NSW · Updated 25 July 2026
Something's wrong with the work. What am I actually entitled to?
More than the "six years and two years" you have probably been told. Those are the statutory warranty periods, and they matter — but they are one right, not the whole set. NSW also imposes a separate statutory duty of care that needs no contract, follows the land to whoever owns it next, can reach individuals personally rather than only the company, and sits inside a 10-year outer limit measured from completion. Owners routinely give up at year three because nobody told them the second one existed.
You may have three separate rights, not one
They overlap, they run on different clocks, and they are not alternatives you must choose between. Which ones are open to you depends on your facts — but knowing they exist is the difference between a letter and a shrug.
The statutory warranties
Written into every contract for residential building work by the Home Building Act, whether or not anyone typed them: the work will be done with due care and skill, in accordance with the plans and specifications, with good and suitable materials, in compliance with the law, and the home will be reasonably fit to live in.
6 years for a major defect, 2 years for anything else, running from completion. They pass to later owners of the property as well.
The statutory duty of care — Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020
A person who carries out construction work owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid economic loss caused by defects. It is owed to each owner of the land, and each subsequent owner — and, critically, it is owed whether or not there was any contract between you and them.
Breach it and you are entitled to damages as if the duty existed at common law. It cannot be delegated.
The insurance, if it exists
Where the work was over $20,000 and the builder has died, disappeared or become insolvent, the HBCF policy is the last-resort cover. It is not a general defect-fixing service — a live, solvent builder who did bad work is dealt with under Rights 1 and 2. HBCF explained →
Why Right 2 changes the picture so much
The statutory warranties live in your contract. If the company you contracted with has been wound up, the warranties can be worth very little — and a builder in financial trouble is not a remote possibility.
The duty of care does not depend on a contract. And "construction work" is defined to include supervising, coordinating, project managing or otherwise having substantive control over the carrying out of building work. That wording is what allows the duty to reach the people doing those things, not only the corporate entity that signed. A company can be deregistered. A person is harder to dissolve.
It also runs with the land, so if you bought a house with defects you did not commission, you may still be owed the duty as a subsequent owner.
The clocks — and the one that caps everything
| Right / step | Time |
|---|---|
| Statutory warranty — major defect From completion of the work | 6 years |
| Statutory warranty — any other defect | 2 years |
| Defects liability period — your builder's own contractual promise to come back and fix things Most residential building contracts contain one. Check yours for the length and the notice rules — in the widely used NSW residential contracts it commonly runs 13 weeks, with defects to be notified within 10 business days after it expires and 30 business days allowed to rectify. | Check your contract |
| The long stop — any civil action for defective building work From the date of completion, defined by the Occupation Certificate, else the final inspection, else first occupation or use. | 10 years |
What to do, in order
- Write it down and photograph it now. Date-stamped photographs, and a note of when you first noticed it. Every one of these rights turns on timing, and memory is not evidence.
- Notify in writing, not by text or phone. Describe the defect and where it is, ask for rectification, and keep the sent copy. If your contract nominates an address or method for notices, use it.
- Check your dates before you accept anyone's timeline. Work out your completion date and count from it. "That's out of warranty" is an assertion, not a fact — and it is often made about a defect that is arguably major, or about a right the person saying it has not considered.
- Get the defect properly characterised. Major or not major decides whether you have 6 years or 2 under the warranties. That is an expert question and it is worth answering early rather than at year two and eleven months.
- Get advice before a deadline passes, not after. Which rights are open to you, against whom, and by when is genuinely fact-specific — and it is the one area where waiting to see if it gets worse is the expensive option.
This page is general information about NSW law as at July 2026, not advice about your matter. Whether a defect is major, which rights are available to you, who they run against and what your dates are all depend on your facts and your contract. This is an area where the law has moved considerably in recent years and continues to be tested in the courts — if you have a defect that matters, get advice on your own situation.
The paperwork decides this, years before anyone argues about it.
Every right on this page is proved with documents: what the contract said, when the work completed, what was notified and when, what was collected along the way. Owners who win are not the ones with better luck — they are the ones who still have the file. eSiteOffice keeps that record as the job runs, dated and served properly, so the evidence exists before anyone needs it. It opens in September.