The Real Estate Institute of South Australia (REI) is wary of proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act.

They could include fines of up to $1,250 on landlords for failure to provide appliance manuals, to protect tenants from causing accidental damage to equipment they do not know how to use properly.

REI chief executive Greg Troughton said the Institute was seeking more detail of the proposal.

"I'd like to think there'd be some commonsense to all of this, but obviously when you get into prescribing things one thing leads to another. I mean we have concerns and the $1,250 seems a little bit over the top and we've certainly expressed that to the Government," he said.