Home Warranty Insurance Scheme – Building Defect Inspection
In Queensland, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission QBCC has a new home warranty insurance scheme. Most residential building work valued over $3300 must have home warranty insurance the premium for which the builder pays. Claims can only be made against this policy in the following situations:
- a licensed builder does not complete the contracted residential construction work and you have terminated the contract
- the contractor fails to rectify defective work
- the building suffers from subsidence or settlement.
In essence, the insurance is there to protect consumers in the event of the builder going out of business before work is completed, the builder not being able or refusing to fix defective work or for subsidence or settlement.
There are however time limits on claims against the Home Warranty Scheme.
For structural defects, a complaint must be raised with the QBCC within three months of the structural defect being noticed by you and for non-structural defects, you must lodge this complaint within 7 months of the completion date of the building work. These time frames apply to claims against the warranty scheme and should not be confused with the general time frame for complaints against a builder which are:-
- Structural defects – within 6 years 6 months from completion
- Non-structural defects – 12 months from completion.
ABIS recommends that you have a Building Defect Inspection conducted 6 months after your new home construction is completed so you can make a claim against the warranty within the time frame for non-structural defects. ABIS also recommends that you have an inspection done at any time you are concerned that there is structural damage such as water ingress or structural cracking and movement such as subsidence. These Inspections are similar to a Pre Purchase Building Inspections or Building and Pest Inspection
