For owners

You have hired a licensed builder — which means the paperwork that protects you is now somebody else’s job that you have to check. That is the asymmetry: your builder runs this machinery every week and knows exactly which document comes before which payment. You will do it once, in the middle of the most expensive thing you will ever buy. Most of what goes wrong for owners is not bad building. It is a document that never arrived and nobody asked for.

The short version

NSW — all figures include GST

Over $5,000: A written contract is required — and giving it to you is the builder’s legal obligation, not yours to chase.
Over $20,000: The builder must hand you an HBCF insurance certificate before taking any money, deposit included. Plus a 5 business day cooling-off period.
Any contract: The deposit is capped at 10% of the contract price. Progress payments must match work actually done, not time elapsed.
Afterwards: Statutory warranties — 6 years for a major defect, 2 years for others — plus a separate duty of care and a 10-year outer limit on defect claims.

The three moments that decide how it goes

Almost every owner dispute traces back to one of three points in the job. None of them is about bricklaying.

1. Before you pay anything

Contract, licence, insurance certificate, deposit capped at 10%. This is the only moment where all the leverage is yours, because you are still holding the money. Once the deposit is paid, every one of those becomes a request rather than a condition. What your builder owes you before you pay a cent →

2. When the price changes mid-job

A variation is any change to the agreed scope — something added, removed, or discovered. They are normal and often unavoidable. What is not normal is agreeing to one without writing it down first.

The $650 that reached the Supreme Court

A builder digging up a driveway hits buried concrete slabs from an older driveway underneath. He photographs them, texts the owner a $650 quote, gets back “fair enough, go ahead”, and does the work. Nothing about that was dishonest — he had photos, writing, a price and agreement, all before starting.

That $650 became one of over 100 disputed claims on the job. It ran from the tribunal to the Supreme Court, and the two sides’ combined legal costs approached a million dollars.

The paperwork the contract actually wanted would have taken five minutes. Not photos and a text — a variation document with the description, the price, the GST treatment, and both signatures, before the work started.

So when a variation is proposed, ask for four things in writing before saying yes:

What exactly is changing, described so a stranger could tell whether it was done.
What it costs, and whether that is inclusive of GST.
What it does to the completion date — a variation that quietly adds three weeks is a variation that quietly removes your right to complain about the delay.
Signatures from both of you, before the work happens. Afterwards you are negotiating, not agreeing.

Say no to “we’ll sort the paperwork later”. It is never said dishonestly and it is almost always where the trouble starts. A variation agreed after the work is done is a conversation reconstructed from memory by two people with opposite interests.

3. When something is wrong

Your rights here last much longer, and reach much further, than most owners are told — including a separate statutory duty of care that needs no contract, follows the property to a later owner, and can reach individuals rather than only the company. What you’re actually entitled to →

Where to start

1 · Before the job

This page is general information about NSW requirements as at July 2026, not advice about your project. How these requirements apply depends on your contract and your facts, and building law in NSW has moved considerably in recent years. Confirm current requirements before you rely on them, and where real money is at stake get advice on your own situation early.

You'll do this once. It should still be done properly.

Every protection on this page is a document that has to exist, arrive, or be answered by a date — and the person who knows that best is on the other side of the table. eSiteOffice writes what the contract requires, chases what you’re owed and watches the dates, so being an amateur at this stops costing you money. It opens in September. Tell us where you fit and we’ll send you something worth having in the meantime.

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