Introducing the new RBO
Consumer and Business Services has introduced a better way to manage residential bonds online for all South Australians.
For tenants
- Manage your own information safely and securely
- Pay a bond via debit or credit card online
- Receive your bond back faster at the end of your tenancy
- Manage any bond from within your account
- Make a counter-offer on bond refund requests to reduce the need to go to SACAT
For real estate agents, park managers and other managing parties
- Request payment from tenants through the portal
- Manage substantiation and upload supporting documents in one place
Agents - need to see a bond?
See the guide for principals and owners on assigning bonds to property managers.
Help for tenants using RBO
To sign up, go to the RBO portal home page and choose ‘create an account’. As part of the account verification process you will be asked to verify your identity.
Once your account has been verified, if you have a pre-existing bond and you cannot see it in your account you will need to contact the Bonds team which will link it for you. Bonds lodged after your account creation will automatically appear in your account.
If you had an RBO account before 17 June 2024, you should have received an email with information on how to reset your password.
If you did not receive this email, you can go to the RBO portal home page and choose the ‘Forgot Password’ option.
Follow the prompts to reset your password and login.
Login to the portal, click on the profile icon and choose My Profil.
Click the Edit button.
Update your personal details as needed and click next to proceed.
Update your bank account details as needed. A verification code will be sent to your email and/or mobile phone.
Click Next to save the update. A review page will appear, enter the verification code and select submit to save the changes.
You can pay and lodge a bond in RBO using a debit or credit card, or a Housing SA bond guarantee.
All other types of payment require tenants to submit a form with direct debit details or pay in person at the Consumer Business Services office.
In the RBO portal, select the drop down arrow next to Tenant option, then choose Lodge a Bond.
Fill in the details of your tenancy.
At the end of the process you will be directed to a payment gateway to finalise the payment of the bond using using a debit or credit card.
If you can’t find your landlord you can still progress by declaring you have a valid agreement in place for the tenancy. If you can't find your real estate agency’s details in the system, double check you have entered the details correctly or re-confirm the details with the managing party directly.
Only one person can lodge a bond on behalf of all tenants on a lease. At the end of the tenancy, the bond will be split equally amongst the tenants unless a different arrangement is agreed. See the Settling bond dispute page for more information.
Tenants must give the amount for the increase directly to the managing party, who can then update RBO. Bond increases cannot be paid in RBO by a tenant.
Housing SA bond guarantees cannot be increased beyond the guarantee amount. If a tenant has a bond guarantee as their method of payment, and the landlord wishes to increase the bond amount in line with a rent increase, the tenant has two options below.
- Apply for a new guarantee to cover the increased amount.
- Pay the amount the bond has increased through RBO via debit or credit card while retaining the original bond guarantee.
For tenants subletting from the head tenant
It is the head tenant’s responsibility to add or remove a party to the bond within a sub-letting arrangement. There should be a separate bond for each sub-letting arrangement. Each tenant must agree to being removed from the bond.
For tenants sharing the cost of the bond for the property
The managing party (eg the real estate agent, park operator or landlord) is responsible for adding or removing another tenant to the bond. Each tenant must agree to being removed from the bond.
On the RBO portal click on the bond you wish to have refunded.
Choose the Refund request option.
If there is more than one person on the bond, you can choose to split the amount evenly between tenants or an amount can be nominated for each tenant to receive.
Once submitted, all parties to the bond will be notified of the refund request details.
If all parties agree with the refund request, the bond will be returned to you. In the case of a Bond guarantee it will be returned to the SA Housing Authority.
If the parties cannot come to an agreement on how to refund the bond, see the counter offer information on the Settling a bond dispute page for more information on how to proceed.
If you need to withdraw the refund request after submitting it, you can use the Withdraw button. This will cancel the refund request and return the bond back to Lodged status.
If you do not see the Refund request button please contact CBS.
If the managing party has made a claim on the bond, you will be notified via email and in the portal. You can choose to accept, counter-offer or dispute the claim.
See the Settling a bond dispute page for more information on how to work through this process.
Help for managing parties using RBO
To sign up go to the RBO portal home page and choose the type of user that describes you.
To set up a new account, different verification is required depending on the registration required.
For real estate agents: a valid South Australian real estate licence number and ABN/ACN.
For proprietors: a valid ABN/ACN.
For residential park operators: ABN/ACN, certificate of title details.
If you had an RBO account before 17 June 2024, you should have received an email with information about how to reset your password.
If you did not receive this email you can go to the RBO portal home page and choose the 'Forgot Password' option.
Follow the prompts to reset your password and login.
Go to the Agency tab and choose the Manage Staff option.
Click the Add Staff button and choose which type of staff member you want to add (financial or non-financial). Some new staff members, such as property managers, will need to have a valid South Australian Registered Land Agent (RLA) number to be added to the account.
You can check for license details on the CBS Occupational Public Register.
If you are going to rent out a property to a enant, you will need to register as a Managing Party (Landlord or Agency).
To do this select teh dropdown arrow next to Register and follow the prompts to complete this process.
Once approved you will receive a confirmation email.
Login to the portal, go to the Agency tab and choose Manage Agency Details.
Choose the Edit option to change your details, ensuring you complete all mandatory fields. A review page will appear, click submit to save any changes.
At the top of the screen, choose Agency, and then choose the ‘Lodge a bond’ option from the drop-down menu.
Begin the process of lodging a bond. When you get to the payment page, you will have the option of submitting the payment via direct debit from your RBO nominated bank account or request the bond payment from the tenant. If you choose payment by tenant, an email will be sent to the tenant(s) asking them to login to RBO and pay via debit or credit card.
The managing party is responsible for adding or removing another tenant to the bond. Each tenant will be notified and must agree to being removed from the bond by accepting the approval request in their portal account.
on the RBO portal, click on the bond you wish to refund.
Choose the Refund request option.
Choose Request Refund and then fill in the details.
In the Claim summary section, enter the total amount being sought. You will have the option to provide a breakdown of this amount for the tenant's information. This does not form part of the substantiation process.
Ensure your banking details are up to date, and then review the entire claim before submitting.
CBS recommends you consider completing the substantiation of claim at the time of submitting the refund request.
If you need to withdraw the refund request after submitting it, you can use the Withdraw button. This will cancel the refund request and return the bond back to Lodged status.
When a refund request has been submitted the bond will have a status of Notice of Claim. When the managing arty is making a claim against the bond, the tenant has the duration of the Notice of Claim period to respond. If they do not respond, the tenant is said to be a silent tenant.
To substantiate login to the RBO portal. Under Approval requests on your dashboard, select Refund requests and click on the relevant Request number. Click Substantiate your Claim.
This must be done within the Notice of Claim period.
You may decide to forfeit your claim on the bond and allow the refund process to proceed with the remaining parties or indicate your intention to make an application directly to SACAT.
If you decide that you will be proceeding with a claim and not making an application to SACAT, you will be asked to provide the appropriate documentation and submit.
If CBS approves the managing party's claim with the substantiation documents submitted, the payment will be released.
Any party may dispute a refund request at any time within the Notice of Claim period.
If you initiated the refund request, you can contact CBS to dispute the bond claim.
If you are not the initiator of the refund request, you can dispute by going to the relevant refund request on your dashboard and click the Dispute button.
The status of a bond claim is displayed in your portal account. Open each bond individually for more information on that particular bond.
This is called a Bond import request. The new managing party makes a request to the existing managing party to approve the transfer in RBO, using the bond number.
To see an existing Bond import request, or initiate a new Bond import request, go to the Bonds tab and choose Import bond.
If you have any previous Bond import activity, it will be displayed with its current status. You can see further detail by clicking on the relevant Bond import number.
To initiate a new Bond import, click the Import bond button.
You may only request one bond per import. Once requested, an email will be sent to the existing managing party to approve. It will also appear as an Approval request on their RBO portal account dashboard. Once approved, you will see the bond in your RBO portal account. Access to the bond by the previous managing party will be revoked.
The approving party has 14 days to action the request. If no action is taken, it will be auto-escalated to the Bonds team for follow up.