Western Australian Hotel Lost Property Law: Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act 1970
Published September 2026 • 4 min read • Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act 1970 (WA)
How long must a hotel keep lost property in Western Australia?
The Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act 1970 (WA) requires reasonable notice to the owner before disposal, with the notice period scaling with the item's value. Hotels should confirm current thresholds directly against the Act, since they're periodically reviewed.
Western Australia's uncollected goods framework follows the same broad shape as NSW's — notice scaled to value before disposal — under its own Act.
The general shape of the obligation
Like most Australian uncollected-goods statutes, the WA Act requires a holder of uncollected goods to give the owner reasonable notice of an intention to dispose of the property, and to follow a defined process — which can include sale, and in some cases requires that any proceeds be held for a further period in case the owner comes forward — before the matter is closed out.
What this means operationally for a WA hotel
In practice, WA hotels should treat the Act's notice requirement the same way NSW properties treat theirs: log the item and its estimated value immediately, send notice to the guest's contact details on file, and keep a timestamped record of that notice before disposing of, donating, or otherwise closing out the item.
Because the specific dollar thresholds and day-counts in uncollected goods legislation are periodically indexed and can change, treat any specific figure as a starting point to verify against the current Act rather than a fixed rule to build a permanent process around.
How Homebound handles this for WA properties
Homebound gives every logged item an immutable, timestamped audit trail — from intake photo through guest notification to final disposition — so a WA property always has the record this guide describes without relying on a paper logbook or spreadsheet. Guests enter their own shipping address and pay for courier return themselves, and it costs the hotel nothing to run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does WA have the same value-tier system as NSW for disposing of lost property?+
The Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act 1970 (WA) follows a broadly similar notice-then-disposal structure to NSW's Act, but the exact thresholds differ and are worth confirming directly against the current Act, since they're periodically reviewed.
What should a WA hotel do while waiting out the notice period?+
Keep the item in secure, access-controlled storage and retain a record of when it was logged and when notice was sent — the same operational discipline that protects a hotel under any state's uncollected-goods framework.
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