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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: