Ex-tropical cyclone Debbie devastated North Queensland communities on Tuesday, leaving locals with damaged homes, businesses, and a billion-dollar damage bill.

For renters it can be a particularly tough time if their home is damaged, but they can still be slogged with weekly rental payments.

"Tenants must continue to pay rent until they have officially ended their tenancy," Queensland Residential Tenancies Authority CEO Darren Barlow said. "When a property is unliveable because it has been completely destroyed, or it is unfit to live in for health and safety reasons, either the property owner, manager, or the tenant can give the other person official notice to end the tenancy."

He stressed it was important for tenants to communicate with whoever managed the property to communicate.

Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr agreed it was good to have a dialogue with the property manager or landlord of your property, and it added it wasn't always necessary to end the lease because of damage.

"If you've lost amenity, you can apply for a rent reduction," she said, but added some landlords may give their tenants leeway with rent payments until everything is sorted. "Our experience with the 2011 floods and cyclone was most people pitched in and helped out."

Ms Carr said it's important for renters to know what they're obligated to do, and what their landlord is obligated to do.

Once the worst of the disaster has passed, Ms Carr recommended documenting damage done to the property and letting the property manager or landlord know.

"Not everyone's got a camera and phones always aren't charged, but if there's damage to the property it's always good to document it," she said. "There's always a requirement to report damage."

While it can be done verbally, Ms Carr said it was best to report the damage in an email. "It's always good to have things in writing, evidence of the damage and those sort of things."

It was a common misconception that tenants could claim damages to their property from landlords, if damage occurred to the property during the disaster Ms Carr said. "You can't claim against the lessor for those loss of goods," she said but added if the landlord takes too long to fix damage to the house and that resulted in the loss of property, there could be grounds for a claim. "Then you may be entitled to some compensation," Ms Carr said.

Mr Barlow said there was no set time limit for repairs to be carried out, however. "Property owners and managers are encouraged to act on repairs within a reasonable time," he said. "This will vary depending on the type of damage, and access to tradespeople in the affected area."

Links to resources:

• Tenants Queensland disaster fact sheet
• ???RTA's disaster fact sheet