Personal guarantees and director liability for residential builders
Limited liability protects the business, not the person who signed a guarantee. This guide sets out what a builder takes on personally, and what to negotiate before a supplier asks for a signature.
11 min read
Topic
Contracts
Articles and news about Contracts for Australian builders.
Personal guarantees and director liability for residential builders
Limited liability protects the business, not the person who signed a guarantee. This guide sets out what a builder takes on personally, and what to negotiate before a supplier asks for a signature.
11 min read
Owner-supplied materials and fittings: who carries the risk
A client who buys the tapware or the doors has not taken the builder out of the job. This guide shows where the risk really lands and what to record before the item goes in.
11 min read
Using a designer’s plans: copyright and permission to build
Building from drawings you did not produce is routine, but the right to copy, adapt and reuse them is not automatic. Check it before the first trench is dug.
12 min read
Trading names, ABNs and licence names on your paperwork
A trading name is not a legal entity. The licence name, the ABN and the trading name each answer a different question, and they must agree on every document you issue.
10 min read
Government tenders for small residential builders: are they worth chasing?
Government work looks steady on paper. The bid cost, prequalification and payment terms decide whether it suits a small residential builder.
11 min read
Data ownership and exit terms in builder software contracts
Your quoting and job software holds years of pricing, variations and photos. The contract decides whether you can take that record with you when you leave.
11 min read
Using producer price indexes to escalate a building quote
A quote is a forecast, and materials costs rarely hold still for the life of a job. A producer price index gives you an objective basis for adjusting the price, but only if you understand what it measures, how late it arrives and how to write it into the contract.
12 min read
Electronic signatures on building contracts and variations: a record that holds up
Signing a variation on a phone takes minutes. Proving later who signed, what they were looking at and when is the part that decides a dispute.
12 min read
Material substitution on site: checking equivalence before you swap
Swapping a product on site is a variation to a documented design, not a site convenience. Equivalence has to be assessed against the function the material performs and recorded before the work is covered up.
13 min read
Developer obligations on NSW residential projects: what builders need to know
On a NSW residential project the developer carries statutory duties that flow straight into your contract, your programme and your handover. Read the developer’s side of the framework before you price the job.
11 min read
Client selection: red flags to check before you sign a building contract
Vetting a client before you sign is cheaper than managing a dispute after practical completion. These are the red flags that should make you pause, price differently or walk away.
11 min read
Paying subcontractors correctly: the invoicing and TPAR workflow
Most subcontractor disputes are not caused by the contract, they are caused by what happened between the invoice arriving and the money leaving. Here is the payment and reporting workflow that keeps the tax file, the contract file and the site file saying the same thing.
12 min read