QBCC compliance checklist

If you hold a QBCC (Queensland Building and Construction Commission) licence, there are five things the QBCC can pull you up on at any time: your licence class, your financial position, your contracts, your home warranty insurance, and your safety paperwork. Here is what I keep in order, and why.

1. Licence class — are you doing work you are licensed for?

You need a QBCC licence to carry out or supervise building work valued over $3,300. That figure is the whole job — labour, materials and GST (Goods and Services Tax) — not just your labour. There are lower or zero thresholds for some trades. Hydraulic services design kicks in over $1,100, and plumbing, drainage and gas fitting need a licence at any value.

The bit that catches people is scope. A carpentry licence does not cover you to contract for a whole renovation. Read the scope of work on your licence and stick to it. If a job drifts outside your class, subcontract that part to someone licensed for it, or don't take it.

• Check your licence class against every quote before you send it.
• Check the licences of every subbie doing licensed work. Use the QBCC online licence search — takes 30 seconds.
• Renew on time. Working on an expired licence is unlicensed contracting.

2. Minimum financial requirements (MFR)

The QBCC sets a maximum revenue for your licence based on your net tangible assets (NTA). The categories are:

• SC1: NTA of $12,000, maximum revenue up to $200,000
• SC2: NTA of $46,000, maximum revenue up to $800,000
• Category 1: NTA $46,001 to $156,000, revenue $800,001 to $3 million
• Category 2: NTA $156,001 to $480,000, revenue $3,000,001 to $12 million
• Categories 3 to 7 run up from there, to over $240 million

Two rules bite small operators. First, you cannot increase your maximum revenue by more than 10% in a financial year without prior QBCC approval. If you have a big year, tell them before you exceed it. Second, if you need an MFR report, the financial information in it must be no more than four months old when your accountant signs it, and the report must be given to the QBCC within 30 days of signing.

Annual financial reporting is also mandatory for contractor licensees. Put the due date in your phone. Missing it has nothing to do with the quality of your work and can still cost you the licence.

3. Contracts

Domestic building work over $3,300 needs a written contract, signed and dated by both parties. The QBCC splits them into:

• Level 1: $3,301 to $19,999 for renovations, extensions and repairs on existing homes
• Level 2: $20,000 and over, and construction of an entire home

For contracts of $20,000 or more you must hand the owner a copy of the QBCC Consumer Building Guide before they sign. You must give the owner a signed copy of the contract within 5 business days of entering it, and a commencement notice within 10 business days of starting on site.

Under $3,300 a written contract is not legally required. Do one anyway. A one-page contract is cheaper than an argument about what "finish the deck" meant.

4. QBCC home warranty insurance

Under the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme you must take out insurance for residential construction work valued over $3,300 (materials, labour and GST included). That covers new homes, extensions, renovations, roofed outbuildings like garages and carports, kitchen and bathroom work, windows and doors, roof repairs, structural work and pools. The premium is built into your contract price and you pay it to the QBCC — the owner does not organise it.

It does not apply to commercial work, owner-builder work, unit buildings over three storeys above a car park, or accommodation like hotels, hostels and retirement villages.

Keep the insurance certificate with the contract file. If the QBCC audits you and the premium was paid late or not at all, expect a penalty.

5. WHS (Work Health and Safety) documents

The QBCC does not enforce the WHS Act 2011 (Qld) — that is WHSQ (Workplace Health and Safety Queensland). But they overlap in practice. A serious incident brings WHSQ, and a prosecution is the kind of thing the QBCC looks at when deciding whether you are fit to hold a licence. Sloppy safety and sloppy licensing show up together.

The minimum I keep on every job:

• SWMS (Safe Work Method Statements) for every piece of high risk construction work — falls over 2 metres, asbestos, trenches over 1.5 metres, structural demolition, and the rest of the 18 listed activities.
• A WHS management plan if the project costs $250,000 or more (that makes you the principal contractor under the Regulation).
• An induction register — white cards sighted, site induction done and signed.
• Incident report forms and a record of any notifiable incident kept for at least five years.

The checklist

• Licence class matches every job. Subbies' licences checked.
• Revenue tracked against your MFR maximum. Annual reporting date diarised.
• Written contract on everything over $3,300. Consumer Building Guide given on $20,000-plus jobs.
• Home warranty premium paid on residential work over $3,300, certificate filed.
• SWMS, induction register, incident forms and (where required) WHS management plan on site.

None of this is hard. It is boring, and boring is what gets skipped. Set it up once with the same templates every time and it stops being a job.

Get the documents — from $97

Sources

• QBCC — When you need a licence
• QBCC — Maximum revenue and financial categories
• QBCC — Domestic building contracts
• QBCC — What work requires home warranty insurance

General information only — not legal advice. Thresholds and rules change; check the QBCC and WHSQ websites or get professional advice for your own situation.