Better building protections for home renos flagged in Victoria
Builders who take deposits for major renovations or building projects will be heavily penalised if they don’t have the correct insurances in place, as Victoria looks to clean up the image of its building industry.
The Building Legislation Amendment (Domestic Building Insurance New Offences) Bill 2023 “will ensure consumers are covered by insurance before providing any money to a builder under a contract for domestic building work costing more than $16,000,” according to a government statement.
The legislation’s introduction follows the collapse of a number of building companies over the past year, including Porter Davis Homes.
According to the state government, the collapse of some of these builders “exposed several concerning practices, including companies not taking out the required insurance before accepting deposits under a major domestic building contract”.
Under the reforms, new offences will come into the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, and will mean that any builder receiving money under a major contract without holding the required domestic building insurance could receive a penalty of up to $96,000 for an individual or $480,000 for a company.
According to the Premier Jacinta Allan, “the new offences are first in a suite of reforms to better protect Victorians building or renovating their home, including a review of the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995, with consultation now open on measures to improve safeguards for consumers when they enter into a domestic building contract”.
The Premier remarked: “We said we’d reform our building system to better protect Victorians, and that’s exactly what we’re doing – protecting Victorian families’ hard-earned savings as well as their dreams of building a house to call their own.”
Weighing in, the Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny said: “Victorians rightly expect their homes to be built to approved building standards and built to last.”
And finally, the state’s Minister for Consumer Affairs Gabrielle Williams said the reforms send a message to industry about “the importance of adhering to insurance requirements”.
She stated that the changes “[give] consumers greater confidence in the building industry”.
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