Practical completion and handover: a builder’s checklist for finishing a job properly
Handover is where a good job becomes a good reputation, or where a dispute begins. The completion date starts the statutory warranty periods, the final payment depends on it, and the owner’s first impression is formed in the first hour. Here is how to finish properly.
7 min read
Topic
Contracts
Articles and news about Contracts for Australian builders.
Practical completion and handover: a builder’s checklist for finishing a job properly
Handover is where a good job becomes a good reputation, or where a dispute begins. The completion date starts the statutory warranty periods, the final payment depends on it, and the owner’s first impression is formed in the first hour. Here is how to finish properly.
7 min read
Home building compensation: when it is required on NSW residential work and when it is not
Home building compensation sits outside the claims process: it is a licensing condition on most residential work over the threshold. Getting the trigger wrong exposes you to penalties, a stop-work order and a contract the homeowner can walk away from.
11 min read
Retention and defects liability periods on home jobs in NSW
Retention is money held back to give a principal leverage over defects and incomplete work; the defects liability period sets how long that leverage lasts. They are separate from the statutory warranties that survive both, and getting the wording wrong is expensive.
14 min read
Why building a house costs so much in 2026: construction costs explained
House construction costs are more than half as high again as before the pandemic, and the fuel shock of 2026 pushed them up again. Here is what drives the cost of building a home, where costs are heading, and how builders can protect their margins.
7 min read
Scope creep: spotting the small unbilled favours before they eat the margin
Scope creep rarely arrives as a written instruction. It arrives as a small favour — and by the time you notice, the margin is gone.
11 min read
Cash flow for builders: progress payments, forecasting and staying solvent in a turning market
Most building businesses that fail are not short of work; they are short of cash. How to structure progress payments, forecast properly, keep tax money separate, and spot the warning signs before they become a crisis.
7 min read
Subcontract agreements: the clauses that decide who pays for defects, delays and disputes
Many builders run jobs on a quote and a handshake with their trades. It works until a defect, a delay or a payment dispute. The clauses that protect both builder and subcontractor, and how security of payment laws apply.
7 min read
NSW home building contracts: the $5,000 and $20,000 thresholds, deposits and must-have clauses
NSW sets out exactly what a residential building contract must contain, and the rules change at $5,000 and $20,000. Here is what builders must include, the payment rules, and the mistakes that make contracts unenforceable.
8 min read
Invoice fraud and payment redirection: how builders and their clients get scammed
A client pays a progress claim to a bank account that isn’t yours, after an email that looked exactly like yours. Payment redirection scams hit building businesses hard. How they work and how to stop them.
8 min read
How to write a building variation that gets signed and paid (NSW rules included)
Variations are where good jobs go bad. A clear, signed, priced variation before the work starts is the single best protection a builder has. Here is how to write one, and what NSW requires.
9 min read
Why building costs jumped in 2026: fuel, plastic pipe, bitumen and what comes next
The 2026 Middle East conflict pushed diesel, plastic pipe and bitumen prices up sharply. Here is what it did to building costs, what the cost indices show, and how builders on fixed-price contracts can protect themselves.
9 min read
Checking subcontractor insurance and WHS before they start
The cheapest place to fix a subcontractor compliance problem is your desk, the week before they mobilise. Once they are on site, you own the gap.
12 min read