A Building Notice is the formal way a Municipal Building Surveyor or a private building surveyor tells you that something about your building may not comply with the Building Act 1993 or the Building Regulations 2018, and asks you to show cause why they should not make a Building Order against you. It is not a fine and it is not the end of the process. It is the start of a documented conversation, and the quality of your response decides how it ends.
What the notice actually says
Read it twice. A Building Notice identifies the building, states the grounds (for example combustible cladding, an unsafe structure, a change of use without a permit, or missing essential safety measures), sets a date by which you must respond, and tells you what the surveyor may do if you do not. Diarise the response date the day the notice arrives. Missing it removes your right to be heard before an order is made.
The show cause response
Show cause means you have the opportunity to explain, in writing, why a Building Order should not be made, or should be made in a narrower or slower form than the surveyor proposes. Three kinds of response work:
- The grounds are wrong. You can show, with evidence, that the building complies, or that the issue identified is not what the surveyor thinks it is. This is rarer than owners hope.
- The grounds are right and here is the pathway. You accept the issue and put forward a documented remediation pathway: what will be done, by whom and by when, with the consultant reports that support it. This is the most common credible response.
- The grounds are partly right. You accept some items and contest others, with evidence for each.
What does not work is a letter that argues without evidence, or one that promises to look into it. The surveyor is obliged to act on the risk they have identified; a response that does not reduce the risk leaves them no option but an order.
Building a credible pathway
For anything technical, the pathway is built from consultant evidence, not from the owner's or the builder's opinion:
- A fire safety engineer for cladding, fire separation, egress or essential safety measures. On combustible cladding this usually means a fire engineering assessment of the building as it stands and a proposed remediation scope.
- A structural engineer for anything load-bearing.
- A building surveyor, sometimes a second one, to advise on the permit pathway for the rectification works.
- A builder to price the works and give a realistic programme. A budget estimate with a staged programme turns a pathway into something the surveyor can hold you to, which is exactly what makes it credible.
Put the pathway in a single letter with the reports attached, and state the dates: when design will be complete, when the permit application will be lodged, when works will start and finish. Where a date depends on someone else, an insurer, a fire authority, a body corporate vote, say so and give a date for that step too.
Building Orders, and what to do if one is made
If the surveyor is not satisfied they can make a Building Order. Orders can require work to be done, prohibit occupation or use, or in urgent cases be made without a notice first. An order carries a compliance date and non-compliance is an offence. You can appeal to the Building Appeals Board within the time stated on the order. In practice, if your show cause response already contains a genuine pathway, the surveyor will often make the order in terms that adopt your dates, which is a good outcome: a defined obligation rather than an open one.
Three practical points from the field
- Answer the grounds and nothing more. Volunteering unrelated issues invites a second notice.
- Keep the building operating where you safely can. For an occupied building, a hotel, an aged care home, a shopping strip, the pathway should address how the building stays safe while the works are designed and staged, not only what the finished works will be.
- Tell your insurer. Cladding and defect notices can trigger policy obligations, and some insurers will contribute to or control the response. Late notification can void cover.
Where a builder fits
An owner rarely needs a builder on the first day of a notice, but you need one before the response goes in, because the programme and the price are what make the pathway real. Silverfox prepares budget estimates and staged programmes for notice responses in Bendigo and Melbourne, and works alongside the fire engineer and surveyor so the response is one document rather than four.