Before you sign a building contract in Victoria, five checks take about twenty minutes and rule out most of the ways a project goes wrong. None of them are on the brochure.
1. Are you registered for this class of work, and is it the same entity on the contract?
Every builder in Victoria must be registered with the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) for the class of work they carry out, and the register is public. Go to vba.vic.gov.au, open "Find a practitioner", and search the company name. You are looking for a status of Current and a class that matches your project.
The classes you will see most often:
- Domestic Builder Unlimited (DB-U): any domestic building work, including a whole new home, and management of the whole job.
- Domestic Builder Limited (DB-L): specific domestic components only, for example carpentry or bathroom and kitchen renovations, not a whole house.
- Commercial Builder Unlimited (CB-U): commercial building work of any size and class.
- Commercial Builder Limited (CB-L): commercial work within stated limits, typically by building class, height or floor area.
A "C" in front of the prefix means the registration is held by a company or partnership rather than a person. Silverfox Management Pty Ltd, for example, holds CDB-U 67999 (Domestic Builder Unlimited) and CCB-L 100461 (Commercial Builder Limited). Click the practitioner's name to read any conditions on a limited registration, and make sure the entity on the register is the entity on your contract. A director who is personally registered does not make the company registered.
2. Show me the certificates of currency
Ask for current certificates, not a statement that insurance exists, and check the named insured, the expiry date and the limits.
- Domestic building insurance: mandatory for domestic contracts over $16,000. It protects you if the builder dies, disappears or becomes insolvent. In Victoria it is issued through the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority on a per-project basis, so ask for the certificate for your project, not a generic one.
- Public liability: covers injury or property damage to third parties. For commercial work $20 million is common.
- Contract works: covers the works themselves against damage during construction. Check the limit against your contract sum. A policy that caps at $1.5 million per contract cannot properly insure a $2 million job without an extension.
- WorkCover: mandatory for any employer in Victoria.
- Professional indemnity: relevant if the builder is also designing, as in a design and construct contract.
3. Who actually supervises the site?
Registration and insurance tell you the builder is allowed to do the work. They do not tell you who will be there on a Tuesday afternoon. Ask for the name of the site manager and the project manager, whether they are employees or subcontractors, and how many other jobs they are running at the same time. Then ask to speak to the client of the builder's last comparable job. One phone call is worth more than a portfolio page, and a good builder will offer the number before you ask.
4. How are variations priced?
Every project has variations. The question is how they are priced and approved. Get the mark-up on variations in writing, ask whether the builder will price a variation before doing the work, and ask how long you have to approve one. On a cost plus contract, ask what the fee applies to and how the open-book costs will be reported.
5. What does the programme actually assume?
A builder who cannot show you a programme before you sign will not show you one after. Ask what the programme assumes about permit dates, long-lead items such as windows and switchboards, and weather, and what happens to the date for practical completion when those assumptions move. For domestic work, Victorian contracts must comply with the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, and the Master Builders Victoria and HIA standard forms do. For commercial work, the Australian Standard forms (AS 4000 for construct-only, AS 4902 for design and construct) are the usual basis. Whichever form is used, read three things before signing: the contract sum and what it excludes, the date for practical completion and what extends it, and the payment schedule.