulation can disturb it, so read up on loft insulation pest cleaning before anyone goes up there, and in a NSW home built before the 1990s treat any unidentified loose insulation as suspect until it has been assessed.

What you must tell tenants

Disclosure is where landlords and agents most often get caught out.

Loose-fill asbestos insulation. Under NSW tenancy laws, a landlord must advise the tenant in writing within 14 days of the property being listed on the loose-fill asbestos insulation register. The listing is also a material fact that must be disclosed to prospective tenants, and the standard tenancy agreement requires disclosure during a tenancy if the property becomes listed.

Material facts generally. NSW Fair Trading says a landlord or agent must not knowingly hide material facts, including a register listing or significant health or safety risks that would not be apparent to the tenant. Visible, damaged asbestos you know about falls squarely into that territory.

Honest answers to questions. Across Australia, agents and property managers must not give false or misleading information, and if a renter asks about asbestos they must disclose what is known to them. If you have a register, share the relevant parts with your agent so they can answer accurately.

When removal is required and who can do it

The rule that matters most for landlords: you cannot hand this to a general builder or do it yourself on a whim.

In NSW a homeowner may remove less than 10m² of non-friable asbestos themselves, but more than 10m² of non-friable asbestos, or any amount of friable asbestos, requires a licensed removalist. Class A licensees can remove friable and non-friable asbestos, and Class B licensees can remove non-friable asbestos. SafeWork NSW confirms a Class A licence is needed for any amount of friable asbestos and a Class B licence for more than 10m² of non-friable.

The same guidance stresses that there is no safe level of exposure and strongly recommends a licensed removalist even for small amounts. For a landlord there is an added reason: your tenant lives there, and a home-handled job that goes wrong becomes your liability under the health and safety term of the tenancy.

What a licensed job involves

For friable work, SafeWork NSW’s guidance says the removalist must have full enclosure, negative air pressure, air monitoring, leak testing, full PPE and respiratory protection in place. Decontamination facilities must also be available for the work area, equipment and people.

Notification, clearance and re-occupation

A licensed removalist must notify SafeWork NSW at least five calendar days before removing any friable asbestos or more than 10m² of non-friable asbestos. Where removal is urgent, they must phone SafeWork on 13 10 50 and lodge the notification within 24 hours. A clearance inspection and certificate are required before the premises are re-occupied, so build that into any plan to get tenants back in. Our page on SafeWork asbestos notification explains the notice step in more detail, and our clearance inspection guide covers the sign-off.

Waste and disposal

Waste has its own rules. Asbestos must go to a landfill licensed to accept it, and loads over 100 kilograms or 10 square metres must be tracked with WasteLocate. Licensed contractors handle this as part of the job. Landlords should ask for disposal dockets, and our guide on verifying legal asbestos waste disposal in Sydney explains what to look for. Fines for getting this wrong are real, as our NSW asbestos fines checklist sets out.

Practical steps for a landlord

Get the property assessed. Use an accredited inspector for any pre-2004 building, and keep the report.
Record and photograph. Update the register at every routine inspection.
Brief your agent. Make sure they know where asbestos is and that tenants must not be asked to drill, hang or cut into suspect surfaces.
Control trades. Tell every contractor about known asbestos before they start. Renovations that touch walls, eaves, floors or roofs are the main way material is disturbed. Our page on asbestos in walls shows how wall removal is approached.
Respond quickly to damage. Restrict access, get an assessment, and arrange licensed removal where the material is friable, loose or over the 10m² threshold.
Plan removal around tenancies. Allow time for the five-day notification, the works, the clearance certificate and disposal paperwork.
Check state regulation updates. Our NSW asbestos removal regulations overview is a good starting point.

If a landlord does nothing: tenant options

Ignoring a hazard is costly. The Tenants’ Rights Factsheets explain that if a landlord does not promptly arrange repairs, a tenant can apply to NCAT for orders. The tenant must show the premises are not in reasonable repair, it is not their fault, the landlord knew or should have known, and repairs were not done within a reasonable time.

The same factsheets state that if a landlord or agent failed to disclose a loose-fill asbestos register listing before the agreement was signed, or the tenant is told of a listing during the tenancy, the tenant may end the tenancy early without compensation by giving 14 days’ notice (21 days for a periodic agreement). Disclosure mistakes therefore cost you the tenancy as well as your reputation.

Our perspective

In our experience, most landlord asbestos problems start as small, ignored jobs: a cracked eave sheet, a fibro fence blown over in a storm, a contractor who drilled into a wall without asking.

We believe the cheapest asbestos job is the one planned before anything breaks. Getting a proper inspection, keeping a register and calling a licensed team when material is damaged is almost always simpler than managing a contaminated property with tenants inside.

That is why we combine licensed asbestos removal with demolition, strip-out and site clearance under one project team. Approvals, utility disconnections, hazardous waste handling and the final clean are coordinated, so owners and property managers have one point of contact and a clear paper trail for their records.

Tarek

Planning asbestos work on a rental property

If you manage a rental with suspect or damaged material, Mission Demolition provides licensed asbestos inspection, removal and disposal across Sydney and Australia, with responsible waste handling and full project management for residential, commercial and industrial properties. We can also take on garage and structure removal, roof removal and strip-outs where asbestos is part of a larger job.

Start with our asbestos removal Sydney service, or contact us through the Mission Demolition website to discuss your property. For a roof, garage or other asbestos-heavy structure, see our asbestos roof and disposal services.

FAQ

Is a landlord responsible for asbestos in a NSW rental?

Yes. The owner is responsible for maintaining the property, which includes managing any asbestos-containing materials. The tenancy agreement also requires the landlord to meet health and safety laws, and a damaged asbestos product is a clear health and safety issue.

Can I remove asbestos from my rental property myself?

The law allows a homeowner to remove less than 10m² of non-friable asbestos, but any friable asbestos or more than 10m² of non-friable asbestos needs a licensed removalist. SafeWork NSW advises that there is no safe level of exposure and recommends licensed removal even for small amounts. For a property with a tenant, using a licensed professional is the safer choice.

Do I have to tell a tenant if the property has asbestos?

You must disclose a loose-fill asbestos insulation register listing and any significant health or safety risk that is not apparent to the tenant. You and your agent must also not mislead a tenant who asks about asbestos. Keeping a register helps you answer accurately.

How much notice does asbestos removal need in NSW?

Licensed removalists must notify SafeWork NSW at least five calendar days before removing friable asbestos or more than 10m² of non-friable asbestos. Urgent removal requires a call to SafeWork on 13 10 50 and a notification within 24 hours. Your removalist handles this, but you should allow for it in your timeline.

What can a tenant do if asbestos is damaged and the landlord won’t act?

A tenant can apply to NCAT for repair orders, provided they can show the premises are not in reasonable repair and the landlord knew or should have known. Prompt action by the landlord avoids that path.