Selling an owner-built home
An owner-builder selling their home within six years and six months of completing the building work has certain responsibilities.
Domestic building insurance
As an owner-builder, if you're planning to sell a home you've built or renovated, you must purchase domestic building insurance for the work you carried out if:
- the building project was completed less than six and a half years ago from the date of issue of your occupancy permit or certificate of final inspection, and
- the value of the building project was over $16,000.
Domestic building insurance protects the purchaser of the property against defects if the owner-builder dies, becomes insolvent or disappears.
You need to purchase domestic building insurance before entering into a contract to sell your property. If the property doesn’t sell, you may be able to cancel the policy and obtain a refund on the premium.
Defects inspection report
You will need to engage a registered building practitioner, such as a building surveyor, building inspector or an endorsed building engineer, to provide you with a defects inspection report. The report must be less than six months old when you sell your property.
This requirement does not apply if the owner-builder is a registered building practitioner.
The following building inspection report templates should be used by your registered building practitioner: