Compliance and Western Australia's rules

Home building contracts

In Western Australia, the Home Building Contracts Act 1991 covers home building work with a contract price over $7,500 and under $500,000. For that work, Trade Assured:

• turns the accepted quote into a written contract signed by both parties, with the time, network address and browser of the owner's signature recorded;
• sends the quote with the current Notice for the home owner, which the owner must acknowledge before signing;
• keeps the deposit to at most 6.5% of the contract price (section 10), and ties progress payments to named stages that add up to the price;
• states the variations process, so every change is agreed in writing before it is done (section 7), and the 4-month defects period (section 11);
• emails the owner a copy of the signed contract at once.

Where the work needs a building permit and costs more than $20,000, the contract makes the deposit payable once the home indemnity insurance certificate is given, and nothing is invoiced or scheduled until the certificate is recorded.

Safety

Safe work method statements for the work on each visit go to the crew's phones, and the crew confirm them before they start. Each person's licences and tickets are recorded, and each visit shows any licence the work needs that nobody on it holds.

Asbestos records

On every plan, each job keeps a record of asbestos removed from it, following WorkSafe WA's guidance: the removal (area, whether friable, who removed it and their licence, and when WorkSafe was notified), the clearance and the disposal docket. Beside each record, Trade Assured says what is still needed, such as a licence for more than 10 m² of non-friable asbestos or a notification given less than five days ahead. None of it stops you recording what happened.

Permits and approvals

Every property's facts (council, zone, heritage, bushfire and wind) are looked up when it is added, and the rules for each state and council flag the approvals a job may need. Building Commissioner forms are filled from what the job already holds.

A record that can't be quietly changed

Each job's record is append-only and hash-chained, so an edit or a deletion can be detected. Photos, signed documents and recordings are stored once and kept for ten years.

The law is under review

The WA Government is reviewing the State's home building contract laws. Check the review's page on wa.gov.au for where it stands, and the WA legislation website for the current Act.