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The exciting parts of a move — the keys, the first sunset, the first swim — tend to get all the attention, while the admin that makes a house actually livable gets left until the day it becomes urgent. Power, water, internet and the council paperwork that quietly follows your address around are not complicated on the Sunshine Coast, but the order you do them in, and how far ahead, makes the difference between moving in smoothly and spending the first week without hot water or wifi.
Power and gas: connect before settlement, not after
Electricity in Queensland is deregulated, which means you choose a retailer rather than being assigned one, and prices and plans genuinely differ between providers. Compare a few on the standard usage figures for a similar-sized home before you commit — a plan that looks cheap on a headline rate can work out worse once time-of-use pricing and daily supply charges are factored in.
The connection itself is simple: call or go online a week or two ahead of moving day and ask for the service to start from your settlement or lease-start date. If the property already has an active connection, this is usually same-day; if it has been vacant, a physical reconnection can take longer, so build in a buffer. Bottled gas for cooktops is common in parts of the region without reticulated gas — check which the property has before you assume either way, since the connection process is different.
Water is the council's, not a retailer's
Unlike electricity, there is no shopping around for water — it is supplied and billed by the regional council, and in most cases the account transfers automatically at settlement based on the property title. Renters typically pay water usage direct to the landlord or agent rather than the council, so confirm which applies to your arrangement before assuming a bill will simply arrive. Our cost of living guide breaks down what power and water actually cost to run once you're settled, which is worth reading before you set a household budget.
If you're moving to a hinterland or acreage property, ask directly whether the address is on town water at all — a meaningful number of properties above the coastal plain run on tank water instead, and that changes the setup entirely.
Internet: book it earlier than feels necessary
Most of the coastal corridor runs on the National Broadband Network, with the connection type already fixed at the property rather than something you choose. A new service can usually go ahead with a phone-based activation, but if a technician visit is required — common in new estates or older buildings needing new internal wiring — appointments can book out one to two weeks ahead, especially over the school holiday period when the population swells. Order as soon as you have a settlement or lease-start date, not the week you arrive, and ask the provider directly whether a technician is required for your specific address before you assume it isn't.
A mobile hotspot on your phone plan is a reasonable stopgap for the first few days if the timing doesn't line up.
Council: rates, bins and the address that follows you
Once you own or rent a property here, the relevant council becomes the point of contact for rates notices, kerbside bin collection days and bin sizes, and any development or building queries. Bin day and collection frequency are set by address, so check the council's own lookup tool rather than assuming it matches your last suburb. If you have school-aged children, note that several enrolment and catchment questions also run off your registered address — see schools and childcare for how that ties together, and sort it early rather than after the move.
Pet registration is also a council matter and is usually required within a short window of a new address becoming your primary residence — have the microchip details and any interstate registration paperwork ready.
The paperwork trail people forget
A short list that's easy to leave until it causes a problem:
- Mail redirection. Set it up through Australia Post before the exact address stops being yours to check — a couple of weeks either side of moving day covers most stragglers.
- Address updates. Licence, vehicle registration, electoral roll and insurers all need the new address, and several have a legislated timeframe once you become a Queensland resident.
- Banks and subscriptions. Easy to forget, and the first sign something was missed is usually a card declined for a "suspicious" delivery address.
- Health providers. Ask your current GP and any specialists whether records can be transferred electronically, and start looking for a local practice with availability before you need one urgently.
A sensible order to do it in
Roughly: lock in the settlement or lease-start date, then in the same week book internet (longest lead time), organise the electricity and gas connection to start that date, and set up mail redirection. In the days just before the move, confirm the water situation with the agent or council, and in the weeks after, work through the address-update list above at your own pace. Our moving timeline sets this out against a full week-by-week countdown if you'd rather follow one schedule for the whole move rather than juggling utilities separately.
None of this is difficult on its own. The only real risk is leaving the slow-moving items — internet bookings and address-dependent admin — until the week they're due, when everyone else moving that month is trying to book the same appointments.