#13050

Hi DrWitch

It is an offence under section 12 of the Home Building Act to do unlicensed residential building work or specialist work (see section 12 set out below):

“An individual must not do any residential building work, or specialist work, except:

(a) as, or as a member of a partnership or an officer of a corporation that is, the holder of a contractor licence authorising its holder to contract to do that work, or

(b) as the holder of an owner-builder permit authorising its holder to do that work, or

(c) as an employee of the holder of such a contractor licence or permit.

Maximum penalty: 1,000 penalty units in the case of a corporation and 200 penalty units in any other case.”

I note that a penalty unit is $110 and therefore the fines are up to $110,000 for a corporation and $22,000 for a natural person.

The Office of Fair Trading enforces these matters and presumably any contractor looking to do such work would be wary of any renegade lot owners who might report them to the Office of Fair Trading.

Chris Kerin

Senior Lawyer
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