Since January 2025, a Victorian owners corporation can vote to ban short-stay letting in a building. Here is exactly how that vote works, who it can’t touch, and how to tell a real ban from a bluff.
This sits alongside the 7.5% Short Stay Levy that already applies to bookings under 28 days, and it gets far less attention than the levy does. The levy is a cost you plan for. A building-wide ban, if it passes and applies to your lot, ends the letting entirely. Understanding the mechanics is the difference between reacting to a bylaw change or vote that might not even be enforceable, and knowing precisely where you actually stand.
What actually changed
The power sits in the Owners Corporations Act 2006. An owners corporation can pass a rule prohibiting short-stay accommodation, but only through a special resolution under section 96, which requires support from at least 75% of total lot entitlements or votes cast. A simple majority at an AGM does nothing here. Someone needs to put the motion, get it onto a properly convened meeting agenda, and clear that 75% threshold.
Passing the vote is not the end of the process. The certified rule then has to be lodged with the Registrar of Land Victoria under section 142, and the owners corporation has to communicate the new rule to every lot owner under section 143. The rule takes effect on registration, or on a later date specified in the rule itself. Skip any of those steps and the rule is not enforceable, no matter how strongly worded the meeting minutes are.
The 75% figure trips up a lot of owners, because it isn’t 75% of whoever bothers to show up and vote. Under section 96, a special resolution needs 75% of the total lot entitlements of every lot in the building if the vote is taken by ballot or poll, or 75% of the total votes for every lot in the building if it’s decided any other way. Either way, the benchmark is calculated against the whole building’s entitlements, not just the room at a meeting. In a building where a large share of owners never turn up or vote, that absence works against the resolution, not for it, since those absent lots still count in the total the 75% has to be measured against. There’s also a lower interim pathway worth knowing: if a vote gets at least 50% in favour and no more than 25% against, it can pass as an interim special resolution, which automatically becomes a full special resolution 29 days later unless owners holding more than 25% of the total vote formally petition against it within that window.
The first tranche of amending legislation touching the Owners Corporations Act was introduced to parliament in June 2026, and a broader review of the Act is still sitting with government. Submissions on that review pulled in different directions, developer-aligned groups pushed to lower the 75% threshold, resident groups pushed for dispute mechanisms over threshold changes. Nothing has moved yet. The 75% bar stands as it is.
The exemption most coverage leaves out
A ban passed under section 96 cannot apply to a lot that is the owner’s or occupier’s principal place of residence. This is the single most important detail in the whole framework, and it is the one most often missing from generic roundups.
Here is what that actually means in practice. If you live in the apartment and occasionally let a spare room or the whole place while you travel, a building-wide ban can’t reach you. If the property is a straight investment let, an apartment you own but don’t live in, the exemption offers nothing. For Bedspoke’s Melbourne portfolio, that second category describes the overwhelming majority of properties under management. The PPR exemption is genuinely useful information, but it is not blanket protection for STR investors, and treating it as such would be misleading.
There is a statewide occupancy cap that was floated and rejected during the current legislative review, a proposed two-per-bedroom limit that never made it into law. Worth knowing, because it is sometimes reported as if it were in force. It isn’t.
How to tell a real ban from a bluff
This is where owners get caught out in both directions, either panicking over a rule that was never validly passed, or ignoring one that was.
An unregistered rule, one passed with insufficient votes, or one applied to a lot it legally can’t touch, is not enforceable. Before treating any claimed ban as binding, ask for three things: the minutes showing the resolution actually cleared 75% of total lot entitlements or votes, confirmation the rule has been lodged with the Registrar of Land Victoria, and written notice of the rule under section 143. If a committee member or building manager can’t produce those, the ban has not legally happened yet, whatever they’ve told residents.
This works the other way too. If your building genuinely clears that threshold and lodges the rule correctly, it is real and it applies to non-PPR lots regardless of how quiet the process was. Checking your building’s OC rules and meeting agendas periodically, rather than waiting to hear about a vote after it has already happened, is the only way to get ahead of this rather than react to it.
Where this sits in the wider Victorian picture
Victoria takes a genuinely different regulatory approach to short stays than most other states, and some of that difference favours owners. There is no statewide council permit requirement and no statewide night cap, the 180-night limit that gets attributed to Victoria is actually a New South Wales rule for non-hosted stays in prescribed Greater Sydney areas, not a Victorian one.
What Victoria has instead is the levy and the OC ban power working as two separate levers: one a running cost, the other a building-level governance risk. The Short Stay Levy Act 2024 applies at 7.5% on the total booking fee for stays under 28 consecutive days, with the platforms (Airbnb, Stayz, Booking.com) collecting and remitting on your behalf. Hosts earning over $75,000 in short-stay revenue through the year need to lodge quarterly returns directly. Direct-booking hosts register separately with the State Revenue Office rather than relying on a platform to handle it.
Neither of these mechanisms bans short-stay letting outright at the state level. The state has, so far, declined to do that. The exposure sits at the building level, which is precisely why checking your own building’s governance matters more than watching for a change in state law.
What this means for Melbourne owners right now
If your property is an investment, not your principal residence, you are the segment this power can actually reach. That doesn’t mean panic, it means paying attention to your building’s meeting notices rather than finding out about a vote after it has passed.
If you see a vote like this being called in your building, the first move isn’t panic. Check the procedure before assuming the outcome is locked in: has proper notice actually gone out, is a poll or ballot being conducted, and does the motion clear the real 75% threshold rather than a simple majority in the room. A meaningful share of these votes stall or fail outright once someone checks the mechanics properly, rather than taking the committee’s framing at face value.
It’s also worth talking to your fellow owners directly rather than assuming the building has already made up its mind. Short-stay letting attracts a lot of secondhand, exaggerated stories, a noise complaint that was really about one bad tenant, wear and tear blamed on guests when it predates the letting entirely. Most owners voting for a ban haven’t weighed the other side of the ledger either: removing the ability to short-let a lot doesn’t just affect whoever is currently letting it, it narrows the pool of future buyers for every lot in the building and is likely to weigh on resale values across the whole complex, not just the units operating as short stays right now. That’s worth raising before a vote happens, not after.
Frequently asked questions
Can my owners corporation ban my Airbnb even if I’m compliant with all council and state rules? Yes. Council and state compliance doesn’t override a validly passed OC rule. The two operate independently, and a 75% special resolution under the OC Act can prohibit short stays regardless of how compliant the letting itself is.
Does the ban apply if I sometimes live in the property myself? Only the principal place of residence exemption protects a lot from a ban, and it applies to genuine principal residences, not occasional stays. If the property is primarily let short-stay and you’re not living there as your main home, the exemption won’t apply.
What happens if my building already has an informal “no Airbnb” policy that was never put to a vote? It has no legal force. Only a certified special resolution, lodged with the Registrar of Land Victoria and communicated under section 143, is enforceable. An informal committee decision or a line in a welcome pack is not a rule.
Is a statewide short-stay ban coming to Victoria? Not as of writing this article. The proposed statewide occupancy cap was rejected during the current legislative review, and the government has kept its approach to the levy and the OC ban power rather than a blanket state prohibition.
Does the 75% threshold mean 75% of the owners who show up and vote? No. Under section 96, it’s calculated against the total lot entitlements or total votes of every lot in the building, not just the ones represented on the day. Low turnout makes the threshold harder to clear, not easier, since absent lots still count in the total the 75% is measured against.
Can banning short-stay letting affect property values in a building? Yes, and it’s rarely factored into the debate before a vote. Removing the ability to short-let a lot narrows the pool of future buyers interested in that lot, since it takes an option off the table that some buyers specifically value, and that can weigh on resale values across the building, not just for units currently operating as short stays.
Victoria’s approach puts more of the actual decision-making power in the hands of individual buildings than most states do. That cuts both ways, it means there’s no single rule to watch at a state level, but it also means an engaged owner who tracks their own building’s governance has real ability to see this coming.
